Do We Feel Before We Think?
As leaders, we strive to be in control. Control gives us the impression that we can achieve the goals we have laid out for ourselves, and those goals laid out by our
executives or our Board. We resist the challenging emotions that can come with the job. Anger, frustration, and fear are all potential distractions and carry real risk for derailing our work as leaders.
So, what do we do? Often times we cover up or even attempt to ignore those pesky emotions that we see as problematic. The problem is that it rarely works for long. Strong emotions find a way to express themselves and often at the most inopportune time and sometimes in ways that create more problems. A better strategy is to acknowledge and name the emotions we feel. By stating how we feel and being specific about what is making us feel that way, we discern the power that emotion has on us and on those around us and de-escalate both.
Roughly 70 percent of human communication is non-verbal. So, even if I am hiding my emotions, everyone around me knows that something is up. They don’t know exactly what I am feeling but they know I am feeling it. What most people do in that situation is to make up our own scenario. “The boss looks really upset about something. I think she is mad. In fact, she is mad at me. That’s it, she’s mad at me. She never liked me.” This scenario is not uncommon and escalates the tension for everyone. If instead, I tell the team: “Listen everyone. I know I look upset, I am really worried about not hitting our numbers last month. It’s really keeping me up at night and I need some help with this. Could we come together and discuss this? I would really appreciate your ideas on how we might improve our performance.”
This strategy works because this is how our brains are wired. Any outside stimulus comes to us through our brain stem and then goes to the area of our brain that creates an emotion. It then goes to an area of pre-frontal cortex to interpret the emotion. Essentially, we feel before we think. By acknowledging and ignoring feelings, we are able to think more clearly.
