Understanding How Our Emotions Impact Our Message - Missing This Can Have Unintended Consequences

I was recently reading something from someone that I respect.

They are extremely intelligent (much smarter than myself) with many interesting ideas that flow from them.

However, as I read their recent thoughts, I found myself at a bit of a loss.

They said some fascinating ideas, well worth talking about, but their overall message didn't really land with me.

Again, it's not that they had bad ideas or that I disagreed.

I read it a few times to make sure I understood what they were getting at, and they were interesting to think about.

But I almost didn't take anything away from it because of how it was presented.

The Emotions We Portray

As I read through their message, I realized that I was getting hit with different emotions that they portrayed in the writing.

They were putting out a lot of negativity, resentment, and even hopelessness.

They would write something insightful, then undermine it with negativity.

A subject would be brought up, and resentment around that subject created a tone for what came next.

There would be a glimmer of something to reach toward, that was then stomped out with hopelessness.

What could have been an extremely thought-provoking message with a great call to action made me want to walk away instead.

The Lesson For Leaders

We need to realize as Leaders that our emotions will color all of our interactions - whether writing or speaking.

If we are not wary of emotions before giving our message, we may completely undermine our work.

If we are feeling stress, fear, or anger before our message, that will fill how people perceive what is said.

If we lack hope, compassion, or empathy, our message will also lack these things.

This is not to say we can't utilize these emotions to our advantage as Leaders (I strongly believe all emotions have benefits), but not knowing our emotions can severely disable our success.

I've known many good people and Leaders who failed to get their messages across due to failing to understand how their emotions impacted their message.

If we want our messages to land with others - our team, our customers, even our families - we must know our emotional state and make sure that it aligns with our goals.