For a long time emotions were ignored or illusory away from the work context because organizations were seen as serious, objective places, thought and created to produce goods, services and earn money, to achieve this, the use of logic and which is why a “cold head” is required with a rational work environment, where emotions had no place.
However, in recent years, substantial progress has been made to understand its impact on the organizational environment; Various studies and some research have shown how emotions can explain individual and organizational phenomena. They play a fundamental role in job satisfaction, group functioning, leadership, development, personal and collective growth, they manifest and appear in episodes of violence and / or harassment, in the processes of negotiation, conflict and decision-making, in challenges and proposals of goals and levels of competitiveness, in work stress and more recently the so-called "emotional work" as an intrinsic characteristic of the job and its influence on the organization.
Today, the emotional state of a company considered a “good place to work” has enough influence to impact the corporate value of the corporation, so much so that today the approach in organizations aims at creating a more humane organizational culture than legitimize the importance of emotions and the management of them. In this sense, we can talk about those strategies used to modify or eliminate the sources of emotions called "negatives" present in the work environment (redesign of tasks, flexible work schedules, home office, involving the employee in their career development, provide feedback between bosses and colleagues, establish fair policies for workers, etc.);and of the tactics directed to the development of abilities in the personnel to achieve that they experience healthier emotions, called "positive", (health promotion programs, processes of emotional accompaniment, coaching, mentoring and lifestyle changes, seeking the work life balance).
Human beings, even if we try to hide it over and over again, we are animal beings, basically emotional beings, who are guided by reasons as little entrepreneurial as: Transcendence, love, tranquility, freedom or recognition, and we perceive fear, illusion, we feel frustrated, grateful, excited or overwhelmed and… so many other emotions that we have deluded in an inexplicable and erroneous way to banish from the organizational language.
For some unknown reason, we like to think that when people start their workday and enter through the door of their office, they strip themselves of what is happening to them, leaving their “reptilian” brain or midbrain at home… and their respective connections and it is yearned (being the yearning an emotion…) that they arrive only with the full and unique functioning of a third and small part of their brain, the "Neo cortex", where the "rational and explanatory function of the brain, this is not so, it is not possible.
Due to the above and after having had the immense possibility of accompanying company leaders and executives, who, in their words, have told me about the loneliness of power, about how much they want a quiet life, some company and they state that They are proud of the great responsibility that their position entails, when thinking about the families that depend on their decisions, as well as the fear of failing and making mistakes in their management… it seems obvious that there is no leadership without emotions, to be able to describe what is done and experienced in the business world, various and varied emotions appear…
It is for all this that we affirm that those who know how to manage the emotions in the teams they lead, the emotions of the people in the organization and recognize their own, will have a greater capacity to manage change, honor progress and guarantee sustainable results that contribute with the construction of a better planet, the equivalent of saying that you will have in your hands the secret formula of success in our organizations and as integral human beings inside and outside of work.
Managing emotions within organizations is the key to success in modernity.
How to do it?
First it is important that the leader recognizes his own, can identify what is happening to him and in this way also know what he is doing, when he is in this emotion, knowing this takes a step towards emotional temperance, whose first step lies in self-knowledge.
Mood states belong to people and teams, organizations and countries, since they are fed by a certain identity that manifests itself in a certain way of being and being, so leaders must be able to recognize what is the state of mind that mobilizes your team, and / or your organization, must be able to identify, what is that emotion that remains, that accompanies most if not all in their decisions and actions, and once this is clear, it can begin to to carry out a redesign in a targeted and conscious way, this directly impacts the work environment, therefore the culture and the results.
What do we leaders do?
E l leader is a specialist in creating emotionally charged situations
The leader to implement innovative and challenging projects requires managing tools that manage the emotional domain, and must do it with mastery since people when faced with a change, recognize their losses and there appear all the fears, anger, fears, frustrations and tensions, which assign the leader as the author of the situation that put them in that state of mind and reaching this is one of the causes, if not the greatest, cause of managerial mortality. Given this, what emotions should you initially manage?
1- Becoming friends with fear, anxiety and anguish: Only those who can frustrate expectations and challenge the "status quo" have some chance of success. In important changes it will be necessary to create spaces or moments that generate pain and fear with what the change can bring: the unknown, the uncertain, the anxiety caused by the new or the loss of privileges, the known and comfort. The leader must be able to sustain reactions and manage the losses people face.
2- Create vision, illusion, hope: building a future, starting from leaving the past behind, building and creating becomes easier based on dreams and hope, being able to visualize a different environment in which they want to be and with whom there is compromise. Great leaders succeed in creating in the minds of others illusions that show them the path that is good for them to walk and impel them to make extraordinary personal efforts. Men move much more by dreams than by the established. People are basically spiritual beings, it is possible that this sometimes generates disbelief and it is absolutely true, therefore the visionary leader manages to connect people with something greater than themselves, that something, so it is worth committing and continuing.
3- Build certainty and manage uncertainty: Big dreams must be fed with the certainty of a reality: providing security and stability to its people, leaders are expected to be specialists in showing their organizations the first evidence, affirmations and facts, from the fruits of change. They are able to highlight the first results and evidence that drive organizations to change. Resistance to change is only definitively eliminated by showing the "proven" advantages of the new and thus it gives way to creating a new reality that gives way to certainty.
4- Provide recognition and gratitude:Appreciation is the biggest driver of motivation, and motivation is the key to personal change, individual and organizational transformation. Organizational changes require a lot of energy to achieve the first results and to maintain them: you need change agents, committed followers to count on in moments of effort, dedication and sacrifice who are willing to adapt to apparently unwanted situations,… for this you must seek that everyone be the protagonists, part of the change, be the one who participates, and above all be recognized. Recognition is a reward is one of the greatest motivations of human beings, achievement and approval for having obtained it, as well as affiliation and feeling appreciation, the form of esteem, tenderness or "love" in the professional world,only in this way the sense of belonging is guaranteed.
5- Believe in your ideology and share it, courage: The changes suppose new ways of understanding the rules and values, as well as it requires rethinking loyalties and giving way to new ways of doing and thinking, the doctrines that maintain and give unity, meaning and purpose to organizations. Changing the values of an organization implies redefining what is "pride", "envy", "shame" or "guilt" in the organization and it is required to know how to manage these emotions and be an expert in managing the human soul.
Emotions are what cause action and movement in people. The same thing happens in organizations: emotions are what mobilize organizations. Given this, mastery of managing emotions defines the fine line that separates past managers from future leaders. The leaders of the future are managers of emotions, who are excited by what happens to them and their teams.
Lucila Rosa Mejía Londoño
Consultant - Senior Coach
