Most of us have been trained to hide our true feelings and do things in spite of them for fear of appearing unprofessional. There’s certainly a need to manage our emotions so that we can be professional. But there’s also a need to experience and be conscious of our feelings so that we can be skillful, intuitive, effective leaders.

Emotions are extremely important for leaders, and there’s a learning curve to effectively harnessing one’s emotions. That process is very personal, but once a client gets a few major pieces integrated, their effectiveness as a leader can skyrocket. It’s a delight as their coach to watch that happen.

The goal isn’t to improve or change your emotions, but to learn from them from a place of awareness: What’s the emotion that’s occurring? What is this feeling telling me? And once you’ve gleaned the information you’re trying to tell yourself, only then is it time for action.

Emotion is one of the ways our mind communicates with us. It can guide us about whether a decision is sound, whether there’s a need for action and even whether other people are being honest with us. We can notice the behavior of others and ask: “Do those emotional signals match the content of their communication?”

The intensity of emotion tends to correspond with the intensity of the disappointment or challenge being faced, and there’s an obvious need to ground those “big” emotions and learn from them. But it’s equally important to become aware of more nuanced emotions. They often provide guidance that helps a leader fine tune their strategy.

Subtle uneasiness after a decision could be a signal that there’s a need to go revisit it. Uneasiness in a personal relationship may tell you there’s something necessary to communicate that may be challenging for your partner to hear. Uneasiness in your partner’s communication toward you may be a sign to pay attention to where they’re at and what they’re thinking because there’s an incongruity somewhere.

Emotional Intelligence on an Organizational Scale

When working with a board of directors or an executive team or a management team—especially through times of change—you want to be able to harvest the wisdom of the team. Smart leaders expect, even welcome, some degree of disagreement. People will have different emotional responses to the same event, and people will have different convictions about what’s important and what needs to be done. There’s something of value in each point of view.  In order for a team to fully engage, each person on that team must be able to state their own position with passion and conviction … and also listen to others with openness and a willingness to be influenced by their positions. Out of that experience of fully speaking each person’s truth (as well as listening and looking for the wisdom in everyone else), comes the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

It takes great emotional maturity to passionately believe one thing yet be able to set that aside and still listen to someone else’s passion. And from there, we move into Engaging Systems Intelligence, the topic of the next post. So, listen to what your emotions are communicating, and check back soon for details on Step 2.

For an overview, please read The Leading Spirit Success Cycle – Which Step Are You On?

A great deal has been lost in this wave of upheaval, and new opportunities will emerge as a result. But before leaders are ready to identify and embark on new endeavors, it’s essential to acknowledge that this process has been emotional. There have been lost assets, lost programs, lost staffers … and lost dreams of what businesses or organizations would become.

I think it’s natural to want to shove down all the emotion and pain and thoughts of what’s transpired. But how will you ever have the mental wherewithal to energetically and optimistically move forward without addressing those lingering feelings?

It’s helpful to come in with coaching as soon after “chaotic change” as possible. Coaching can help that grieving process happen more quickly, with less angst. The coach’s presence serves as a permission system to have emotion because those feelings actually contain important information that will help guide you from here to what’s next. The coaching and facilitation work we do can help people harness the power of that emotional experience.  You know, the term “emotional intelligence” was created for a reason.  There’s a lot of smarts in those feelings.

Leaders tend to struggle through without processing their feelings for two distinct reasons:

(1)  A lot of leaders don’t even necessarily realize how heavy-duty some of this chaotic change has been emotionally because they’re so busy right now. But once the conversations begin, it’s clear they do need to spend some time grieving in order to effectively advance.

(2)  Some leaders are afraid of getting “stuck” in negativity and stall out completely. There’s a cultural fear that if we go at all into grieving, we’ll wallow in it and never be productive again. The beauty of this work is it’s actually the opposite of getting bogged down. When you consciously and intentionally spend just a little bit of time there, it can dramatically speed up the shift. It’s more dangerous to “not go there,” because unprocessed feelings can slow you down and impact productivity-and impact your team’s productivity, as well.

With some expert support, that emotional processing can bring a great deal of relief without being the least bit ugly or messy. At Leading Spirit, we have some great tools and workshops to help people process emotion in a mature, skillful, professional way. Some people process emotion quickly, and others need more time. In either case, working with leaders is incredibly exciting. Together we begin to look for new opportunities. And when leaders begin to pursue new possibilities, they start to feel fully in charge of their destiny again.

So in Leading Spirit’s coaching and training sessions, you’re provided with a forum to look at the “how” of change, and not just the “what” of change: How do you implement change in a such a way that your organization has the best possible chance of coming out stronger, more agile and poised to take advantage of new opportunities as they arise?

Our wonderful leaders in the nonprofit world are being forced to do more with less, and they’re asking, “How?” Employees have been lost. Priorities have shifted. Long-term goals have been pushed aside in the face of immediate needs and crises. There’s a lot of anxiety in the air, and many people are understandably scared.

With better tools, more information and additional perspective, leaders can help “soothe” the system and help staff hear each other’s needs. We know from our work that there are valuable approaches and techniques leaders can take back and use with their staff and board and clients. They just often need a little support in times like these.

Coaching can also help leaders become more aware of the opportunities inherent in their challenges. Often during big and emotional changes, people dig their heels in deeper; they become even more entrenched in their current positions and mindset-just at the time it’s most important to be flexible and open. It’s easier to create necessary movement when you have a working framework and best practices from the best thinkers on the topic of organizational change.

What are the ground conditions you need to meet in order to help a system move through a change in a sustainable way? … What should you expect along the way? … What’s important for leadership to be modeling, so that the organization can be most stable?

Answers to questions like these provide a roadmap for leaders to use to build new strategies that reflect current circumstances. Through coaching and training sessions leaders get the “big picture view” of change because what’s often missing (among a million moving organizational parts) is a larger strategy for leading the change process: why they’re doing what they’re doing and how they’re unfolding change within their organization.

Right now, there are a lot of organizations scaling back in size or absorbing programs released by other organizations or contemplating mergers or shutting doors and looking for others to whom they can literally give their programs. They are laying off staff, and employees who are staying are being tasked with different or additional responsibilities.

All these events are tangible changes that can be examined and addressed. We are passionate about showing leaders how to utilize new ideas, tools and perspectives and apply them directly to your specific situation-capturing the strengths of your staff and organization in the process.