How to Show Up When Emotion is Hot and Decisions Matter
Emotional heat tears things down.
You resent a company policy, emotional heat complains about the entire company. You don’t like a team member, you undermine. A leader disappoints, you attack.
Any fool can tear down. Leaders build up.
How to show up when emotion is hot:
Showing up to build up requires humility, intelligence, foresight, grit, relationship, and compassion.
#1. Show up to serve the best interest of others.
#2. Show up for others with awareness of yourself.
#3. Show up with compassion when emotion is hot.
Anger might be a start, but compassion crosses the finish line.
People do stupid things. Your response is about you, not them.
Call out mediocrity, inadequacy, or offense with compassion.
Confrontation combined with emotional heat is cruel.
Confrontation with compassion connects and inspires.
Without compassion, confrontation weakens relationships and complicates the path forward.
- Turn toward, not away.
- Strengthen connections between others.
- Understand and accept the quirks of team members.
- Find ways to build up instead of tear down.
Questions when emotion is high and compassion low:
- What is top of mind for you right now?
- How are your current attitude and actions serving others?
- What do you really want for your team?
A transformative question:
Compassion isn’t top of mind when emotion bubbles over. I’ve found the following question often transforms negative thinking.
What is your compassionate self telling you to do next?
How to craft a transformative question:
Ask about the “other” self, when emotion sabotages.
- When someone is fearful, ask, “What does your courageous self tell you to do next?”
- When someone is self-protective, ask, “What does your vulnerable self tell you to do next?”
- When someone is self-serving, ask, “What does your generous self tell you to do next?”
Tip: Limit action to the next step. The distant future is the enemy of immediate progress when emotion is hot.
What does compassion look like when emotion is hot and decisions matter?
Crucial Conversations (Book)
5 Ways the Most Effective Leaders Manage Their Emotions (Fast Company)
7 Inspiring Traits of Compassionate Leadership (Entrepreneur)
Turn to, not across.
Good stuff
Thanks Henry. I find turning away is too inviting. 🙂
Thank You Dan.
Very useful and wise but not always easy to practice.
The ego has a strong hold sometimes.
Thanks Margaret. So very true. In my own walk, having someone on the inner circle who can speak to ego/arrogance has been a lifesaver. Without that buffer, ego leads to anger, and anger seldom serves noble ends.
When I show up prepared verses rolling from one event to another life goes so much easier. Love the tip of next step verses “now that is fixed and I do not need to be involved anymore”. Thank you for teaching me about the importance of white space between meetings.
Thanks Scott. It’s interesting that authenticity isn’t necessarily spontaneity. Sometimes, perhaps frequently, spontaneity is our worst self, not our best. Be well!
Man, I wish the entire country could read this post right now! There is way too much emotion in play that is tearing things down…you have some great advice for all of us Dan!
Thanks Jim. One of the things in mind when writing the last three posts is the destruction of public property. It’s easy to know what we don’t want and far more challenging to build what we do want.
Ok, Dan … I will quibble on word choice yet again …
“Frustration may be the start, but empathy finishes.”
The distinction between frustration and anger lies in action, the first personal and the other unsympathetic. The first expressive, the latter righteous (in action).
The distinction between compassion and empathy lies in the struggle, the first intuitive and the other collectively rational. The first subjective, the latter objective (in terms of the struggle).
The ego is the Actor (who must make choices),
the intuitive the Gremlin (who f’s everything up), and
the rational the Sage (who doth project too much).
The Actor is the one mediating the Sage and Gremlin, because both are extremists and neither “realistic” i.e. “situationally aware.”
The point being that the ego is not inherently arrogant, it’s just between a rock (bias) and a hard place (principle).
Somebody (the Gremlin, Actor, and/or Sage) needs to decide/judge.
The Actor then acts.
No one can deliver Utopia (literally defined as “NoWhere”).
Thanks Rurbane. The person who controls definitions controls the conversation.
Your observation about ego is interesting. However, one aspect of ego is a sense of self-importance. But still, I’ll bow to your definitions.
Be well and as always, thanks for your insights.
BTW… I’ve been grappling with clarity on definition. I worked a bit on a post for tomorrow…it’s all over the place…pathetic really. But, onward and upward.
It’s not about control, sir,
It’s about influence.
I’m just the rogue circling the center and trailing behind the king whispering, “We’re all just human, all said, all done, remember.”
“It’s what happens.”
Luv ya man! You inspire!
Definition is man-made (artificial).
I’ve always been fascinated by the Janus dynamic, where words come to mean the inverse of what they originated …
Bully originally meant “Beau, protector” but now means abuser. WTF?
Ha!! I’m actually familiar with the idea. Janus being a two faced Roman god, if memory serves.
This stands out to me even more now; “People do stupid things. Your response is about you, not them. Call out mediocrity, inadequacy, or offense with compassion” I’m being continuously challenged by others both internally and externally who do not share the same work or quality passion that I do. It just seems across many platforms both within my spear of influence and outside said spear that 1) passion for work is lagging, 2) the understanding as to what hard work gains you is lacking, 3) some just don’t care at all, & 4) primary and secondary education is letting down today’s youth. That’s just my take but I’m a tired old BBBWG (big bald beautiful white guy) who’s parents and grandparents brought me up in a different way than I see evident today.
“Excellence” has come to mean “fascism.”
This I learned from my millennial son, as he worked his way through “New College,” the honors University of Florida, as a way to explain why he’d become “lazy.”
We’re still working on why and how the 60’s (self-professed Marxist) BLM (Black Liberation Movement) is distinguishable from the 20teens (self-professed Marxist) BLM (Black Lives Matter);
And thus why they would come to a different end.
Rurbane: Sadly I have to agree with you. I am fortunate that my Son (25 recent college Grad) and my Daughter (27) and Son In Law (27) do not run that way, they run like I do and in my SIL like his Father runs (a BBBWG like me).
Congrats, Roger. … You livin’ my dream. One day maybe.
Thanks BBBWG.. 🙂 … I wonder about creative ways to pursue excellence. A nurse might be driving toward excellence, but his/her empathy might result in excellence.
Having said that, I wonder about the desire to please someone in authority. We grew up with more respect for authority…Perhaps one reason we pursue excellence is we want to please people in authority. ???
Dan I think you have it narrowed down. Our family/parents etc raised us in the way they had been raised which revolved around the premise that we should have desire to please authority and therefore we grew into more respect for authority. It appears (IMHO) these days respect for authority in some spaces is dependent on whether that Authority pleases the emotional content one has and not much more?
Thanks for helpful tips on a sensitive topic. It’s so easy to react when things are hot, causing a lot of unintended damage. These are good tips to remember, mostly for taking your time and being compassionate.
I try to force myself to ask questions when I’m angry about an issue or something missed, rather than jump right in and start shooting. The questions almost always turn up new info that sheds a different light. And then I breathe a huge sigh of relief that I didn’t react harshly and tick people off.
I’m so glad to have learned this along the way, and to continue learning to reinforce it. It makes things go smoother and feels a whole lot better than from tossing blame and arrows.
Thanks Mary. It seems that curiosity is almost always a useful response when emotion is hot. Perhaps finding the humility to be curious is part of the internal battle.