There seems to be no room for emotions at work. We say things like “don’t be so emotional” or “emotions have clouded your judgment.” However, the reality is that basically all our actions are triggered by emotions, whether we are consciously aware of this or not. Emotions provide the energy for action: E-Motions.

Here’s what leaders need to know about emotions and how they can release the energy for innovation, creativity, and optimum performance in organizations.

Key Aspects

Emotions play a critical role in releasing or blocking human energy flow. This is nothing esoteric but neurobiology.

When human energy flows in an organization, people are engaged and share their ideas freely. People utilise their full potential resulting in high performance without burning out. When human energy is blocked, people become disengaged, hide mistakes, and performance is low. 

Emotional processes occur much faster than cognitive processes in the brain, often without conscious awareness. Therefore, human beings are more driven by emotions than most people think. Emotions provide the energy for action: E-Motions.

However, there is no scientific agreement as to what “the emotions” are, and how to distinguish these from feelings, moods, and states . Here, we use Dr. Paul Brown model, the London Protocol of Emotions using eight basic emotions. 

This model distinguishes between survival emotions (fear, anger, disgust, shame, and sadness) and attachment emotions (joy/excitement, and love/trust).

From a biological perspective, emotions are neither “positive” nor “negative”; all emotions useful.

Fear is one of the strongest emotions. Fear helped us survive over millions of years of evolution. When the brain senses a potential danger, it triggers the biological fear response: fight, flight, or freeze. This happens without conscious awareness. Fear mobilises the body within milliseconds and allocates all energy to running for your life when you were confronted with a predator during hunter-gatherer times.

In our modern lives, we experience fewer life-threatening situations than our ancestors. However, our brains have not changed much since we were hunter-gatherers. Our brains are constantly on the outlook for potential threats. Thus, if my brain perceives my boss’s (or someone else’s) voice or facial expressions as potentially dangerous (the brain tends to err on the side of caution for survival), my brain will prepare my body for the ancient fight, flight, freeze response — expressed in the corporate world through low engagement, absenteeism, or a blame culture. People try to make themselves look good, and they don’t say what they think.

The survival emotions allocate energy internally and prevent the external flow of energy required for creativity, innovation, and optimum performance. When the attachment emotions are triggered (excitement/joy, love/trust) energy flows freely, and people can utilise their full potential in pursuit of the organization’s goals.

Consequently, leaders need to avoid triggering the survival emotions, particularly fear. Instead, they need to nurture the attachment emotions. The foundation for this is trust-based relationships. Leaders need to be aware of their own emotions. They need to understand how others perceive them, e.g. through feedback and coaching.

Reflection Questions for Leaders

How aware am I of my emotions?
How do others perceive me?
How do my behaviours (including verbal and non-verbal signals) impact others?
Do I trust the people I work with, and do I believe in their potential?
Where might I come across as threatening?
How can I nurture excitement, joy, and trust?