Developing Emotional Literacy to Build Your Capacity as a Leader

Emotions can be as soft as liquid sunshine, as they call the ocean’s mist in Hawaii, or as torrentially powerful as a river that shapes canyons.  As I look out at the mountains of Zion carved by the Virgin river runoff I reflect on the deep river of emotions I have felt myself and held for others through the last six months.  

Just as each form of water has it’s life-giving gifts, so do emotions when we learn to process them in healthy ways.  Emotionally literacy supports us as we witness our feeling sensations while remaining present to the subtext beneath. Tools such as “noticing, naming and communicating,” give us the capacity to contemplate and speak to emotions in enriching ways. This is how emotional intelligence supports partnership. 

Noticing may look like practicing mindfulness or meditation to cultivate awareness. Allowing space to simply “be with” the discomfort or uncertainty in what is stirring within our mind, body and soul is a way to increase our capacity for navigating emotions.

Naming may involve learning language that supports us in describing specific feelings that might be unaware of.  Naming opens our neocortex and we regain the capacity to clarify our needs.

These steps create the foundation for Communicating more effectively with others. 

Watching the Virgin river continue to shape the majestic cliffs of Zion takes me back to how emotions have shaped me these last few months. 

It started with feeling unwanted and kicked out of a club by a beloved client who had to, for all the right reasons, step away from a commitment to work together. The river of emotion carved away an old identity and opened a new space in my heart.

When nothing is certain everything is possible.

Clients, friends and nephews alike have navigated similar seas.  One submerged by anger at an employer who gave executives permission to stay home but required the front-line to work in close quarters even though there is no evidence that their “financial services” were essential to anything other than the institution’s bottom line.  For this young man, a commitment to finding an employer who treats him with dignity arises where compliance for a life of safety had been just weeks before. 

Another is a young woman finding new ownership of her needs and boundaries and discovering what courage and using her voice look like.  A willingness to have conversations that before seemed inconvenient and uncomfortable now seems imperative to partnership. 

As we collectively navigate the emotional waters of loss, fear and uncertainty, having wise companions to help us notice, name, normalize and then navigate the needs, desires and boundaries to healthy partnership can strengthen us as we work together to a better world 

When emotions arise for you and how might you notice, name and communicate?