Denying and hiding behind our emotions
In our last article and conversation with Mandy Hossami we explored the connection between purpose and Agile Leadership and how Agile Leadership or indeed any other form of leadership cannot drive & sustain success, without purpose. Continuing the thread of agility and leadership, this article outlines the importance of emotional agility and purpose.
To me, emotional agility is our ability to recognize and control our emotions in alignment with our principles. It requires self-awareness, self-control, mindfulness and intentionality. If you haven’t articulated your principles, the way we define them are the behaviors that put your values into action.
So, think about the values that define who you are, and put them into a sentence, for example:
Integrity: I do the right thing and follow through on what I say.
It’s the essence of your values that make up your purpose, and your principles that bring your purpose to life. Values represent the things we care about the most. They underpin some of our beliefs and things we’re passionate about. When described as principles, they provide affirmations of how we behave and show up for others, at our best.
So, in effect, principles provide a barometer against which we can gauge our emotions and put our purpose into practice.
Susan David is one of the world’s renowned authors and speakers on Emotional Agility. Her Ted Talk on emotional courage is here and well worth a watch. When I heard her interviewed again on a podcast last week, it sparked some thoughts around what she was saying its connection to purpose.
The skills Susan unpacks for folks to follow as a process to being emotionally agile are:
- Show up (be yourself)
- Step out (separate from emotions with time and space)
- Walk your why (think mindfully about your purpose & ‘so what’)
- Move on (step forward in alignment with your principles and vision)
Here’s my take on them:
1. Showing up is being true to ourselves, being authentic. We often live in denial of some of our emotions, bottling them up. I’ve done it, I’m sure you have too. This causes stress, overwhelm, negative behaviors, even sickness as it eats us up from inside out. Rather, we should embrace our emotions. While some emotions may feel good (positive) and others bad (negative), that is not really the case. They are what they are and it’s why you’re experiencing them and how you handle them, that is most important.
2. Stepping out is about separating yourself from your emotions. Taking some deep breaths while saying to yourself, “I notice I feel like XYZ” (Susan’s words). Simply by labeling your emotions you have created some space between the emotion, how it feels, and yourself. It is at this point you can fill that space by asking yourself “what is this emotion pointing me towards?”. Emotions are a compass. But in which direction is it pointing?
3. Walking our why is about being on purpose, living our purpose. It starts with understanding what is it that sits behind and drives our actions, when we’re at our best. If you haven’t articulated your purpose, just ask “what is it I’m doing when I’m at my best and making a difference?” This is where you’ll find most of the answers to inform what’s next, from your principles. In this instance, the compass is pointing down to your principles (how you show up) and purpose (the essence of me at my best). So, which of my principles is this emotion pointing me down to? Why does it make me feel this way? What should I do about it?
4. Moving on is about acting upon the last question. It’s about what we say and what we do. Having filled the space by interpreting our compass and looking down to pick our principles, we have the opportunity to be intentional about how we go forward. This is where the compass also points up. It points up to our north star. This should be your personal vision / aspirations / dreams, desired impact and focused ambitions. In our model, these represent where we’re going, the positive difference we want to make and what we’re going to achieve along the way. So, this enables us to define our actions by what matters most by weighting the thing (person, incident, experience, interaction, etc) that triggered the emotion against our end-goals. Starting with the end in mind, what action can I take now that actually moves me closer to where I want to be? That’s what matters most.
This process may only take a few seconds but by articulating it clearly and understanding it, we can make better decisions in the moment to guide actions that are aligned with our purpose and aspirations. All the seconds, and all the actions add up, to keep us on track. Practicing the process, we get better at it.
So why is emotional agility important?
It increases our self-awareness, intentionality and ability to be at our best. It’s about small decisions we can make everyday to align us to what we care about the most and advance us towards making a positive difference in the world. It’s healthy, it’s whole, it’s true. It enables us to build authentic and meaningful connections, to focus on what matters & strengthen our resilience and vitality for life. In short, it enables us to live and lead more on purpose.
If you’d like to learn more about how we help people embrace their emotions to design their purpose-based game plan please get in touch.