Should You Bring Your Emotions to Work?

Joe Weinlick
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As a manager, it is important to have control over your emotions to maintain stability and give wise direction to others. However, bringing your emotions to work can be good or bad, depending on how you do it. Consider some of the ways that emotions can be beneficial for management and in which instances your emotions should be minimized or avoided.

Avoid Hot Topics

In the office, it is easy for workers and managers to bring up hot topics for entertainment and debate, but this can be a mistake. Avoid talking about controversial, rousing topics on the clock to ensure the atmosphere is comfortable for everyone. In the face of a topic that moves you, bringing your emotions to the table can cause an unprofessional scene. In addition, it is best to prevent office gossip around the workplace to avoid offending anyone and encourage high employee morale.

Utilize Emotional Intelligence

All great leaders are able to utilize strong emotional intelligence to become better managers and individuals. Managers who possess high emotional intelligence can become experts at negotiation, and they develop healthy business relationships and partnerships. A significant aspect of emotional intelligence is being able to control your emotions and knowing when it is the right time to display them. Knowing how to communicate effectively with others, in addition to identifying and addressing employees who are having issues at work, is another benefit of cultivating strong emotional intelligence.

Leave Baggage at Home

If you are having personal issues at home, avoid bringing your emotions to work. Chances are, if you are worrying about personal issues on the clock, your work performance will be negatively affected. An emotional boss can also be a nightmare for the employees. If you are especially disturbed by something that is happening in your private life, request some time off to regain your composure and stabilize your mind.

Inspire Others With Positive Emotions

Granting hope and encouragement to your workers is a wonderful way of bringing your emotions to work. Offer inspirational advice with a smile to radiate positivity and motivate your employees. If you sense that an employee is having a difficult time, pull the person to the side and try to cheer him up. Encourage employees to laugh when work becomes taxing to relieve work-related stress.

Never Respond in Anger

If you bring your emotions to work and release your anger, you can lose your peers' respect or even your job. Take the time to cool off and carefully devise a response before you address any situation that rattles your nerves. If you are having an issue with a worker or another manager, be sure to address the person calmly in private before the day ends to avoid a brooding situation.

Allowing your feelings to influence your actions in the proper way at the right time is excellent management. To be a successful manager, you have to think before bringing your emotions to the workplace and regulate your emotions before dealing with others.

 

Photo courtesy of iosphere at FreeDigitalPhotos.net


 

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