Too often though, leaders assume that regulation means suppressing or dismissing emotions, especially those deemed ‘negative’ like anger, jealousy, loneliness, or shame. Paying attention to what one truly feels is a powerful and under-utilized leadership skill. In reality, emotional regulation means recognizing, labeling and thoughtfully responding to the full spectrum of emotions, even unpleasant ones.
Because unpleasant emotions can be hard to experience, clients that we work with instead ask for ‘tools, tips, and tactics’ so they can sidestep ‘bad’ feelings. However, in order to truly address the complex challenges, it’s essential to delve beneath the surface: instead of just looking for information,explore the multiple layers of feelings. Here are three ways to do that:
Increase Emotional Literacy
People are good at separating positive from negative emotions, but less skilled at distinguishing negative emotions from one another. Too often, people default to the familiar: mad, sad, bad. Research, however, indicates that being able to accurately label our emotions–known as emotional literacy– (Is it mad or frustrated? Sad or disappointed? Bad or resentful?), leads to better navigation through stress, more skillful handling of conflict, and more positive interpersonal relationships – all key leadership skills.
Often we avoid clarifying our negative emotions out of fear it will amplify our unhappiness. The opposite is the case, however, according to research, which suggests that we’re less depressed when we accept our negative as well as our positive emotions. Too much focus on only positive feelings can lead to worse mental health. Excessive attention on being ‘cheery and optimistic’ often requires hyper-vigilance, demanding we regularly scan environments for potential issues, mentally exhausting ourselves to avoid negative outcomes.
To increase emotional literacy, we recommend our clients pause two to four times a day and locate their emotional state on a tool like the feelings wheel. Tools and practices like this help us pay attention to the subtle nuances of each emotion and enhance our emotional vocabulary.
Pause and accept before taking action
It’s uncomfortable to feel negative emotions like embarrassment, fury, or insecurity. Because of this discomfort, people’s reaction to negative emotions is to spring into action, often averting their attention from feeling their feelings to instead focusing on ‘fixing’ or ‘doing’ something: e.g., hitting reply to a text message, checking things off on a to-do list, responding immediately after being triggered in a meeting. While this is a common way for our nervous systems to reduce the tension of feeling bad, it’s unwise for leaders to succumb to it. Our first impulse when in a negative state is rarely the thoughtful one we would leverage after examining our feelings through a curious and compassionate lens.
