Management is a combination of technical skills and emotional skills. Achieving the right balance for our organization can be a challenge. Even more challenging is recognizing that we might have slipped into a rut from habit and emotional expediency.
I recently read a review of an intriguing new book by Richard J Davidson with Sharon Begley, entitled The Emotional Life of Our Brain. They offer a process for identifying and modifying our emotional styles.
Their list of basic emotional styles serves as a good checklist for how we are approaching management situations. By observing our own actions and reactions, we can assess whether our responses to staff and colleagues are still in line with our preferred approach.
- Resilience: recovering from adversity
- Outlook: sustaining positive emotions
- Social Intuition: picking up social clues
- Self-Awareness: bodily responses reflecting emotions
- Sensitivity to Content: emotions appropriate to social context
- Attention: clear focus
Make a note of these six emotional styles and check out your reactions in meetings and other personal encounters for about a week. Then decide on a few steps to polish your emotional style. If you need ideas on how to profoundly change, read the whole book for the science behind your potential transformation.
An interesting list - comprehensive. It's a good reminder of (or introduction to, as the case may be!) of the range of ways that emotions intersect with our work-world. Knowing the 'lay of the land' is an excellent place to start.
ReplyDeletePerhaps most of us are aware that emotions play in the workforce. Not everyone understands that we can change our emotional responses.
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