Recently I was facilitating a leadership workshop with a predominantly male group of middle managers who work in a mechanical engineering environment. As we were getting into the work, I began to hear some participants expressing their discomfort with “emotions and feelings” in the workplace. Phrases like “I don’t do emotions, I don’t do feelings” came out as well as other less direct reactions to the concept of emotional engagement and leadership. Yet the same group talked easily about the positive impact that celebration, recognition, appreciation and camaraderie can have on team cohesion and motivation.
It seemed to me that these managers were comfortable with positive, feel-good emotions, but they viewed terms such as “emotions” and “feelings” as being associated more with sadness and sorrow and see them as “difficult to deal with”. Well we worked with that and by the end of the session, as a group they admitted that they need to invest more personal intimate time with the people in their teams.
Becoming comfortable with showing empathy
But as I reflected on that, I began to wonder does this (“I don’t do feelings”) perspective come from a discomfort with emotional intimacy and a fear of dealing with someone who is emotionally vulnerable? And further, might this display a discomfort with being emotionally vulnerable themselves? This could be the subject of many more blogs, but for now let’s consider one aspect of this – If these managers were more comfortable just listening and understanding these “more difficult” emotions in the workplace (in other words displaying empathy) then maybe that additional investment in “personal intimate time” would be much more effective?
Developing the capacity to listen and understand others’ feelings, anxieties, concerns, etc. comes from practice, and a good role model or mentor is a great resource.
But is empathy really that important? Well if we want our people to be customer-focussed and display concern for customers, then we’d better start showing concern and empathy for our people.
The future is emotional
The following excerpt from a piece by Livia Gershon demonstrates this so much better than I could:
The Future is Emotional, by Livia Gershon, Aeon Magazine, July 2017 www.aeon.co
“As valuable as formal training in emotional skills might be, it’s not at the heart of what makes people successful in emotional labour. Hochschild noted that ‘surface acting’ – creating the appearance of an appropriate emotion – is harder on workers and less effective than ‘deep acting’ – really summoning up those feelings. Spontaneously expressing genuine, appropriate emotion is, presumably, even better. In 2013, the British sandwich chain Pret A Manger came under fire for using mystery shoppers to ensure that its staff appeared constantly cheery. Service workers, of course, are expected to be friendly toward customers. But Pret A Manger’s secret monitoring of its own staff, to ensure unflagging cheeriness while also depriving them of the wages and working conditions that might encourage actual cheerfulness, came across as cynical and disingenuous. Besides, having to essentially fake an emotional connection can feel exploitative in ways that even the most painful physical labour is not.”
The paradox of expecting our people to show empathy to others while we disregard their concerns is clear in this example. But empathy also enables more honest performance conversations. As one well-known sports leader said to me recently – “We were able to be so direct and challenging because we loved each other”. I’ll have to leave that to another blog….
