INTELLIGENT EMOTIONS

It is with some relief I notice that the phrase 'emotional intelligence' is becoming scarcer. I've no objection to the concept – that the ability to deal with people as human beings rather than bits of data is as valuable as having a sharp brain – but there's something about the pairing of these two words which feels like an oxymoron: trying to bring a left-brain, analytical angle to the world of emotions is like trying to put a marshmallow through a mincer. Once any face to face encounter takes on an emotional component, trying to apply logic seems to make everything more messy.

Maybe 'emotional literacy' would be a more useful way of putting it: the ability to read effortlessly the feeling aspects of a situation. Or 'emotional fluidity' – though that doesn't sound like something you'd want in the office. Whatever you want to call it, In this month's article I present some case study snippets showing leaders handling emotional face-to-face situations, to see if we can learn anything about what the key to this nebulous area might be.

Why dealing with others' emotions is so hard

There are two challenges to anyone wanting to be more emotionally literate: First, there is no magic formula. Take the basic technique which suggests that when faced with, say, anger, you acknowledge the other person's emotion.' This is fine, but when faced with someone who seems angry, delivering the scripted line 'I can see you're angry' or 'you seem angry' will generally make them suddenly twice as angry, most of it directed at you for making such a fatuous remark. At which point you decide the techniques don;t work and start shouting instead. But the anger directed at you is, I tell my incredulous clients, fundamentally a Good Thing: it means the anger is flowing more freely, and will dissipate more quickly. Providing (there's always a catch, isn't there?) you do nothing to block the emotion. Which brings us to the second challenge.

Culturally (and I speak for the Brits here) we do not like emotions in the workplace, and our instinct is that the most helpful way to deal with them is to try and put a lid on them. Hence most individuals faced with anger, rather than say “I can see you're angry”, will say some version of “there's no need to get angry about this”. What the other person actually hears is: “I think you're an idiot for losing control of your emotions”. At a basic level, what you are doing here is blocking the energy of the other person, where acknowledging the emotion, giving permission for it to flow, unblocks it.

Have you ever flown Alitalia? As the plane touches down, the Italians on board burst into spontaneous applause. Jokes about Alitalia's fleet aside, why are they doing this? Because they have learned, culturally, that it is more healthy to get suppressed emotions (anxiety, in this case) out as quickly as possible. Meanwhile the English passengers tut disapprovingly and say: “Typical Italians: they don't know how to control their emotions.”

How leaders work with others' anger: some examples

A classic situation in which a leader is on the receiving end of anger is when dealing with resistance to change. Imagine you are standing in front of a group of disgruntled managers whose roles have changed and who feel unprepared and uncomfortable. They will not tell you this of course: what they will more likely tell you is that this is your fault, that the change was ill-conceived, unnecessary – need I go on? And how would you feel faced with that? Affronted perhaps; threatened; outraged; and yes, maybe angry yourself. Now get the textbook out and hear yourself saying “I can see you're angry”...... Let me tell you some alternatives I have witnessed, with varying results.

Example 1: A senior manager addressing a group of disgruntled middle managers came into the meeting so sold on the idea that the proposed new way of working was a good thing that he ended up telling the managers how inefficient they were currently. He was trying to make the point that the new responsibilities they were being given would lead to better results, and was frustrated they could not see it. He was right, of course; but the change failed, because everyone was so angry that he didn't seem to care about them (remember the question in my last article: what is more important – being right, or making the relationship work?).

Example 2: I remember seeing a different senior manager fielding 'questions' (actually she was standing there while people lobbed verbal grenades at her) about a change project. She answered criticisms by describing positive examples of where the change was working better than her audience thought. Fine in theory: but what she was doing was engaging in a logical discussion with a group of people in the grip of powerful emotions; in doing so she was trying to put a lid on their anger. After a while they gave up, which allowed her to believe her approach had worked; but they went off instead and told everyone who wasn't at the meeting how she had not listened to them at all and had argued with every point they made. The change rumbled on for twice as long as it was supposed to.

Example 3: A fascinating one not really in any textbook: A group of senior managers angry about a change which they saw as a distraction from business priorities had a 'meeting' (a lynching, really) with the programme manager. They ranted and railed, getting very personal ('kill the messenger' is a perennially popular pastime in organisation). She took this for a while. Then she got angry herself. The textbook says don't; but interestingly, it worked. She said (or shouted), simply: “How do you think I feel standing here while you abuse me?” She said a few more things besides; but that was the gist of it. In a break, I watched while they came up individually to apologise for their appalling behaviour. I'll come back to this in a moment; but first, one from the textbook.

Example 4: An almost identical scenario to Example 2; but instead of answering criticisms, the leader on this occasion asked questions to understand the group's concerns, and then restated them. (“So if I understand you, your main concern is the effect on interdepartmental relations”...). What was interesting was he did not once say he agreed, or that they were right to raise it. He just worked to show that he had heard and understood. Within 15 minutes of the meeting, the anger in the room had dissipated and the discussion became a constructive review of how the change could be more effectively implemented.

So, what do Examples 3 and 4 have in common? I would say two things: first, they were both authentic – by which I mean the leader was acting from a genuine intent, whether to share their own feelings, or to get behind the managers' anger. Second, in neither example was the emotional flow blocked. This is why, I believe, the individual who shouted back at the group succeeded: she was not telling them they were wrong, nor was she not listening to them; she was adding her own feelings to the discussion. Contrast this with Example 1, in which the senior manager also lost his temper, but simply told the managers angrily that they needed to be better at what they did.

I do a lot of work with leaders where we unpick the dynamics of their critical face to face encounters; I would say that there is an emotional component in 80% of cases; and while it is true that there is no magic formula, success inevitably comes from mastering those two qualities: being authentic – not following a script, but working from a genuine intention – and working always to allow feelings to flow without being blocked, so that they dissipate as efficiently as possible. On reflection, I think I would label this 'emotional fluency' – being competent in the language of feelings, and also bringing a sense of effortlessness.

Emotional fluency is a major component of the Face To Face Leadership programme I run with my colleague Ralph Lewis. If you would like to know more, email phil@facetofaceleadership.com

Any thoughts about this article, or any aspects of face to face interactions you'd like to read about? Email feedback@facetofaceleadership.com.