How leaders transform their emotions into assets for making decisions and fully embodying them

The knowledge developed around emotional intelligence (1) is becoming increasingly widespread in the professional world, and that's excellent news.

The EDHEC Leadership Development Chair integrated emotional intelligence modules into the school's programmes over 15 years ago, making EDHEC the first business school in France to offer this teaching. Today, the ‘Emotional intelligence for leaders’ course is as essential as the traditional hard skills in the curriculum, and even though it can be confronting for students, they recognise its importance.

But why is emotional intelligence so crucial? Quite simply because it lies at the heart of two fundamental functions for a leader (2): making decisions and embodying them.

Emotions: insights for action

All leadership begins with an intention. Above all, a leader must want something and have a clear vision of that intention. The more the leaders can define their intention for themselves, the more they will be able to communicate it clearly and inspiringly to the outside world (3).

This is where emotional intelligence comes into play, much more than we think, by offering us a genuine intuition for action, as Damasio pointed out in 1994 (4). By expressing themselves through signals from our bodies, emotions help us to make choices; they are essential for making decisions without analysing everything (5), and show that reason and emotion work together rather than separately, contrary to the most widespread representations.

Emotions are like signposts on the road: they signal a direction, an action to take or to avoid. Being connected to your emotions means being able to act more intelligently and correctly (6).

Let's remind ourselves how knowledge of our 4 basic emotions (7) - anger, fear, sadness and joy - is essential if we are to assert authentic leadership. Beware, this reminder challenges many of our beliefs, particularly concerning the first 3 emotions, which are often considered negative, to the extent that our education has suggested strategies for getting round them. What follows is an in-depth review of our paradigm.

1. Anger: an energy for self-affirmation and transformation

Let's start with anger, often perceived as a lack of self-control. This emotion informs us that something does not satisfy us or no longer corresponds to our values or expectations. It could be an organisation, a way of doing things, a way of behaving...

With the energy provided by anger, we'll be able to carry out all the managerial actions that begin with ‘RE’: reframe, refocus, reclarify, reorganise, put things back in order, but also set limits, say NO or STOP to things that no longer suit us or seem unacceptable.

Making an alliance with this emotion will enable the leader to use it to help transform his environment, based on his values. The main function of anger is therefore change and transformation. We're talking here about using healthy anger, and this anger acts as a backbone, providing the leader's discourse and actions with the determination needed to inspire confidence, security and legitimacy. With it, the leader says ‘I want .... I'm waiting ....or I need ...to do this from now on’. It is clear that without this genuine energy for change and transformation, the new direction to be followed is neither clear nor integrated.

We've asked thousands of people about the impact on them of a manager who doesn't have the ‘anger button’. The answers are clear-cut: they lack consistency, they're soft, they're not clear about what they want, and that creates insecurity; more seriously, they're not assertive and don't seem very legitimate.

In general, what makes us fear anger is no longer anger but its counter-productive version : aggression. Aggression occurs when anger signals (first physical, then cognitive) have not been heard or have been avoided. As the need for change is always present, it will manifest itself in an increasingly untimely manner, transforming the leader into an aggressive and angry person, ultimately rendered ‘stupid and powerless’ because deprived of his emotional intelligence. In our leadership development training courses, we regularly ‘re-educate’ learners in anger, particularly those who have difficulty asserting their legitimacy.

2. Fear, an energy source for safety

Another emotion abhorred by the managerial world is fear, synonymous with cowardice or weakness. Yet fear has been registered deep down in our being since time immemorial as a signal of potential danger, with the key intuitions for action being to flee, freeze or fight.

In our modern world, fear remains a protective energy and tells us that something needs to be made safe. What might that be for a leader? The list is very long: the reputation of his company, a brand, data, employability, the psychological and physical safety of his teams, a network, his own legitimacy... and let's not forget: his health. Indeed, the first responsibility of a leader is to stay in good health. If you don't listen to your fatigue signals, if you don't fear for your health, you're putting yourself at risk! Yetin the West, we live in a society that has taught us to disconnect from our bodies to the point where we no longer feel the signs of exhaustion, for example.

What do employees say when faced with a manager who doesn't have the ‘fear button’? Not that he lacks courage, but on the contrary.... that he scares them. Indeed, the absence of fear in a decision-maker leads him to ignore weak signals, not to share his doubts and concerns and potentially to take ill-considered decisions on his own. Thanks to their fear signals, leaders anticipate different scenarios, take advice, prevent risks, train their staff and prepare themselves.

One of the beliefs still widely held in the management world is that a manager should not show his fear. But it's not a question of showing fear, but of using it as a signal to guard against a risk. By sharing their fears, a person is not paralysing the others but, on the contrary, is empowering them by proposing that they share the risk and work together to develop strategies to deal with it.

On the other hand, if you ignore your fear, you run the risk of it turning into a version of anxiety, anguish or even panic that has become unmanageable; those counter-productive states where you don't even know what you're afraid of any more... or where you're afraid of being afraid!

The debate on managerial courage (8) that took place around ten years ago has not helped to clarify matters, quite the contrary. It helped to reinforce the image of courage as the absence of fear. And yet courage means doing things with heart (cos, coris in Latin) but above all by taking calculated risks, as extreme adventurers regularly demonstrate. But no, the leader, hero or superman (rarely a woman) still has to distinguish himself by representing fear as a weakness. Case studies have shown that bilateral lesions of the amygdala can result in an absence of fear, exposing individuals to dangers without them being aware of it. In other words, without the fear button, an individual runs the risk of dying more quickly!

3. Sadness, an energy for personal transition and capitalising on experience

If anger and fear seem already incompatible with the idea of leadership in business, what about sadness?

Sadness connects us to loss and lack. The intensity of this emotion is proportional to our attachment to what we are losing.

This emotion arises when we experience the ‘irreversibility of the loss’: in other words, when we realise (not just cognitively) that something is definitively over.

In the most painful cases, it is the loss of a person, but there are many situations throughout our lives where we lose: a job, a position, a state, a status, a title, a link or a relationship, not forgetting projects, hopes, etc. In these latter cases, we are grieving illusions, and these have impacts that we would be wrong to ignore. Often a loss can be broken down into several griefs at the same time, which means that the person needs time to ‘digest’ the change.

The function of sadness is therefore that of separation and acceptance. It signals to the person that an important change is taking place within them. If this message is not received, then the person is in denial, stuck in a world that no longer exists. This prevents them from ‘mourning’ (the psychological translation of sadness)* and gradually opening up to a new phase. Sadness plays an essential role in this.

Whereas anger, with its high energy level, is an energy for external change (transformation), sadness marks an internal change, a transition, and takes place with a low energy level, a downturn that does little for companies. Why does sadness bring us to a standstill anyway?

For a very good reason: to say goodbye. So how do we say goodbye in our human societies? By remembering, by recalling the list of significant events, by re-elaborating them in order to better understand or analyse them, by celebrating them through rituals, and so on. These are all processes that are absolutely essential if we are then to open up fully to the next chapter.

In the context of leadership, it's the energy that enables us to say goodbye to projects in which we've already invested a lot of money by acknowledging or accepting that they've failed, in other words, that we've given up on achieving certain objectives. At this point, sadness allows for a time of empathic sharing, when the failure is ‘digested’ collectively, a low-energy moment when we take the time to look at and understand why we've reached this point. Learning, which involves letting go of certain beliefs, or capitalising on experience, are based on this emotion of sadness.

In management, there are many illusions that people go through: that of the ideal or perfect manager; that of the ideal employee; that of benefiting from unconditional managerial support; that of the promise of a job; that of achieving one's initial aspirations (9).... Putting these moments into words, and being able to share them with others - because sadness is also the emotion of authentic connection and enables empathy: these are all virtuous processes that help an individual to move forward on his or her development path. Hence the usefulness for management of seeing this emotion as being just as much at the service of life as the previous ones.

Finally, sadness is also the resource that allows us to give, ask for or receive support and consolation. People who, at the end of their careers, express surprise at never having received support at work are often people who never showed any inclination to receive it, because sadness was so impossible for them.

* Personally, I prefer to speak of ‘writing a story inside oneself’ rather than ‘mourning’, which indicates that something has ended.

4. Joy, an energy to bring to life and inspire

An emotion which a priori causes us fewer problems because it has a positive image, but what use is joy to us? When this emotion enters our bodies, it connects us to our vital energy and makes us feel fully alive. And that's what it's there for: to spread life energy is to give desire, to give life, to undertake.

Joy is an energy that enables us to convey what we deeply believe in. With it, we can convince others to follow us by communicating our optimism, our faith in the future and our confidence in our own skills and those of others (‘Yes, we can’). Joy is also an energy that can be celebrated, thanked, congratulated, congratulated oneself, expressed with pride, celebrated, motivated, adhered to, given meaning, encouraged, inspired to change...a real fuel for management.

When it's present in us, let's not hesitate to take advantage of its communicative energy and powerfully convey a message that should inspire desire.

The dangers of emotional repression: ‘what you resist persists’

When we talk in everyday language about ‘managing’ our emotions, it is often with the intention of preventing them from manifesting themselves. But emotions that are ignored or repressed end up being expressed in a roundabout way, often to the detriment of the person and those around them.

Psychologists confirm that strategies to control or attenuate emotions are ineffective. If emotions are not accepted through the ‘front door’ of our human intelligence, they will impose themselves through unpredictable ‘windows’, with potentially harmful consequences.

Emotional intelligence offers us assistance that we can finally decide to use wisely.

Emotional intelligence training: a key learning process

Relying on your emotions is a learning process (10). Reconnecting with her or his intuitive potential, particularly those often labelled as negative, is a demanding but essential step for any leader, all the more so when dealing with the assistance offered by the arrival of A.I., which although it can analyse emotional data, does not have the innate ability to feel or understand human emotions in an authentic way.

At EDHEC, we support each individual in developing their ability to listen, understand and mobilise their emotions to express their leadership where they need it. Intelligences are not mutually exclusive, but it is by relying on emotional intelligence that each person will be able to fully embody his or her decision vis-à-vis the outside world, as it is based on an alignment between the cognitive, affective and physical.

References

(1) Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. Bloomsbury Publishing - https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/emotional-intelligence-9781408806203/

(2) Boyatzis, R. E., Goleman, D., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press - https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2002-00650-000

(3) Korbi Masmoudi, K. (2020). La conduite du changement stratégique : Rôle du leadership. Recherches en Sciences de Gestion, (136), 97-112 - https://doi.org/10.3917/resg.136.0097

(4) Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. Penguin Books - Odile Jacob - https://en.odilejacob.fr/catalogue/science/neuroscience/descartes-error-emotion-reason-and-the-human-brain_9782738117137.php

(5) Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271-299 - https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271

(6) Le Doux, J. E. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. Simon & Schuster - https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1996-98824-000

(7) Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition & Emotion, 6(3-4), 169-200 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02699939208411068

(8) Par pitié, arrêtons avec le "courage managérial" ! - Sylvie Deffayet Davrout. La Tribune. https://www.latribune.fr/opinions/tribunes/20140403trib000823480/par-pitie-arretons-avec-le-courage-managerial-.html

(9) Bien digérer un départ pour un leadership sans aigreurs - Sylvie Deffayet Davrout. Forbes. https://www.forbes.fr/management/bien-digerer-un-depart-pour-un-leadership-sans-aigreurs/

(10) Pour en savoir plus sur les formations proposées par la chaire : https://www.calameo.com/read/0072949682ed4392c8010