Emotional awareness: Being emotionally aware is the foundation of healthy business management
Charles is heading for the stable. He notes that, yet again, his employee has arrived five minutes late. “This is enough. I can’t take it any more.” Charles tells me. He heads toward his employee. In the heat of anger, Charles uses words that are stronger than his true feelings. After letting off some steam, he returns to the field accompanied by his unpleasant sensations and thoughts. Remorse, guilt and shame bother him. “After all, he did deserve it,” he tells himself in order to feel less guilty. When Charles returns to find his employee gone, he worries. That night, his employee calls him. “I’m coming to pick up my 4%. I’ve found another job.” Charles is discouraged. It is the busy season and it must be admitted, he had an excellent employee.
Could Charles have avoided losing his employee? Absolutely! Poor emotional management, a basic skill of emotional intelligence, has just cost him an excellent employee. In fact, we underestimate the role emotions play in daily life. As managers, it pleases us to think we are completely rational. However, our actions, words and choices are strongly influenced by our emotions. In fact, the problem is not only that Charles got carried away, but also that he told me he did not have control; it was stronger than he was and he did not feel his anger mounting. “He often acts impulsively,” his spouse told me in discouragement. It seems obvious that Charles has not developed his emotional awareness sufficiently. Emotional awareness is “being able to recognize our emotions, distinguishing between different emotions, understanding why we have these emotions (cause) and clearly perceiving the effects of our emotions on ourselves and those around us.” To learn how to manage emotions, we must first be aware of them. We cannot manage something of which we are unaware.
How to become more aware of your emotions:
- Recognize that we all have emotions and that they influence daily life.
- Take your emotional temperature several times a day: 0 [meaning] no emotions and very calm, and 10 meaning at the maximum (extreme anger, distress, anxiety, euphoria).
- Identify your areas of sensitivity (subjects, individuals or situations that affect you).
- Become aware of the physiological signs that accompany emotions (butterflies or tightness in the chest, tension, shortness of breath, etc.).
- Reflect on the causes of your emotion: why does this situation bother me so much?
- Consider the consequences this emotion has and [those it] may have if it is not managed (mood, effectiveness, quality of decision-making, relationships, etc.).
- Commit to finding solutions to manage the situation better.
In summary, emotionally aware managers will recognize when they are tense, frustrated, hurt, envious or excited. They also recognize the source of their emotions and how they interfere in their daily lives, effectiveness, decisions and relationships with others. This is how they come to manage their emotions more effectively and thus, their business.
Pierrette Desrosiers,
Work Psychologist, professionnal speaker, author and business coach
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