Emotional Intelligence Archives - Page 2 of 9

How to Motivate Gen Z with Emotional Intelligence

by Carolyn Stern | Feb 5, 2021 | Emotional Intelligence, Motivation

Cultivating motivation amongst Generation Z poses significant challenges for leaders today. On top of the tribulations of the past year, Gen Zers struggle with stress tolerance, problem-solving and independence.

With Gen Zers forecasted to account for almost 20% of global labour force by 2025, leaders are scrambling to close the generational gap within their organizations. However, leaders cannot just look through their own generational lens to cultivate a culture of motivation for the Gen Z workforce.

Instead, leaders need to recognize that different generations come with different perspectives, and more importantly, different internal motivations. Learning to navigate and understand the different motivational factors of Gen Z is vital to leveraging their unique talents and strengths.

As Bob Nelson said, “You get the best efforts from others not by lighting a fire beneath them but by lighting a fire within.” Leaders need to leverage the Gen Z workforce in different ways than they are used to.

Although this is new turf for all generations, there is a single concept that leaders can ground their motivational practices in – emotional intelligence.

How to Motivate Gen Z with Emotional Intelligence

Stellar leaders recognize the importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace. By instilling emotional intelligence into an organization’s leadership practice, the organization is able to build a bridge between the different generations, creating a foundation of understanding for everyone’s differences.

The good news is that emotional intelligence can be learned and continuously developed. While there are many ways to introduce emotional intelligence into your workplace, we have listed the 5 most effective ways to motivate Gen Zers, beginning with 5 essential EQ competencies.

Emotional Self Awareness: Create Meaning & Purpose

In order to foster meaning and purpose in the workplace, leaders must understand that most Gen Zers feel restless and confused when entering the workforce. Many Gen Zers have been taught to follow their passions, which leads them to look for purpose in each job they land.

If leaders fail to create a sense of meaning and purpose in their organization, Gen Zers will treat their position more as a stepping stone to their next career journey, bringing a high risk of turnover. But, how do leaders help their Gen Z employees even realize their unique motivations? The answer is instilling a culture of emotional self-awareness.

Emotional self-awareness results from truly looking within, and identifying not just what motivation looks like, but how it feels. When leaders allow time for open, honest conversation with their Gen Z employees, that is when meaning and purpose comes to light. Leaders should ask their employees about what inspires them; in return, the employees will feel heard, while the leader gains a clearer picture on how to challenge and inspire them.

Interpersonal Relationships: Create Trust & Connection

Allowing time to foster a meaningful connection between Gen Z employees is essential. Having a successful interpersonal relationship means building trust and connection. When leaders collaborate with Gen Z employees on a deeper level, they are more likely to open up about their truest motivations in the workplace.

Some ways to build these relationships include: creating a mentoring environment, allowing time for collaboration, and frequent one-on-one check-ins. How to Mentor in the Workplace outlines the importance of creating a two-way street mentorship.

By involving them in mentorship, team collaboration, and one-on-one conversations, it creates a space to focus on their individual needs, which will help motivate them to achieve their goals.

Gen Zers thrive in an organization that fosters a coaching leadership style where they can be a part of the change through actively voicing their opinions and receiving feedback. Therefore, it is critical to tap into your interpersonal skills and understand what motivates and ignites the passion of your Gen Z employees.

Self-Actualization: Instill a Long Term Vision

The Gen Zers are motivated by stability and enjoyable work. When a Gen Z feels that their current position is not sustainable for their lifestyle and/or fails to fulfill their passion, it probably won’t be a long term commitment in their eyes.

Self actualization is all about following meaningful objectives that bring joy to life. With stability and enjoyable work being the two main workplace objectives Gen Zers are looking for, leaders can have a better picture of what sort of salary and company initiatives need to be in place to satisfy the needs of the emerging workforce.

One in four of Gen Zers expect managers to clearly define the goals and expectations of the company to ensure a proper trajectory to promotion is set within the first month of employment. By outlining a vision for Gen Z employees, leaders motivate Gen Z to feel involved in the growth of the company and provide a clear direction of how they can move up.

It is crucial that organizations offer a fair salary with clear and authentic strategic objectives for how to grow within the company to further engage and motivate Gen Zers.

Social Responsibility: Make Giving Back a Priority

Not only are Gen Zers trying to fulfill their own unique ambition, they also want to contribute to a good cause in the process. The Gen Z cohort is more socially and politically progressive than other generations; they expect organizations to support their social responsibility efforts, whether it be contributing to their community or freely speaking about their beliefs.

It is vital that leaders allow time and space for Gen Zers to take part in community involvement. Whether it be paid volunteer leave, allowing a day off to vote, or even having a company wide cause that they can contribute to, this will fuel motivation for Gen Zers.

Flexibility: Allow Time for Innovation

While research shows that Gen Z may struggle with problem solving (thanks to Google) in comparison to other generations, leaders need to adapt to this learning curve by finding a solution aligned with Gen Z’s core values. For instance, Gen Zers value autonomy and innovation; they are going to storm into the workforce with fresh, different ideas to tackle every challenge.

Flexibility is adapting to unfamiliar circumstances and ideas, which will be frustrating for other generations. However, this is a strength of Gen Zers; leaders need to allow Gen Zers to take the reins on building new, innovative strategic angles. To support this, leaders can actively listen to what Gen Zers have to say, and look at their creative solutions with an open mind, instead of instantly shooting them down. A new phenomenon known as reverse mentoring can be helpful in bridging generational frustrations, and create a safe space to leverage each other’s strengths.

The Bottom Line: Generation Z is Coming

As Generation Z enters the workforce, organizations have two choices: adapt or suffer the losses. The fact is, Gen Zers are coming in either way, and ignoring the new generational factors will take a hit to your bottom-line.

If leaders can focus on the incoming generation and pinpoint their emotional makeup, they will spend 2021 retaining, engaging, and motivating their new young team members rather than suffering the losses of turnover, disengagement, and lack of productivity.

Are you ready to take the next step as a leader to prepare and get ready for Generation Z?

We have multiple resources that can aid you in the process. Be sure to check out our Leading a Multigenerational Workforce Workshop, available in both live and virtual delivery. The workshop covers effective strategies on how to foster a culture of inclusion in the workplace and creating an action plan to implement these strategies. You can also check out our blog, Bridging the Gap Using Emotional Intelligence for more ideas on how to lead a multigenerational workforce!

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, to keep up with more of our blogs!

Emotional Intelligence Interview Questions

Are you tired of having to constantly recruit fresh new talent? We spend significant resources of time and money in creating emotional intelligence interview questions for leaders because we all know that people can make or break our business. Are you sure you are...

Identifying and Overcoming Your Growth Barriers

The Importance of Identifying Barriers Barriers represent the real-life issues that get in the way of our success. The fascinating thing about barriers, however, is that though they may appear overwhelming, they serve a purpose — they help us uncover the root cause of...

Setting Realistic Business Boundaries for 2021

The past year has undeniably changed the way we work. Returning to the office full time has been put on hold, and remote work has taken over. With remote work as our “new normal”, the issue of maintaining work-life balance has come to light. The truth is, boundaries...

Factors that Influence Team Engagement

Has your team engagement dropped over the past year? Since team engagement is directly correlated to employee engagement, we looked closer into employee engagement over the past year.

Improve Your Well-Being with Self Management and Emotional Intelligence

Regardless if you are the CEO of a company or a super successful entrepreneur, there is always room for personal and professional development. Oftentimes we get so caught up in our job, friends, and family that we forget to take care of ourselves. When is the last...

How to Cultivate Emotional Wellbeing at Work

by Carolyn Stern | Jan 22, 2021 | Corporate Culture, Wellness, Work Environment

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, workplaces have shifted to a new normal. Most workplaces made the move to remote work, requiring their employees to change gears and work from home. Furthermore, due to the economic damage caused by the pandemic, many have lost their jobs and face uncertainty about their futures.

As a result, mental health concerns have now skyrocketed to an all-time high. A study conducted by NIHCM Foundation reported that the symptoms of anxiety and depression felt in the workplace have tripled and quadrupled from last year. More than 51% of respondents also reported that their mental health has worsened since the pandemic began.

While we collectively navigate through the storm, it is crucial that workplaces acknowledge the mental health crisis. Despite the uncertainty, employers need to invest in their most important asset – their human capital and prioritize their emotional wellbeing. Now more than ever, it is critical that teams unite together and show that they truly care for each other.

The Importance of Emotional Wellbeing

Many often overlook emotional wellbeing and face the consequences without knowing. These consequences include decreased motivation, diminished productivity, low team morale, high stress, and poor work/life balance.

Leaving emotional wellbeing unmanaged can result in further mental health concerns, such as burnout. Burnout is an occupational phenomenon, defined as fatigue from chronic workplace stress that has been left unmanaged. In addition, employee burnout can lead to more issues in the workplace. In Emotional Wellbeing: Solution to Burnout & Turnover, we discuss how turnover and burnout are correlated; if employees are feeling burnt out, they may try to encourage a team member to leave the company with them.

How to Cultivate Emotional Wellbeing at Work

Prioritizing emotional wellbeing will set employees up for success. In these times of uncertainty, it is crucial to think positively and encourage ourselves to be in the right mindset – that we can control our emotions and will overcome our challenges. If we do not take care of our emotional wellbeing, this can snowball into bigger issues, affecting both our personal and professional lives.

Workplaces need to emphasize the importance of emotional wellbeing. It is never too late to begin; employers just need to take the first step; tuning into their emotional intelligence. Below, we have compiled a list of emotional intelligent strategies to begin cultivating emotional wellbeing in the workplace!

Open Up the Conversation

Leaders need to express to their team members that mental health needs to be prioritized, and that it is okay to not be okay. The negative stigma of mental health needs to be minimized; one of the best ways to do so is to lead by example. In Top Three Reasons Why People Don’t Show Emotions at Work, employees may refrain from showing emotions at work because they believe that their emotions are invalid.

Leaders can begin encouraging discussions about emotional wellbeing by incorporating it into their daily work routines. It can be as simple as starting off each meeting with a one word check-in, or sharing a mental health resource via email to help prioritize emotional wellbeing. Leaders need to tear down their walls and allow vulnerability in; sharing both their accomplishments and challenges will encourage team members to do the same.

Once team members begin to express their emotions, leaders need to make sure to actively listen and offer support wherever possible. For example, if a team member is struggling to meet a project deadline and it is impacting their work, offer help by adding flexibility to their deadline or delegate an additional team member to help lessen the workload.

Team Goal Setting

In order to keep the team accountable, set goals collectively as a team. Have a meeting and break the goal down. Brainstorm actionable steps on what team members can do individually to achieve the goal, and what efforts will be done collectively as a team. Keep a record of the goals so that the team is able to track and measure their progress.

For example, let’s say the team goal is to exercise more. Not only can exercise build mental strength and improve emotional wellbeing, but it also gives employees a break from sitting and working in their desk all day. Individually, team members can incorporate at least 15 minutes of mild exercise into their workday. This does not have to be intensive exercise, but can be as simple as stretching or going for a walk around the block. Collectively, the team can conduct a monthly team exercise activity, such as a virtual group yoga session at the end of each month. Keep each other motivated by asking for updates and encouraging each other to track their progress; you can even make a tracker document to keep everyone accountable. Another idea to encourage accountability is to include an incentive; for instance, the company will host a virtual lunch if everyone meets their goal.

Setting emotional wellbeing goals as a team not only keeps everyone accountable, but will keep team members motivated while simultaneously building a meaningful and caring culture.

Team Socials

With the shift to remote work, team members may be feeling disconnected from each other. With quarantine and social distancing rules in place, employees may be feeling alone and isolated. To help cope with this, employers can host team socials to deepen the team’s bond and make time for socializing.

As the team is no longer gathering in the office, the art of in-person interactions has faded. The feeling of isolation is more prominent as employees are now alone in their office, with the boundaries between work/life balance blurred. By hosting team socials, this can lessen the workplace stress, designate time for social interaction, and overall, cultivate a culture of connection. These socials do not have to be extravagant activities, they can even be as simple as setting time to unwind and update each other on their personal lives.

Emotional Wellbeing Begins with Emotional Intelligence

While these are a few ways to cultivate emotional wellbeing at work, we encourage you to think outside the box and share your ideas on how to cultivate emotional wellbeing with us. Tuning into your emotional intelligence is the first step of managing emotional wellbeing; this ranges from becoming aware of your emotions to strengthening your interpersonal relationships. Know that cultivating emotional wellbeing is not something that occurs overnight, but is an ongoing journey that takes time. Do not be afraid to reach out and ask for help; remember, you are never alone!

We acknowledge that the support for managing emotional wellbeing and burnout may be beyond our EQ prevention tactics and encourage you to seek out professional help if needed. If you reside in Canada, here is a list of mental health resources you can reach out to. If you reside in the United States, here is a list of mental health resources you can reach out to.

For more information on how your emotional intelligence competencies can help with managing your emotional wellbeing, check out our blog post, Battling Burnout with Emotional Intelligence. Alternatively, if you are interested in a team activity that can cultivate emotional wellbeing while physically apart, check out our Virtual EQ Retreats, which are tailored to enhance team relationships through identifying individual strengths and areas of improvement.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, to keep up with more of our blogs!

Emotional Wellbeing: Solution to Burnout and Turnover

by Carolyn Stern | Jan 8, 2021 | Management Skills, Wellness

The workforce is experiencing a feeling of fatigue. In December, Morneau Shepell released the monthly mental health index, which shows that for the past eight months, the emotional well-being of Canadians is continuing to fall.

There was a brief chance for everyone to recharge over the holidays; however, it doesn’t excuse employers and team leaders from their duty to focus on enhancing their organization’s well-being.

Even though it is a new year, people are still experiencing the same fatigue, frustration, and mental health struggles from 2020. The most prominent step leaders can take into taming the despair 2020 has brought on – is to care about their employees’ emotional well-being.

Burnout and Turnover

Burnout has a direct correlation to turnover. According to the 2020 Employee Care Report, 1 in 3 employees have left a job because they didn’t feel their employer cared about them as a person. The report also outlines that 58% of employees have encountered a colleague attempting to encourage a colleague to leave with them! So not only is burnout a global crisis, but it is also a turnover problem.

The most significant cause of burnout and turnover continues to be the lack of care and compassion in the workplace. Considering the mental toll most people have endured in the past year, employers need to re-focus their attention on their team’s well-being. A new survey has found that many Canadians are thinking about making significant career changes in 2021, as they continue to battle with their emotions while employers continue to ignore them.

With only 31% of employees feeling that their employers genuinely care about them, burnout will continue to hinder employees’ well-being. People will not only leave their jobs in 2021 but will take their friends with them.

It Starts with the Leadership Team

Leaders feel the pressure to manage their teams more effectively, especially as they have been thrown into a new, virtual work environment, forcing themselves to create new workplace norms. Although getting processes in-line for the new year is essential, it may be time to put aside your spreadsheets and ask your team how they feel.

Most of the world was forced to endure a COVID-adapted holiday, where travelling and visiting friends and family were off the table. Likely, teams may not start on a positive and eager note to get back on top of their day-to-day duties and deal with the workplace challenges 2021 will bring. To understand the team’s emotional well-being, leaders need to take the first step and show their team members that they genuinely care.

If employers fail to come from a place of compassion, their relationship with their team will continue to deteriorate. Below are some simple, emotionally intelligent tactics that leaders can use to understand their teams’ state better.

Put Yourself in Your Team’s Shoes

Motivating Your Team With Empathy emphasizes that it’s time for leaders to put themselves in their team’s shoes. It was not the usual holiday situation for your employees. Likely, they were unable to connect with their families and are feeling down in the COVID dumps.

To start the year right and avoid continuing the burnout cycle, why not start the year off with one-on-one check-ins. Ask your employees individually how they are feeling and what they need to be successful this month. Instead of delegating all the work missed over the holiday season, start showing that you care by putting your team members’ feelings and needs first. As a result, a sense of connection and trust between employers and team members will be built.

Be Flexible

With the transition to remote work, companies are experimenting with virtual teams and rotating people back to come back to work and space out their office workspaces. Employers need to ask each member of their team what is their comfort level with both remote and in-office work.

With everyone in different situations, it is essential to have conversations with individuals on how they work best and how their leaders can support them moving forward. If employers support their teams with flexibility, it creates a foundation of trust and respect, which will keep employees working hard for the organization.

Encourage Assertive Conversation

Assertiveness comes from a place of building confidence in employees to speak their minds and voice their concerns. Leaders need to allow employees to communicate to them about their work boundaries going into 2021.

Creating and setting boundaries can be difficult, especially during a whirl-wind of a global pandemic, so encourage your team to reflect on what they can and cannot handle. Create a safe space for employees to discuss boundaries and have an empathetic response ready when they open up about their needs.

The Solution to Burnout and Turnover

Employers know that turnover is never easy. However, they need to look behind the reasons for turnover and burnout and actively try to improve their employees’ emotional well-being. It is evident that burnout and turnover come hand-in-hand and that the impact can be detrimental to organizational success. Although there are specific tactics such as instilling empathy, flexibility, and assertiveness into the culture, there is one overarching leadership skill all managers need to practice – leading with emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence can lead to higher employee engagement levels, retention and job satisfaction, which all help protect organizations against burnout and mass turnover. Addressing employees’ emotional well-being and giving them a voice to share their greatest fears and concerns in 2021 allows employers to foster better relationships with their teams. Strengthen Your Culture With EQ also outlines the benefits of a culture of compassion – increased productivity, stability, employee satisfaction, improved communication, and employee morale. All steps in the direction of limiting turnover!

Starting 2021 off with an emotional intelligence approach will help identify burnout problems at the beginning of the year and allow the team to collaborate on the best way to build mental resilience into the organization’s repertoire. The core of practicing EI in the workplace is genuinely caring about employee’s feelings and creating a safe space to let emotions be constructively expressed so that burnout is actively managed rather than reacted to when it’s too late.

The bottom line is that leaders can go into 2021 better prepared to handle the factors of burnout and turnover by fostering emotionally intelligent conversations and coming into the year with a sense of compassion for how their team is feeling.

If interested in learning more about utilizing Emotional Intelligence as the superpower for 2021, check out either of these workshops, Leading Remote Teams with Emotional Intelligence or Leading High Performing Teams. Also, check out our Virtual EQ Retreat, specifically designed to assess and develop a team’s emotional intelligence through a remote learning platform!

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, to keep up with more of our blogs!

Emotional Expression Leads to a Happier Workplace

by Carolyn Stern | Dec 18, 2020 | Emotional Intelligence, Work Environment

It isn’t easy, at times, to find the right words for how you are feeling. And it is almost impossible to differentiate what causes certain emotions. What causes someone to be angry versus disappointed? Sometimes the granularity of the difference between the two feelings is so minuscule that you might not know it yourself.

You may feel disappointed, but you express it as anger. Unfortunately, we, as a society, judge the behaviour and then attribute emotion to that behaviour. Rather than truly understanding what the feeling is first. For instance, disappointment is caused by unmet expectations. Anger, on the other hand, is caused when there is an injustice or unfairness.

Just like everyone had to practice their ABC’s in school, it is essential to develop an emotional vocabulary to help in both recognizing, understanding and expressing emotions, especially in the workplace.

The roller coaster of emotions people feel with the pandemic is now a call to action for better emotional expression, communication, and empathy. With the combination of pandemic fatigue and isolation, people are handling their stress in different ways, which can be confusing to understand without the right emotional intelligence tools.

Emotional Expression

Charles Darwin defined emotional expression as an internal state that feels and, therefore, expresses itself. Thus, the first step to emotional expression is diving deep into how something is making you feel.

However, some emotions are challenging to pinpoint, which makes them difficult to express. When someone feels frustrated, it could come across as envy, disappointment or sadness if not represented accurately. A key aspect of practical, emotional expression is understanding the “why” of the emotion before we communicate. Why are we feeling this way? What caused this emotional reaction?

Emotional expression can also be non-verbal. As tempting as it is to want to roll our eyes when someone says something that bothers us, it is crucial to evaluate the impact our non-verbal cues can have on someone. If you were to silence your voice, what would your body language be telling us?

Most importantly, to understand how to express emotions, people need to be aware of others’ feelings. Identifying other people’s feelings allows them to be more empathetic friends, colleagues, and leaders. Emotional expression can lead to a happier, healthier, more engaged workplace, which people are craving more than ever.

The Mental Health Impact

The pandemic and people’s mental well-being are ample reasons to start building a more emotionally expressive culture. The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) conducted a study that revealed 70 percent of people in Ontario felt a severe mental-health crisis was looming.

The cold hard truth is, people were struck financially by COVID-19, and they are starting to run out of their emergency funds for their mental wellness budget. Beyond financials, people are generally limited to the amount of stress-relieving activities available. Going to the gym or a hug from a friend is not something we can do in the latter part of 2020.

Without the usual mental wellness outlets, people must rely solely on themselves to effectively manage and express their emotions. Learning to communicate when you need support during these unprecedented times is vital in your mental well-being, especially in the workplace.

Express Don’t Suppress

Everyone keeps saying the “we are in this together,” which is a cliche that people are sick of hearing. It is also just completely untrue. People were all hit by the pandemic differently, depending on their home-life circumstances, job position, financial status, and health conditions. The emotionally intelligent way to express the “we are in this together” statement is instead to say, “we are all weathering a different storm, and HOW can we ask for help to get through it.” If we do not learn how to express emotions effectively, we will repress our feelings, and we will never get the help we need.

Below are some strategies to help people better express their emotions.

Learn the Emotional Lingo

There are many emotional intelligence tips to teach you how to express your feelings in the workplace constructively. There are various mood meter applications, emoticons, or emotion posters to deepen your emotional vocabulary. Understanding the different names and intensity levels for emotions can help people better understand and constructively express their feelings. Building a dynamic lexicon gives people power over their own emotions and allows them to communicate clearly and effectively without letting emotions get the best of them.

Check Yourself

Once people understand the variety of emotions, it is necessary to practice sharing them: leaders need to curate regular, emotional check-ins. These check-ins allow space for people to express feelings appropriately. At the beginning of the meeting, ask each person for a one-word feeling. This technique can help make it less intimidating for people to express themselves at work.

Encourage Kind Emotions

Avoid escape coping and acknowledge the changes happening. Problems that are put under the rug develop a deep level of distrust and uncertainty within the organization. Active coping allows organizations to take on the problem head-on and keep employees in the action plan. When employees know their role in the change, they are more inclined to offer help, work harder, and take on more responsibility.

Transparent Leadership

The emotional expression of a leader will set a precedent for the team. Being emotionally expressive as a leader is essential in encouraging constructive communication and inspiring others to exceed their goals. However, that doesn’t mean leaders should hide their negative emotions. Leaders have to be honest with themselves and show transparency and vulnerability to create a culture of emotional acceptance.

Emotional Expression is the Key to a Happier Workplace

We have been on an emotional roller coaster ride during the past nine months – with emotions have been all over the place. Building a workplace culture that allows for constructive emotional expression creates a safe space to learn and understand how other people feel in the workplace.

With the emotional and financial instability of COVID-19, the last thing people want to do is suppress what they are feeling – which can indefinitely hinder their mental wellness, as shown in the results from the CMHA survey.

Top 3 Reasons People Don’t Show Emotions at Work proves that bringing emotions to work can create a happier, healthier work environment, and hiding feelings can lead to higher stress levels, health problems, and poor communication. Executive leaders are the drivers of culture. When they learn to use emotive language when expressing their ideas and thoughts, it will contribute to higher productivity, increased job satisfaction and improved team performance.

Bringing humanity and emotional expression into the workplace may be the difference between success and failure for you and your business. If you are interested in learning more about expressing emotions in the workplace, check out our keynote on Managing Emotions, available in live or virtual delivery.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, to keep up with more of our blogs!

Top Three Reasons People Don’t Show Emotions at Work

by Carolyn Stern | Dec 8, 2020 | Emotional Intelligence, Work Environment

When you think about expressing emotions, what comes to mind? Maybe it’s celebrating the new year, showing love to your partner, or having a verbal fight with a close friend. Now, let’s think about expressing emotions at work – what do you envision?

If you drew a point-blank, you’re not alone. Showing emotions in the workplace has become an increasingly important topic. In the past century, we experienced the Industrial Revolution, where assembly line workers in factories simulated robotic work. If somebody showed emotions in this environment, they saw it as preventing the team’s overall productivity and efficiency.

In the modern world, jobs have now evolved; emotional intelligence is one of the top ten skills required for the future workforce. In fact, learning to deal with emotions is the key to effectively leading people. Now that people understand that emotions matter, society has to work together to bring humanity back into the workplace and make people comfortable bringing their emotions to work.

While it may seem simple, there are a few common barriers to showing emotions at work. Let’s take a look at the top three reasons why.

1. Fear of Failure

When envisioning a leader, do you picture a “perfect” individual who is fearless and never makes mistakes? If yes, it’s time to adopt a new vision. The truth is, nobody is perfect. We cannot expect perfection from leaders, and leaders need to welcome failure as a learning opportunity. Both team members and leaders need to accept that mistakes are bound to happen. The number of errors made should not define failure, but the lesson learned from each mistake. It is easy to commit a mistake and brush it under the rug for no one to see. From a leaders’ perspective, covering their mistakes may seem like the right thing to do. They may think, “If I make a mistake, then am I even worthy of my position? Let’s pretend that did not happen”. Following this mindset will result in an unhealthy mentality and feeling the pressure to be perfect.

So how should a leader approach their failures? Our answer is to acknowledge and reflect; this shows self-awareness and a willingness to improve. When the leader demonstrates that mistakes are bound to happen, the mentality will trickle down to the team. Bouncing back and learning from mistakes will develop resilience. By overcoming a fear of failure, teams will emerge resilient and self-aware. Moreover, leaders will be cultivating a culture of learning and not being afraid to fail, sparking innovation within the team.

2. Vulnerability as a Weakness

Embedded in the false image of a “perfect” leader lies a robust and fearless persona. We picture our superiors always to know what to do. Take the example of a military leader – if they say, “I’m scared to cross the fence!” how will that impact the team performance? Similarly, if your company’s CEO states they are uncertain about meeting the revenue goals for this year, how will the team react?

In The Future of Work Depends on Emotional Intelligence, we mentioned letting go of the corporate persona. The corporate persona is a personality displayed at work. With the changing workplace, we are now getting a glimpse of team members’ personal lives, especially in virtual meetings. Now more than ever, leaders need to ease off their corporate personas and unveil their true selves. Especially in these times of uncertainty, it is normal to feel uneasy and unsure. We need to regulate the message showing vulnerability is not a weakness but rather a demonstration of courage.

Let’s return to the example of the CEO stating their uncertainty about achieving revenue goals. While it may be tough to admit that the company may not be heading the direction they wish, displaying this vulnerability creates trust within the team. Vulnerability is one of our greatest measures of courage. Brene Brown defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. It is the willingness to show up and to be seen, even when there are no guarantees. In essence, its leadership. Leaders need to be transparent with their team to build confidence and stimulate problem-solving and decision making. For example, when a leader says they are uncertain about the company meeting its financial goals and asks for help from the team, it provides the team with the perfect opportunity to think critically and brainstorm solutions to solve the problem while simultaneously supporting the leader.

3. Is it Only Me?

The last common reason why leaders refrain from showing emotions links to authenticity and comparison. If no one else is showing emotions, what will happen when the leader does? Will team members believe them, or worst, will it negatively affect and demotivate the team? It may be common to think, “If only I am feeling this way, are my emotions even valid?”

You will never know how others feel until you ask. Please do not try to predict or assume your team members’ emotions; the purpose is to normalize showing emotions at work. Think of emotions as data, not as good or bad. It can provide you with interesting information about how people or ideas are triggering you. With that data, you can make more conscious choices of how you will respond or act.

If no one else is showing emotions at work, then it presents the perfect opportunity to begin. Start small; it can be simple as showing appreciation for your team members. Recognition can go a long way and encourage them to do the same, kickstarting a chain reaction. While it may be intimidating to be the first one to begin expressing emotions at work, every journey starts with a single step. Emotions show others the “why” behind your ideas – your motivations or concerns behind your thoughts.

It’s Time to Show Emotions at Work

Showing emotions at work will lead to improved well-being and an overall emotionally intelligent workforce. Hiding feelings at work can lead to higher stress levels, health problems, and poor communication. Besides, hiding emotions at work will contribute to suppressed emotions; emotions run in the background during our everyday lives at work. If we choose not to acknowledge or cope with our emotions, there will be a reverse effect. For instance, if we feel angry and do not cope with the feeling, the anger will snowball and intensify the next time we feel angry.

Emotional intelligence plays an essential role in the workplace. It can improve leadership skills, develop interpersonal relationships, and assist in decision making. If you would like to learn more about emotional intelligence, see where your emotional intelligence stands with our emotional intelligence assessments. We offer both leadership and workplace assessments, with a personalized debrief from a certified EQ coach. To continue to transform your workplace into an emotionally intelligent one, you can also check out our special packages, which offer a unique combination of a workshop, retreat, EQ assessment, and/or online classes.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, to stay up-to-date with our blogs!

« Older Entries

Next Entries »