The Emotional Leader

In general, the new leader feels the behavior by the employee is "unfair" and the new leader doesn't understand why they would do such a thing when it impacts their peers in such a negative way. Now the new leader sees this behavior from the perspective of the whole, the impact to the team, not just the impact to themselves as an individual member of the team. When a new leader comes to me with their concerns they often focus on the impact to the team, but if you listen closely, you begin to hear the underpinnings of WHY the leader is so emotionally charged: they're taking it personal. There is a sense the employee does not respect their authority as the "boss". This feeling is often reinforced as the employee whom they have coached on their behavior continues forward in the same pattern regardless. As the frustration with the employee's behavior grows, we move to an "all or nothing" perspective. We begin to bucket these employees into "types" and then, once assigned, it is very hard for that employee to ever "earn" their way out of that box. In the not too distant past I would use these "teachable moments" as an opportunity to remind the new leader that when we move to a leadership role we lose the right to our emotions. However, I wish to deepen that discussion point further as it's not entirely true.

When we can pause and take a deeper look at why an employee's behavior is so upsetting to us, we can begin to define it, to find the edges of our emotions and look at how they color our perspective. Often, it is a prior experience or a repeated pattern which we become frustrated with as it has shown up "again". This starts the narrative as we just KNOW what the end result will be, so why bother going through the motions of giving that employee a chance to change course? You know they won't change....and on it goes. However, when we can step back, be rational and objective, we can start to see the pattern of where our emotional reaction came from, and then seek a new approach and a more positive result than the prior experience we are most likely drawing from. We can see the behavior as it is, not as we believe it to be. We can provide guidance to the employee, reinforce the expectations and standards, and set clear boundaries while providing tools, resources, and support to the employee as they work towards an improved outcome in their performance. Oh, you may ask "How do you know they want to improve their performance?!". I have yet to meet an employee that has come in to work in the morning wondering how they can mess it up for everyone today. I never see that on an employee's personal goal sheet. Ever. Everyone wants to do well, and almost everyone thinks they're achieving that. Whether you agree with them or not...well...that's the true topic now isn't it?

So, when I say we "lose the right to our emotions", I need to reframe that and say it differently. We have a right to our emotions, however, we need to use them to inform us so we can shift as a leader into a place of objective review and not emotional reaction. In the end, if you forget everything else I wrote above, lock one sentence in your brain and hardwire it to your internal narrative: IT IS RARELY EVER ABOUT YOU. So, I would invite you to approach all coaching situations with employees from an objective place where you are open and curious, prepared to provide training, tools and insights from a place of assuming they have the best intention to do well in their role and just need a little direction and feedback about how their actions and behaviors are perceived and received by the team.