Dealing with our Emotional Self

You may have heard of authentic leadership, the concept of being genuine and connecting with your employees, team or staff with your heart. It is about being transparent, painting a clear vision and connecting with those you lead. In this matter, you can accomplish great results. As women, we can use emotions and empathy to make great authentic leaders but being emotional creatures can also be devastating to our careers. Being authentic isn’t about being weak or weeping in front of our team. It is about making the right emotional empathetic connections at the right time.

So how do we control our emotional selves?  After all, we are driven by hormones that are sometimes hard to tame. Here are the ways I channel my roller coaster of emotions to avoid making regrettable missteps in my connections.

• First, I am clear on what kind of leader I want to be. I choose to be genuine, caring and lead by example. When I see my team struggling on a project, I want to be empathetic.  Before placing blame anywhere else, I first ask myself, "did I explain clearly my expectations or objective?" I look always at ways I can improve the way I connect and lead.
• Second, I know the kind of leader I don’t want to be. I don’t want to jump to conclusions or be influenced by others without having all the facts. I don’t want to react immediately and allow my actions to be driven by anger or negativity. This is not always easy to accomplish when we open an email that is ill intended and confrontational. It is equally as hard when we are in the middle of a disaccord with an emotional individual that is not rational or is saying hurtful things. As leaders, we must be clear that we have a thankless job. It is not common for people to stop and admire the work we do, as it is to hear what we are not doing right, or how they can do it better.

Dealing with written communication: When faced with these emotions through written communication, I take a step back. I walk away from my computer and immediately redirect my focus on something completely opposite. I take a walk -- it is scientifically proven that activity and exercise have a positive influence on our emotions. I rationalize the situation. I pretend that I am an outsider evaluating the issue. It makes me disconnect emotionally from the situation and bring logic to my response. If I am truly upset and distraught, I will avoid speaking with anyone to not inadvertently react to someone else or fail to stay positive. If I choose to respond to the email, I will save it as a draft and then read it again when I am at a calmer state. In most cases, I will choose to respond in person or by phone.

Dealing face to face with anger: If dealing in person with a confrontational situation, I will purposely change my body language. I will lean in to create a more attentive stance. I will be more thoughtful in listening to make sure that I can create harmony. I will purposely lower my voice to do the opposite of the aggressor. In the mirror image, many times we imitate the negative angry emotion and it becomes a battle; therefore, I am conscious of my response. I will then redirect my conversation with something obvious like “it is clear to me that this is very upsetting to you” or “I can clearly see how upset this situation has gotten you” or “I can clearly see that I have somehow upset you”. By stating the obvious, you bring an important element of awareness to the conversation and the person often finds themselves stopping to think about the comment. This provides an opportunity to redirect the emotion to either “let’s consider this” or “let me review this” or “give me a chance to think through a solution that will benefit both of us”. In the interim, I am speaking to my emotional self, keeping “me” in check to stay focused to look at this as an outsider and bring calmness to my mind.

Always remember to ask yourself, “will this matter in 5 minutes, 5 days or 5 years?”  Most problems we face seem like huge issues but in the big picture of life, they are insignificant.

-Bellaria Jimenez