We need more emotions in the workplace

"Lena, I think you're way too emotional. And that undermines your authority."

Two sentences, two years ago, which made me extremely insecure at first, which were the reason to take a deep look into myself, but ultimately lead me to become an evangelist for emotions.

In May 2017 I was attending a big conference in the USA about communication, digitization and many other issues around the general theme of business life. When I'm attending such events, I often find myself in a strange state between being curious about people and topics, inspired by stories and role models and being overwhelmed by too much information, tired, excited, doubtful - in short: I'm very emotional.

Just this phrase "I'm very emotional" reveals our perceptions on emotion in general  - especially in our professional environment. It seems most people regard this sentence as a weakness, either consciously or unconsciously.

So I was at this conference, it was the third day, jet lag had become an amplifier for my emotionality, and there was a workshop on the agenda that I had very much been looking forward too: Career Development.

As someone who has gone through completely different careers, (I'd only been at Microsoft for a year at the time), I thought it was the perfect opportunity to reflect and evaluate what the next steps might be. The workshop offered precisely what I had hoped for: Intensive inventory on a personal and professional level, analysis of strengths and weaknesses, detailed planning and finally the definition of my very own vision statement.

This vision statement is still in my notebook today:

By combining my educational and psychological background, I want to empower and inspire people to be the best version of themselves.

I was incredibly moved by this workshop and very proud that I was able to develop a meaningful personal vision statement in such a short time. This sentence accurately summarized my values and had the potential to be a strong compass for my development. But this sense of inspiration and pride that seemed so strong and unshakable at that moment was compromised within seconds and before the workshop even ended: A very young colleague, who happened to attend the same workshop came up to me and said: "Lena, I think that you're way too emotional. Your emotionality undermines your authority."

I was completely perplexed and switched to autopilot. I've internalized how vital feedback is, so I just answered: "Thanks for your honesty.". I'm still convinced, that it was given as honest feedback. But what does "too emotional" actually mean? And why would my emotionality undermine my authority? And why do we still regard emotions as a weakness?

The four-page model

To tell you the truth: this statement triggered much more in me than it probably should have. This fact felt like a confirmation of the statement itself and as a reason for self-doubt.

As a former kindergarten teacher I'm quite the career changer in my current profession and the "Impostor Syndrome" is my constant companion. According to psychologist Pauline Rose Clance, this is a phenomenon in which those affected are plagued by massive self-doubt about their abilities, performance and success and are unable to internalize their personal achievements. This syndrome makes me often doubt, whether I'm capable of doing my job, whether I'm good at it and whether it's a problem that I don't have a university degree.

But this statement of my colleague has shown me that my training as a kindergarten teacher resembles a "classical" communication training in many aspects: I tried to analyze this situation according to the model of Friedemann Schulz von Thun - an essential part of kindergarten teaching, as well as communication sciences.

According to the "Four Sides Model" defined by Schulz von Thun, every message has four levels: subject matter, self-revelation, relationship and appeal. A statement can, therefore, be viewed from these four different directions and interpreted under these four different assumptions. If the sender and receiver of a message interpret these four levels differently, misunderstandings and conflicts arise.

And so a conflict with my colleague and thus with myself arose. Today I'm sure that she was convinced to help me with her feedback. At the time it felt like an attack and a negative evaluation of my emotions.

Emotions in communication

How powerful emotions can be, especially in communication, is shown by a simple and meanwhile classic exercise: A message is communicated with different emotions.

"The grass is green" with a sad undertone, full of enthusiasm or with an angry voice - it always conveys an entirely different association. This is precisely why emotions are so indispensable in communication: to underline and clarify how a message is meant and to add colour to black writing on a white background.

When we apply this to the Four Sides Model, it becomes clear that communication is always a dialogue between sender and receiver. Therefore listening is one of the most essential skills of a communicator. This is much more complex than it might sound at first. It's about genuine listening in conversations with journalists or colleagues. It's about monitoring topics to "hear" how certain things are being discussed and to adapt one's own communication accordingly. And it's about reporting exactly these adaptions to check whether and how they are received. Only those who listen well can communicate well. And in order to listen well, we have to be empathetic. We have to be emotional.

Corporate emotions

"But when we do corporate communications, it's about the company, and the company has no emotion."

If we want to be able to judge this statement, we need to define what emotions are. The definitions differ, but it can be summarized as: "An emotion is a psychological and/or physiological reaction to a situation."

So, can companies be emotional? In their book "Collective Emotions", scientists Christian von Schewe and Mikko Salmela give an overview of this topic, which has so far received little attention. The theory of collective emotions implies that networked systems consisting of several emotional beings also have something like cumulative emotions. And everything that a company communicates is closely related to this cumulative emotion, expresses it and has a direct effect on it at the same time.

Corporate communication has therefore always been emotional - whether consciously or unconsciously. As communicators, our task is to reflect, to analyze, to define and to govern this corporate emotion through listening, and to make it an integral part of our work.

Emotional Leadership

I go even further because I believe that everyone should be emotional, no matter what industry or area they work in.

According to the World Economic Forum, the most critical skills for the future are:

1. Problem-solving
2. Critical thinking
3. Creativity
4. People management
5. Coordination with others
6. Emotional Intelligence
7. Evaluation and decision-making
8. Service Orientation
9. Negotiating ability
10. Cognitive flexibility

The reference to emotions is obvious at point six. And if we take a minute to understand the meaning of the other skills, it's evident that all these skills are closely related to emotionality.

Emotions define our values and our attitude. If we reflect and analyze our emotions, if we get to the bottom of them, if we take time for them because we perceive them not as annoying but as helpful, they can become indicators for our purpose and motivations for our goals. Perceive and analyze instead of ignoring and criticizing.

If, for example, I become aware of why I'm afraid of a situation, why Impostor Syndrome is my constant companion, why specific topics or people inspire me, then I can learn a lot about myself and grow. But when I suppress my emotions, when I try to ignore or cover them up, they become a blockade for me, my productivity, my creativity and my interaction with people.

In cooperation with others, empathy becomes even more important. Because it's not only about us and our own emotions but also about the feelings of others, ask yourself: which emotions are being triggered in others by my behavior and how do our emotions interact?

Emotionality and empathy are the foundations of leadership. And for me, leadership does not mean management, but first and foremost being a role model. Anyone can be a role model, regardless of position or function. Most important, we should try to be a role model for ourselves.

More emotions, more humanity

When we take a look into the future, the skills identified by the World Economic Forum are even more important. We'll be working with and alongside artificial intelligence and robots. And then it's precisely these qualities that we need: Emotionality, empathy and humanity.

To develop these skills for the future, we need to rethink work. People should no longer be perceived as resources, but as complex, emotional individuals. Human Resources should become Human Relations.

When choosing employees and colleagues, we should pay attention to how they deal with emotions and whether they are open to using their own emotions to improve. Innovation requires creativity and courage. Creativity and courage need emotions.

Psychology and educational science should play a major role in teaching and training. Learning emotional language should be in the same ranks as learning a programming language.

It's certainly no coincidence that topics such as mindfulness and resilience are very much en vogue these days. I hope that this trend will become a movement and that in the future emotions will no longer be a sign of weakness but of strength. We can decide whether we consider it professional if people suppress their emotions or if they're able to reflect and grow.

If a colleague tells me "You're emotional" in the future, I hope it will be then considered a compliment.

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(translated from German)