Stress impacts your behaviour as a leader, your mental capacity, and even your physical health. Your ability to manage the stress of today’s work world is largely dependent on your ability to develop emotional awareness. That being said, developing emotional awareness aids not only in your ability to manage stress but to continue to develop your leadership behaviour and create highly productive teams and performance.
Human emotions are as complex as they are varied. In a span of one day, we all experience a significant number of emotional highs and lows. An average person in a high-stress environment may experience even more. Emotions do not take a break, even when we need a break. They are always present, influencing your own and others’ behaviour, performance, and interactions.
Enlightened leaders are adept at handling their emotions, and this competency is useful for everyone they interact with. It sets them free from negative energies that can be stirred up by emotional interactions. It also places them in a position to model emotionally balanced behaviour. More important, it enables them to be responsive to others’ needs, which is a primary contributor to employee engagement.
Enlightened leaders take care in what they say and do because they know they are being watched all the time. During a crisis or contentious event, employees may even be expecting an emotional reaction from their leaders. Having emotional awareness and emotional control does not mean repressing feelings … it means making a conscious effort to stay focused, composed, and even tempered.
No one benefits from a leader whose first reaction to a bad situation is to scream at everyone around them, or who breaks down in public when they feel overwhelmed. Conversely, no one benefits from a leader who is so emotionally closed up that they cannot show compassion, affection, or joy when necessary or appropriate.
Employees relate to their leaders on an emotional level. So a leader’s mood, feeling, attitude, and behaviour have a significant impact on their employees. A leader’s lack of emotional awareness could leave employees physically, mentally, and emotionally distressed, and often leads them to disengage.
CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.