Emotions in Business
If you, like me, are a deeply passionate, feeling person with no problem speaking your mind, you likely received professional coaching early in your career to "stop being emotional" or "you're too emotional" or "you're taking this personally", sometimes because your emotions made your leader (or others) uncomfortable because THEY were taught that emotions did not belong in the workplace.
I believe that most of us have realized over the last almost two grinding years of the pandemic that emotions DO matter in business and we are slowly becoming more aware that we are lacking in ways to productively accept and deal with them. A lot of my coaching for sponsors of transformational change initiatives includes how to deal with their own and their employee’s emotional reactions to change.
If you are spearheading or support a transformational change at your company, allow me to offer three tips to help:
Acknowledge and accept that individuals will react to change emotionally (think of the last time you thought something was “no big deal” and were surprised by the emotional reaction). Though you have no control over their reactions/emotions, you can control how you react to their reactions. Listen for the fear beneath their reactions, give them sufficient time and resources to sort through their emotions, and provide them ways to contribute to the new future positively.
If you are uncomfortable with emotion or don’t understand it, don’t pretend like you do. It’s perfectly acceptable to acknowledge your discomfort and partner with someone who excels at recognizing and explaining emotion. Ask that person to help you monitor your own actions in dealing with your employees so that you are providing the support that they need.
If you yourself are having difficulty accepting the change and are experiencing strong emotion that could become a barrier to employee adoption of the change, acknowledge this as well and partner, again, with someone who can coach you through your emotions so that you can provide the best possible support for your employees.
Now that business is becoming more intelligent about how emotions (positive or negative) can impact workplace productivity and employee engagement, my hope is that corporate cultures will allow leaders the opportunity to become more vulnerable and get the support that they sometimes need when faced with difficult change. And, in our ideal world, we can all express our emotions and let them add positively to the work part of our lives.
