Emotion Management
The Short Version: Emotions play an important role in effective leadership. Part of that involves learning to manage our emotional responses. There are several evidence-based techniques that can help us manage our emotions more effectively in order to reach out goals!
“I love your outfit! Such a vibe.” -Kelsey
“Oh my gosh, thanks! This shirt really represents how I feel working in the hospitality industry.” -barista
It’s Thursday morning and my brain is not functioning as I have yet to consume my espresso tonic. So I don’t think twice telling the barista how much I love her outfit. (It is fab, isn’t it?!)
She tells me that her shirt represents how she feels working in the hospitality industry. I look across at her shirt a bit more closely than before and realize that it depicts the skeleton version of a woman’s face removing a doll-eyed mask.
For those who have worked in the hospitality industry, I’m sure you can relate to the idea of putting on a smile for customers and hiding that you actually feel you’ve been rolled out of your grave to make someone’s speciality coffee. But the feeling and that act is not exclusive to the hospitality industry! It’s also a key component of effective leadership.
The scientific literature refers to this act as “emotional labor” or the need to manage your emotions in order to achieve a goal. In hospitality, this is usually to make a sale, to keep customers happy, or to get that tip!
But leaders engage in emotional labor. They must similarly manage their own emotions, and the emotions of their followers, in order to achieve a goal.
Take, for instance, as discussed in Painted Wolves: A New Model of Leadership from Powerful Women, the regular emotion management that occurred from women who were leading their countries through COVID-19. During press conferences, leaders like Angela Merkel (former Chancellor of Germany) calmly and rationally explained the situation at hand and measures that needed to be taken to control the spread.
Imagine if she, instead, had stood up at her press conference and said “Y’ALL, THIS SH*T IS TERRIFYING.” (But in German of course) Although we don’t know what she was thinking, it’s likely that she felt some sense of fear or worry during this time. But that isn’t the emotion she communicated during her press conferences. She communicated a calm, collected response that likely helped others feel (at least a bit) calmer.
In contrast, leaders like (now former) Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern leveraged an emotional response to encourage the people of New Zealand to act in particular ways. Known for empathetic and compassionate responses to crisis, she used emotions to pull at people’s heart stings, emphasize the importance of the crisis, and initiate a collective response.
These two, among others, provide excellent examples of the emotional labor of leaders. Regardless of what they were feeling in that moment, they had a job to do. And they had to help their citizens respond effectively to a global crisis.
To do so, they would have had manage their own emotions!
What are ways you can manage your emotions as a leader? Science gives us a few techniques.
Let’s imagine for a minute that you’re the leader of a country and you’ve just found out about COVID. Or you’re the CEO of an airline whose had a plane crash. Or maybe you’re the manager at a coffeeshop and your most reliable barista just quit. Whatever your scenario, your reaction is probably the same - “Oh sh*t.”
But instead of panicking or giving into fear, we are going to manage emotions! According to the science on emotion regulation, we have 3 viable options:
Change the narrative (aka “it’s not a closed door, it’s a window to opportunity!”). You’ve probably heard this one before and maybe even tried it yourself. The goal with this first strategy is to reappraise or to change our view of what is happening. Rather than seeing a negative situation as such, we can focus on the positive things it might bring. I remember seeing this in action after an F5 tornado devastated a community in central Oklahoma.
Some of the residents of the area talked about how it brought out the community spirit and really showed how much support there was. As leaders, when we are overcome with emotion, we may need to shift our perspective in order to function. If we keep thinking “I’m so scared!”, we will likely have trouble thinking about how to actually address the situation. But instead, if we think, “right, how can I make this better?” and focus on the positive impact we can have, then we can mobilize.
*Of note with this particular strategy is that I am in no way condoning a “toxic positivity” mindset where you smile your way out of negative situations. Sometimes it can be helpful to do this momentarily (e.g., in a crisis where immediate action is needed) but it is important at some point to reocognize and process our emotions. That leads me to the second strategy:
Accept your emotions. If you have the luxury of time, pausing to recognize how you are feeling and processing why that is occurring can be super beneficial. I use the example in my book, Painted Wolves, of waking up in the middle of the night feeling anxious and the general existential dread that accompanies Millennials. As someone who has wrestled with anxiety most of her life (hi, hello, I’m a Millennial), I’m well versed in techniques for reducing it. So in that moment, I accepted that I was feeling anxious and then considered why I might have woken up at 3am feeling this way. I thought back to my day and that it was abnormally stressful and recalled falling asleep while reading the latest BBC article about the war in Ukraine. Is it really a surprise that I woke up feeling anxious? I was stressed during the day and I read a war-focused bedtime story! Recognizing that, I was able to attach my feelings of anxiety to a particular “thing.” In doing so, I validated my own emotions and was able to process why they were happening. (If you think I changed my behavior as a result, you’d be sorely mistaken. I still fall asleep reading the BBC.)
Distract yourself. Sometimes, we just need a good old fashion distraction. In a recent therapy session, I was telling my therapist about my increasing fear of flying. Given how much I travel, it’s quite ridiculous how scared I am. The last long-haul flight I took, the crew had to hold my hand and suggested “why don’t you just watch your Barbie movie, love and a have a glass of wine?”
Anyhow, to the point, my therapist suggested that by repeatedly telling myself, “the plane isn’t going to crash,” I was ruminating on the plane, and it (not) crashing. This was not helping because I was still focusing on the object that was causing me anxiety. She suggested finding a distraction like playing sudoku, reading an engaging book, having a conversation with my partner.
If you find yourself overwhelmed by an emotion, perhaps redirecting your attention for some time could be useful.
In a meta-analysis comparing the effectiveness of each of these regulation tactics, researchers found that changing the narrative seems to be the most beneficial for influencing our emotional response. Importantly, they found that engaging in perspective taking and re-evaluating the emotional stimulus (i.e., the thing that is causing the emotional reaction) was more effective than re-evaluating the emotion itself.
What does this mean for leaders?
The next time you find yourself in a difficult situation, pay attention to your emotional reaction as it is a signal about the situation itself. Then identify what it is that you are reacting to. Lastly, engage in some perspective taking and reappraise what it is that is causing the reaction.
For example, if you’re managing a coffee shop and your star barista tells you that they are leaving, you might feel upset about this. Recognize that and understand why - you will have a gap in the schedule, you’re losing a great talent, etc. If you were to engage in perspective taking, you might consider why that person has chosen to leave (e.g., new career opportunities) and consider the excitement that this might bring for them. And if you then reappraise the situation, you might think, “last time I had a gap, I hired this star. What kind of incredible talent can I hire this time?”
And remember, this process doesn’t invalidate your negative response. COVID sucked. Losing a star employee sucks. So when you can, give yourself some space to validate those feelings. And when it’s time to get down to business, change the narrative!