3 Tips to Communicate Emotions to Avoid Failing as a Leader

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Avoiding expressing your feelings as a leader, dooms your ability to communicate and influence outcomes. According to the book Management of Organizational Behavior, leadership occurs when a person attempts to influence the behaviors of an individual or group towards some goal. If so, then a leader’s primary tool reduces to communication. In fact, improved communication delivers such a high return that even Warren Buffett attributes a 50% increase in your value to it. Without communication, leaders cannot influence.

In Difficult Conversations, a publication associated with the Harvard Negotiation Project, the authors assert that you can’t have an effective conversation without surfacing the primary issues at stake. Feelings, especially those that build and stew in us, hold primacy in our minds as people. Leaders and people need a way to discharge this energy in a productive manner to return focus and build cohesion. Otherwise, feelings leak or burst into conversations and reduce our ability to listen. Moreover, they can reduce our self-esteem and challenge relationships. These outcomes undermine your ability to lead.

Keep the following three concepts in mind to avoid your emotions blocking you:

1. Your emotions are already in the room—so express them in the moment or acknowledge, process, and then express them later

Even if you don’t express your emotions, they are already in the room. People often sense others’ attempt to shield their emotions. Just think of anyone who has told you “I’m fine” and the tense feeling you had knowing that wasn’t the case. As a leader, making this choice to block your emotions ripples throughout your organization, often with negative consequences.

So you have a few choices. One, you express your feelings and lead with the power of vulnerability using “I feel” statements. Judgements hidden in “I feel like” statements do not count. Two, if sharing your emotions feels too risky, then you may take a more subtle approach and use “I notice” statements such as “I notice we avoid talking about our layoff fears.” That opens the door to process emotions as a group, build cohesion, and then boost productivity. FDR knew this when he said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Alternatively, you may need to process your emotions before bringing them back to your team. Make this a priority—meditate, journal, and/or talk to friends, family, or a counselor. When you choose to process first, it’s still important to acknowledge to your team something like “I feel off today, so I will mostly be listening and will provide my thoughts tomorrow.” That way you alleviate the weight of your unspoken feelings stressing your team and take ownership for how the team will get through it.

2. Suppression serves a purpose at times, but comes at a cost—make sure you pay it quickly before too much interest compounds

Suppression may produce optimal results in the right context. Imagine soldiers charging the field as bombs explode. Without suppressing their fears, these soldiers may not be able to do their task. However, too much of this leads to consequences like PTSD. Detaching from your emotions too long leaves you separated from your inner self and may trigger mental health and relationship challenges. If you make this choice for yourself or for your team to get through a crisis, make sure you create ample opportunity for your organization to process when the immediate threat recedes. You may choose to hold a series of all-hands meetings, provide counselors, and/or create group shared experiences. Leaders hold a critical responsibility to make a safe space for folks to work through their emotions. Often this means expressing your own emotions and being vulnerable.

3. Your emotions may not always be your emotions alone—be aware of the leader-crowd dynamic

According to group relations theory, others’ emotions may become embedded in you and you may consciously or unconsciously voice those emotions on the behalf of others. Empathy and your wiring from past experiences likely trigger this reaction. For instance, if your mom often scolded you for sloppy chores, you may feel empathy when others experience shame. So when the boss yells at a team member for poor performance, you absorb your co-worker’s shame. You then feel pressure to speak up on his and the group’s behalf.

Forces across a team, organization, or even society may influence people to give voice on behalf of others. In some cases, collusion between the leader and the crowd escalate to tragedy such as what happened with Trump and the Capitol rioters. As a leader, observe when you experience extreme emotions. You may or may not be holding other people’s feelings. If you believe you hold other people’s emotions, invite the group to claim some of the emotions back. Again, you can use something like “I am noticing a lot of anger in the team, any thoughts?”

Second, as a leader—be consciously aware with what messages your group responds to and decide if that reaction matches your core values and agenda. Jordan Peterson, a controversial professor but an expert in fascism, illuminates this leadership-crowd dynamic with Hitler as a concrete example. Like Pavlov’s dog, a leader consciously or unconsciously pays attention to what messages a group responds to and the leader becomes reinforced towards a particular direction. So did Hitler incite the crowds or did the crowds incite Hitler? Probably both. Leaders need to pay attention to this dynamic to make more conscious decisions.

So tying back to my blog last month—as a leader, should you disclose feelings like worry and depression? I believe the answer remains complex and situational. If a crisis pervades, maybe you acknowledge feeling off and suppress. If you find yourself in a work culture that attacks those with vulnerable emotions, maybe you use the “notice” approach to avoid being targeted as a scapegoat for the group‘s fear of expressing emotions. If you feel solid in how you processed your feelings and find yourself not in crisis and in the right culture, I encourage you to lead with vulnerability. You will be surprised by the impact.