Emotions get a bad rap, especially in business.
As leaders, we are often told to leave our emotions at the door and act and think rationally. People also view leaders who show emotion as weak and poor decision-makers.
Yet clear, present and rational thinking requires leaders who can tap into and navigate their full range of emotions.
In a world that pushes leaders to be strong, decisive, rational and relentlessly positive, by either ignoring their emotions or focusing only on positive emotions, Dr. Susan David, author of Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life, offers an alternative.
Grounded in science, David’s approach helps you tap into one of your most powerful navigation systems for dealing with life’s challenges.
Emotional Agility is the next in my series, 10 Books Every Change Leader Needs to Read. Here are four key takeaways from the book that can help you lead and navigate change.
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What is Emotional Agility?
I have advocated the value of emergent and participative organizational change for over two decades.
It’s the foundation for our Readiness Mindset® System: a flexible, science-based approach and methodology that develops and adapts to the readiness of the people who must make the change journey.
Susan’s concept of emotional Agility is similar. It’s not one-size-fits-all.
Emotional Agility is the ability to let go, take control, navigate and respond to thoughts, beliefs, feelings and stories in a way that enables you to make choices that support your health and well-being.
As Susan states, “Being emotionally agile means being sensitive to context and responding to the world as it is right now.”
She reminds us that although our emotions are important and necessary to navigate the world, we are not our emotions.
Simply shifting our language from “I am…” to “I feel…” and exploring the feeling helps us take back control, with more information to guide our response.
Susan contrasts this with emotional rigidity. Emotional rigidity occurs when thoughts, feelings and behaviours that don’t serve us control our behaviour and responses.
Emotional Agility is Not Just Thinking Positively
Emotional Agility is not just thinking positively. It’s about using one of your most potent systems to respond and interact with your world.
So, what does practicing emotional Agility look like?
For example, how do you avoid feeling overwhelmed and anxious when your organization announces another change, and you’re still trying to figure out the last one?
Or how do you avoid reacting to an email from your direct report that questions your decision and seems to be “resisting” change?
That’s what makes this book so powerful. Susan David outlines practical, science-based strategies and examples for practicing emotional Agility.
Four Takeaways for Practicing Emotional Agility
I took away a lot from this book. Here are four that particularly resonated with me because they can help you lead and navigate change more confidently.
1. Acknowledge Rather Than Ignore Your Emotions
It’s easy, and as a leader, you may have received the message to remove emotion from the decisions and your interactions.
Yet we can’t and don’t make rational decisions without engaging our emotions.
Susan states that your emotions are neurochemical systems that help you navigate life’s complex currents. They are your body’s immediate physical responses to vital signals from the outside world. Emotions are your brain and nervous system’s means of telling you something is different: pay attention.
Emotions are neither good nor bad.
Anger, sadness, anxiety, guilt and fear are as crucial to our health and well-being as emotions such as happiness, love and courage.
The power of emotional Agility is its ability to enable us to navigate our emotions. You can recognize when you are hooked and quickly unhook yourself from unhelpful thoughts and stories.
2. Recognize When You’re Hooked
It’s amazing how quickly we can get hooked by our emotions.
As Susan David writes, “We get hooked the minute we accept thoughts as facts.”
Thoughts are not facts.
Our brains are designed to draw on all our senses quickly, without hesitation, at the slightest hint of threat.
This response worked well in prehistoric times and can still serve us in some situations today. For example, sensing a shadow while walking along a path, identifying it as a bear and responding immediately by backing away quietly before it sees you. However, in today’s world, it can and often is easily misinterpreted.
Minor annoyances or missteps may seem like major threats, causing us to get hooked and respond automatically. This can make the situation worse, not better.
Susan describes how easily we can turn simple facts into unhelpful, even destructive opinions that keep us stuck.
To demonstrate, she suggests a simple exercise. Free associate with these prompts, one at a time:
- Your mobile phone…
- Your in-laws…
- Your house…
- Your job…
As you free associate, notice how quickly your associations become comparisons, opinions, judgments or worries rather than facts.
When I did the exercise, I noticed that “my mobile phone…” shifted from simply a communication device to a distraction, then to a commentary on my inability to focus.
Common Hooks
Susan identifies four common hooks that trap us and limit our ability to respond. Two common ones often seen during change are:
1. Thought blaming. This occurs when you let your thoughts dictate your actions and then blame the thoughts.
For example: “You thought your supervisor was angry with you, so you avoided him.”
The thought drove the behaviour, even if you never verified it.
2. Clinging to old beliefs or behaviours that worked in the past but don’t fit the current situation.
I worked with a CEO who was frustrated that her executive team wouldn’t make decisions, even though they had the authority.
As we unpacked it, she realized they were still operating from beliefs shaped by the previous CEO, someone who discouraged independent thinking and publicly criticized dissent.
Unhooking is possible when you know how to use your emotional response system.
As Susan describes, you can use your emotions instead of them using you only when you accept yourself and your full range of emotions, reclaim your story, and practice self-compassion.
Develop the Vocabulary to Navigate Your Emotions
This perspective gives you the ability to choose.
Susan states, “When you are emotionally agile, you don’t waste time wrestling with your impulses. You simply make choices that align with your values.”
To do this, you need a vocabulary to talk about your emotions.
Unfortunately, because many leaders have learned not to bring emotion into their leadership practice, you may not have the vocabulary to describe your emotions.
One example: consider the phrase “I’m stressed.” This phrase is often used to describe a range of emotions, from anger or sadness to the frustration of someone cutting in front of you in line at the coffee shop.
When you can label your emotions with precise vocabulary, you’re better positioned to navigate the situation.
For example, “I am stressed” becomes, “I am feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work.”
3. Walk Your Why
Walking your why means aligning your life with your personal values, not what you think you should value or what others want or expect you to value.
This is similar to abiding by the Law of Change. It simply states that the need for change must be internalized before anyone can begin the change process.
4. Small Tweaks Can Have a Dramatic Impact
Finally, practicing emotional Agility doesn’t need to be overwhelming.
Small adjustments in your response can make a difference. For example, getting curious, asking questions, noticing your thought patterns, exploring habits and challenging beliefs in small ways can have a dramatic impact.
I practice and coach my clients on the power of the pause.
Take a short two- to five-second pause before responding to a situation. Just that tiny amount of time is enough to respond instead of react.
Using Emotional Agility to Navigate Change
Emotional Agility teaches us that when we embrace our full emotional experience and connect with the present and with our values, we can navigate life’s challenges with resilience, strength and courage.
If you’d like to create an organization with employees and leaders who can use their emotions to foster growth and readiness for change, schedule a Change Strategy Call with me today.
