Leaders: Stop Hiding Your Emotions

We are complicated, and it is time to stop pretending we’re not

For most organizations, it is obvious which emotions are acceptable, appropriate, and tolerated. The unwritten and unspoken rules about which feelings are okay to demonstrate typically include happiness, passion, and enthusiasm, while emotions like sadness, fear, or frustration are frowned upon.
 

Most of us have been taught, at times, to essentially wear an emotional straitjacket at work. We tend to park our emotions outside of the office since we don’t feel it’s safe to admit we are humans who have feelings. So we put on corporate personas and masks and hide a huge part of who we are from others.

Hiding “Taboo” Emotions

Right now, within many corporations, workers who are subconsciously encouraged to keep taboo emotions under wraps are likely smiling at their desks, but crying in the bathroom, behind closed doors. This leads to overvaluing our positive emotions and undervaluing our negative ones. But we need to experience both positive and negative emotions in healthy, sustainable ways as they each provide valuable information about ourselves and teach us crucial life lessons.

When our feelings do get the best of us and take over, we have been conditioned to want to appear tough or unflappable; a “never let them see you sweat” kind of attitude takes hold of us. We habitually don’t want people to witness us as hurt, sad, or afraid. We fear that if we are seen expressing those emotions, we will be perceived as weak.

Alternatively, if we appear too elated, excited, or enthusiastic, our colleagues might think we are trying too hard and working to outshine them. Others may see us as eager beavers. Even though we may just be determined go-getters, our over-exuberance could have diminishing returns or start to work against us in the workplace.

Emotions and Leadership

A large part of the reluctance for people to express these so-called banned emotions stems from leaders, who subscribe to the outdated universal notion that a leader must be stoic and unhindered. Essentially, this creates a workplace culture in which people are afraid to ask for help, cannot make decisions for fear of being wrong, and shove workplace conflicts under the rug to fester.

Many leaders do not know how to address feelings connected with work challenges and changes. They are too scared to deal with the emotions associated with them in the workplace. Yet not dealing with emotions—not condoning employees to be human at work—hurts us, our people, and our organizations. Worse, it holds us back from creating remarkable cultures and achieving incredible results. Unfortunately, the gaps in leadership that allow such longstanding attitudes to take hold are all too common.

Why are we so afraid of emotions when we know how much not tending to them hurts and limits us, our teams, and our organizations? We are afraid of the consequences.

We are frightened that by sharing our feelings, we will be perceived as weak. We are nervous that if we share our emotions, they could be used against us. We fear conflict, rejection, and resentment. And what if tending to our emotions at work makes things even worse? What if our disclosure has a ripple effect and impacts our future? These fears, and others like them, stop us in our tracks and keep us silent.

Fearing The Consequences

We are afraid of the consequences because we do not know how to tend to our emotions in the workplace—or anywhere, frankly—in a manner that achieves the results we desire. For instance, we might be upset with a situation at work, but don’t have the tools to express our anger truthfully and constructively and fear that in expressing our emotions about the situation, we will act out in a way that can harm ourselves and alienate others. That aftermath is scary, so we don't share or deal with emotions in the workplace because we do not have the tools (and the confidence to use them) to effect the change we want.

To no longer fear the consequences, we need to debunk the myth that emotions are bad and that expressing our feelings makes us weak. Emotions are real, and just like the classic Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, they can be good, bad, or ugly. Similar to the characters of that film, nobody is perfect. We are complicated, and it is time to stop pretending we’re not.

As leaders, we must adapt ourselves and our workplaces to better accept, nurture, and explore feelings. If we do not know the importance of connecting, empathizing, and relating at an emotional level with our people, or how to bring out the best in each of our workers, our organization will underperform and lose excellent employees and have workplace politics, disengagement, low productivity, and burnout. We must learn the emotional skills needed to survive and thrive in this human-filled corporate world.  

Author Bio

Carolyn Stern is the author of The Emotionally Strong Leader and the President and CEO of EI Experience, an executive leadership development and emotional intelligence training firm. She is a certified Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Development Expert, professional speaker, and university professor, whose emotional intelligence courses and modules have been adopted by top universities in North America. Visit https://carolynstern.com/book Connect Carolyn Stern