“Too emotional.”
Have you ever gotten feedback that you were too emotional? Or, had the fear that you were coming across as too emotional? Maybe you judged someone else for being “too emotional.”
But what does “too emotional” actually mean? We’re emotional creatures – our bodies are designed to experience emotions in response to everything. Those might be big emotions or barely perceptible ones, and we might be conscious or unconscious of what we’re feeling, but we are feeling. All of the time. So when we’re talking about someone being “too emotional,” what does that mean? That they’re just too aware and honest about what they’re feeling?
That’s what I meant. For a long time in my leadership, I felt threatened by people being too aware and honest about what they’re feeling. I think I subscribed to the idea that emotions don’t belong in the workplace. But of course, I didn’t REALLY think that. I wanted certain emotions - like joy, passion, care – in abundance. I just wanted other ones (like frustration or fear) to be out of sight, out of mind. Because those emotions don’t “help” … they’re not “productive.”
Here’s what I didn’t understand: the problem wasn’t anyone else’s emotions, the problem was that I had internalized the idea that a strong leader controls other people’s emotions. I thought that on a “good” leader’s team, people always felt “positive.” So when someone on my team felt frustrated or anxious, I couldn’t just let them feel that emotion. I took it as a sign about me, and - worse - assumed that I now had to fix or address it in some way. With that mentality, how could I not become threatened, defensive, or judgmental in response to other people’s “negative” feelings?
My journey as a leader (and a person) has been trying to let go of more and more of that control. It’s still a struggle, but what helps is that most of the time letting go of control feels good. I can breathe and just let people feel the way they feel, without deciding that because I have the title of “leader” or “facilitator” their feelings belong to me and I have to do something. Sometimes I try to support someone when I learn they are struggling, or apologize when I realize I have done something hurtful. But I try to do those things only if it’s what I feel in my heart, not out of some motivation to control other’s experiences.
It turns out that this is not just a good way to improve a leader’s mental health – it’s the way to maximize the performance of a team. Dr. Ron Friedman examined 1,100+ team members across industries to find what high performing teams do differently and found that they were significantly more likely to express their emotions – not just positive ones, but negative emotions too. Why would expressing negative emotions at work yield more positive performance? Because “the alternative is suppressing them, and suppression is cognitively expensive … the resources spent to hide the emotions from others left less mental firepower for doing the work.” Dr. Amy Edmondson found that this kind of honesty was even more critical on racially diverse teams, and that when people don’t share their true feelings and perspectives out of fear, communication issues will run even more rampant.
And there’s the ultimate irony. Emotions aren’t the problem. They’re not “counterproductive.” It’s actually the opposite – unexpressed emotions are what’s counterproductive. If we can let each other have our emotions - and NOT go around trying to fix and control them – there is so much we can learn from each other’s feelings when they are freely expressed. And it’s a virtuous cycle. When team members realize that they can share their honest feelings without it “stopping the meeting” or having everything become about them, they do it more. Then teams can start to build authentic connection, minimize blind spots, and avoid getting hijacked by the “unsaid.”
So “too emotional?” Probably not.
