There was a time when emotional outbursts at work were rare, but research shows that people are having more frequent emotional episodes, with one in four experiencing strong anger, sadness or frustration on any given workday. Unfortunately, studies show that our ability to cope with others’ emotions is declining. The result is that we’re trying to dig out from a bigger avalanche with a smaller shovel.
What’s behind this trend? The sources of growing emotional dysregulation are diverse. There’s the impact of the news and social media algorithms rewarding increasingly inflammatory content, the dread associated with existential threats posed by climate change or AI and the stress of parenting the most socially anxious generation of children ever. All that, plus the standard performance pressure in any organization.
To make matters worse, emotions aren’t neatly contained within one individual. Teams are susceptible to emotional contagion, in which one person’s emotions unconsciously spread to others, even in virtual meetings. That means one person’s bad morning is one team meeting away from spreading doom and gloom across the whole group.
Process emotions
Before you conclude that you need to eliminate emotions from your team, remember that emotions are part of the human operating system (they’re also preconscious and not optional). Emotions contain valuable data about how individuals experience the world. You don’t want to invalidate or otherwise suppress those emotions, or they’re likely to surface elsewhere in a more destructive form.
When you sense an emotional reaction from a colleague or direct report, get curious. Ask open questions to encourage the person to express their experience, such as “How is this landing with you?” or “What risks are we ignoring?” Emotions are full of data.
Interrupt feelings
As you listen, you’ll start to notice that some of what they’re sharing are facts, while other elements are assumptions, fantasies, or worst-case scenarios. They’re no longer describing their emotions; now they’re into the conscious, cognitive narratives (i.e., the feelings) that they’re using to rationalize what they’re experiencing in their bodies. Feelings are full of drama.
If you want to benefit from emotional data without the costs of feelings and drama, you can help the person process what they’re experiencing. As they share what they’re thinking and feeling, imagine yourself listening beneath the facts and information, through the emotions and down to what they value. It’s there you’ll start to uncover what is triggering the reaction. You’ll find that it’s a perceived threat to something important to them. It could be that the new process or system is interrupting their sense of control or competence, or that they’re feeling left out of a project.
Once you have a sense of the threat they’re feeling, you can help them question whether it’s real, reframe their narrative in a more constructive way and choose one action that will make things meaningfully better. This sequence of transitioning from feelings to thoughts and, ultimately, to action will help them process the emotion and move beyond it.
One caveat. Resist the urge to try to solve the problem for them. Until they process their emotions, your “It’ll be fine” or “Just do this” will serve more to invalidate their experience, shake their confidence and make them uncomfortable being candid with you. Unfortunately, they have to do the work.
Prevent emotional contagion
In some cases, an individual’s emotional state will spread to other team members before they’ve had a chance to process it. In the case of positive emotions, like enthusiasm, pride or joy, that’s a good thing. But when the emotion that’s spreading is negative, it can deflate your team in a matter of moments.
To reduce the spread of negative emotions within the team, follow these steps.
- Stay vigilant for signs of negative moods such as anger, frustration and despondence
- When you spot them, intentionally adopt body language that contrasts with the negative mood (e.g., open your body and smile). Recent research shows that expressive leaders can spread positive emotions to their team members.
- Acknowledge what you’re seeing and ask a question to draw the person out. (e.g., “How are you thinking about this?” Or “What are we missing in this discussion?”)
- Model curiosity and cognitive flexibility so that other team members remain intellectually engaged with the issue without taking on the emotional burden.
- Encourage the person to choose an action to improve the situation, and agree on the timelines for completing it.
- Resync the team to a more positive emotional resonance by taking a break, introducing a more upbeat topic, or highlighting the team’s strength in dealing with difficult issues.
It’s important to note that the more in touch with your own emotions you are, the less susceptible you’ll be to your team’s emotional state, and the better able you’ll be to help them.
As the emotional burdens of life and work mount, learning to process emotional data before it devolves into drama or spreads to other team members is a critical skill for leaders. The key is to interrupt the flow of emotions into feelings and introduce more constructive narratives that support action rather than perpetuating anxiety.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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