"I'm glad when things remain objective at work. When things get emotional, I always feel a little overwhelmed."

While enthusiasm for the job, commitment to the team and the company as well as contentment about success are desired or even demanded, anger, rage, sadness or helplessness remain unwelcome guests in a professional context. However, as Laloux describes in his book Reinventing Organisations, if you want employees who invest themselves in the company with their minds and hearts, the darker side of emotions cannot be cut away or suppressed. Everything is needed, and studies show that companies with a healthy conflict culture are more innovative and therefore more profitable.

When I become emotional myself...

SSomething builds up, you do not want to deal with it, which increases the pressure even more, and then the dam bursts. The resulting release of repressed emotions, also called catharsis, usually manifests itself in the form of tears, occasionally in anger, rarely in silence, and always results in momentary overwhelm. The suppressed emotions take over and often one feels ashamed for having shown oneself to be so incapable of acting in a controlled and thus professional way, when in fact an important step of cleansing is taking place and we are showing ourselves as human beings.

If you are not fortunate enough to have emotionally trained people around you, you need your own back-up plan: it is about having a moment for yourself to regain your composure. Getting up, drinking a sip of water, going out into the fresh air or simply taking a deep breath are possible options to prevent you from getting stuck in your emotions. The next step is to share the reason for your outburst with the others and reveal the associated need. Too little support from the team, resulting in frustration and subsequent venting, translates into a desire for a different distribution of tasks and a joint discussion about how to deal with overload.

Even though such an approach turns emotions into an opportunity, it is still desirable to deal with them in a more planned manner. For this reason, it is recommended to practise self-check-ins: at regular intervals, ask yourself how you feel and how you are doing. Naming your emotions out loud makes the whole process even more effective. Should you wish to go more holistic: locate the emotions in your body, describe the physical sensations, explore the associated emotions in detail, and then, breathing calmly, feel them until they dissolve. Then look for the emotion behind the emotion, e.g. the disappointment behind the anger, describe and feel it again, and continue until you reach a state of neutrality. Once you have tried this yourself, the process becomes as easy as brushing your teeth, and the anticipation of the inner peace that results becomes the motivation to take the time to do it.

When others become emotional...

When you witness an emotional moment in others, you usually feel somewhat overwhelmed or simply embarrassed, knowing how you would feel in the same situation. Accordingly, you want to get out of the situation as quickly as possible, which is why you offer advice, comment that it cannot be that bad, or try to ignore it. As a result, you feel left alone, which is why the following reaction is more helpful.

The first step is to restore your own ability to act calmly, as well as that of the person affected by the emotion. If you first share that you feel a bit overwhelmed, yourself that would be very okay, because you can afterwards focus on the other person to normalise the situation and to describe the shown emotions. Phrases such as ‘I see how this affects you, which I can understand’ or ‘it is completely normal that this makes you sad and it shows how important this issue is to you’ are helpful because they leave the responsibility for the emotions with the other person while you at the same time show understanding. 'Rescuing' the other person with phrases such as ‘that is soooooo bad, we have to help you right away’ or ‘that is unfair and should not be allowed, I will sort it out for you’ may be well-intentioned, but they leave the other person feeling helpless and therefore emotional.

After this initial stabilisation, everyone usually needs a break to take a deep breath to then do a debriefing; questions such as ‘what support do you need?’ or ‘what could help you now?’ are just as appropriate as ‘what led to this situation?’ or ‘would you like to tell us what happened to you just now?’. When doing so, it is important to focus on the issue at hand to prevent people from sinking back into their emotions and to adopt a solution- and future-oriented attitude.

It is not always possible to let go of emotions immediately, which is why such a follow-up can also be planned for later, just as support is sometimes needed in developing solutions. If you sell your own recommendations and advice as the ideas of third parties, they can be developed further by the other person without restraint or may be rejected more easily in favour of their own ideas. The debriefing is usually concluded by everyone sharing how they feel and what they have taken learnt the sequence, to make it clear that the emotions shown are an opportunity for everyone to reflect and develop further.

Would you and your team like to explore the topic of emotions? Then I have a few easy-to-implement ideas for you!

Check-in with a wheel of emotions, mood meter or emojis

Arranged as a wheel, a simple overview or in the form of emojis: during a check-in, you choose the emotional state that best describes you and explain the reasons for your choice and the needs associated with it. Alternatively, you can randomly select an emotional state and think about when you last felt that way and what it was like. This not only diversifies your emotional vocabulary, it also allows you to perceive your own emotions in an increasingly differentiated way and to understand how others really feel.

Guessing each other's feelings

With or without exaggerated emotional facial expressions, you try to guess how the other person is feeling. You can consciously choose an emotion and display it, or you can simply be yourself and listen to the observations of others.

Reflecting on how emotions are handled within the team

As part of team development or during a team meeting, you can reflect together on how emotions are handled. As an icebreaker question, you could ask how easy it is to show emotions within the team on a scale of 1 to 10. This is followed by questions such as ‘how do we feel when things get emotional?’, ‘how much emotion should there be?’ or ‘what do we need to feel really comfortable in a team?’. The resulting exchange shows where a follow-up may be needed on the topic itself or on psychological safety.