Step Two: Managing Emotions

     Bad days are inevitable to any human. That is why empathy and managing emotions at work are so important. if we do not manage our emotions we can experience emotional hijacking, incivility, and frustration. When we manage our emotions we can start to have difficult conversations. Its understandable to have bad days and want to react with negative emotions, but work is not a place to let it out. Expressing your frustrations at work could negatively effect other team members productivity or effect your own work performance. Both will lead to bigger consequences.

    Having emotional intelligence is easy but consistent work on it is a must. Domains to having emotional intelligence is self awareness, self management, empathy and relationship management. Each one of these domain can have specific goals to improve. For example, if a team member want to improve their self awareness could be more aware of their triggers at work or sharing to others when they are feeling overwhelmed at work. Another example could be if i wanted to improve my empathy i would work on not assuming the worst in others; as well as not trying to "rescue" others. Having emotional intelligence in essential because we learn to dissociate at work and not let our emotions hijack what we are trying to communicate. Emotional hijacking is when our emotions control our behavior and causes a reaction without thinking. Working on all the domains of emotional intelligence can improve communications between others because their is more of active listening and can learn the different communication styles of one another.

    When team members learn to manage their emotions we can start having difficult conversations without it leading to a personal conflict. The key to having a difficult conversation is to stay calm at all times. As well as embracing the conversation and disagreeing diplomatically. We want all communication between one another to be positive, but there will be times when team members disagree. It is all part of the communication process or a better work performance. The components of having a difficult conversation would be to declare your intent, listen to the their story, tell your story, and then make a shared story. This will allow both parties to understand each other and move forward. Managing emotions doesn't have to be hard and with the right communications skills having a work meetings or a difficult conversation can always give the business a positive impact.