The Emotional Side of Leadership

1
The Emotional Side of Leadership

• Rick Ginsberg, Ph.D.
• University of Kansas

2
Being Boss Is Hard!

• I think this is the most miserable part of being
  the managing director of a growing company. One
  by one I had to replace our earliest
  supporters.It is a process which is inevitable
  in a growing business and which takes much of the
  fun out of it, so that after a few years of
  sacking ones old friends one grows to feel that
  success may not be such a good thing after all,
  that possibly there may be other, less sorry ways
  of earning a living in this world. When success
  ultimately came to Airspeed, I was ready to leave
  the company, having come to the conclusion that I
  didnt much like my job.
• Nevil Shute, Slide Rule

3
A Bad Night

• I cant believe it. Another Sunday night and I
  cant fall asleep. I must have been tossing and
  turning for five hours. How many stupid sheep do
  I have to count! Lets see, if I fall asleep now
  I can get in three hours before rushing to my
  first meeting. Darn, I hate nights like this.
  Its just that horrible meeting I had with the
  staff last week. Everyone left so angry at me.
  Geez, I should have gone along with the boss
  suggestion and selectively fired peoplethen they
  would really have gone ballistic. No, I went out
  of my way to protect everyone. What am I going
  to do? Ive got to get some sleep.

4
Were Just Regular People

• The leader is just another individual.They put
  their pants on just like the rest of us do. They
  have both good and bad traits. From time to
  time, when things are going badly, their old
  character traits slip through and they become
  irritable, angry, irrational and capricious.
  They behave in immature ways. They exhibit
  traits that amaze us and we say, I always
  thought of him/her as a leader! Whats going on?
  They disappoint us.
• From Richard C. Maddock and Richard L. Fulton,
  Motivation, Emotions, and Leadership

5
The Sleep Test Revisited

• responsible people sometimes lie awake at night
  precisely because they have done the right thing
  (authors emphasis). They understand that their
  decisions have real consequences, that success is
  not guaranteed, and that they will be held
  accountable for their decisions. They also
  understand that acting honorably and decently
  can, in some circumstances, complicate or damage
  a persons career. In short, if people like
  Hitler sometimes sleep well and if people like
  Mother Teresa sometimes sleep badly, we can place
  little faith in simple sleep-test ethics
• Joseph Badarocco, from Defining Moments When
  Managers Must Choose between Right and Right

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The Unforeseen Reaction

• From Steve Brown Sent Friday, July 25, 2008
• To Ginsberg, Rick Subject Radio program
• Mr. Ginsberg,
• Hearing you on the radio this morning it became
  clear to me why our education system is in such a
  mess.
• With idiots like you running the school of
  education at one of our major universities one
  can understand why our
• young peoples minds have been lost.
• Not only the minds of young college students but
  also the minds of the children they are then sent
  out to guide
• armed with the corrupt waste of money you have
  brain washed them with.
• I laughed when you went on your spiel of why only
  teachers should be teachers. What a joke!
  Trying to
• compare it to the careers of professionals who
  make life and death decisions everyday. I have
  never taken an
• education class or taught a day of school in my
  life, but am sure I could give a classroom full
  of young minds a
• lot more in one day toward the rest of their
  lives than you the esteemed and honorable dean
  of education at
• the University of Kansas could give them. Im
  sure you would spend your day bashing
  conservatives and
• painting an evil picture of this country.

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The Simple Test Question
8
The Square Game
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The Agony of Decision Making

• As anyone who has lived in the southeast United
  States knows, hurricanes are circular structures
  around an eerily calm eye. As a hurricane passes
  through, we experience the storm, then the calm,
  and then the storm again. I write this account
  from the eye of the hurricane.
• - a President of a Community College

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The Human Toll

• You know, as much as I hated making cuts and
  dismissing people who were good at what they did,
  I got a weird sense of satisfaction and pleasure
  watching my boss face as he let me go. He was
  squirming in his chair as much as I used to when
  performing the same task. We both agreed that the
  company culture had changed, and he shared that
  letting me go was the most excruciating task he
  had ever undertaken. I absolutely knew what he
  was feeling.
• A Business Executive

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Human Toll, 2

• For me, I was in a state of higher anxiety. I
  knew I had started a process that was now beyond
  my power to stop. I bore the responsibility but
  none of the control. I took long walks at night
  to try to unwind and sleep. I couldnt confide
  in anyone on campus, and I was too new to the
  state to have established a support network among
  the other community college presidents. I
  remember being gripped by my own fears for
  faculty who would have to be released, for their
  families, for the colleges community image, and
  in all honesty, for my own professional position.
  Could I, would I be made the scapegoat for this
  problem?
• A Community College President

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Showing the Right Face

• There is no question that I felt great grief
  during this situation, but a president must find
  private time for these emotionsin this
  situation, one must steel oneself, because you
  must act on behalf of others, making sure of
  their well being and safety. You cannot do this
  if you abdicate your leadership by indulging your
  emotions. If and when you decide to fall apart,
  you must do it someplace else, and later on.
  People need to know that whoever the leader is,
  he or she is operating from a position of
  strength. When they lose that confidence, where
  can they turn? So I think the leader must be
  steadfast, must be strong.
• A Business Executive

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Extra Grace Required

• I work really hard to make Ed happy. I give him
  what he wants, am always fair and cordial even
  when he is nasty and passive aggressive nothing
  seems to make a difference. He still undermines
  me at every turn. I cant please him I cant
  control him and I am at wits-end trying to
  figure out what to do next. It literally is
  driving me crazy. I know it bothers me more than
  it should. All too often I find myself playing
  back our interactions. I keep wondering if I
  should have said something differently. I just
  dont get it. If I ever say anything about him
  to anyone else they look at me like Im crazy.
  Ed, you must just misunderstand him. Hes a
  great guy. But hes not. Hes a jerk, he
  doesnt treat people very nicely whom he sees as
  his inferiors, and hes a drain on me and the
  department. Everyone else is clueless about how
  this guy acts and how destructive he is being. I
  just cant seem to let it go.
• A University Administrator

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Coping

• Youve got to have a thick skin.
• a small business owner

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Coping Three Themes

• Order Out of Chaos
• Learning personal growth even from intense
  emotional struggles
• 2. Communication and Strategizing as Keys
• Be as open as possible
• 3. Follow Your Heart
• Do whats right

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Planning For An Emotional Future

• I cant go through anything like this again.
  Ive got to figure out a better way to deal with
  these gut-wrenching situations
• A University Administrator
• Emotions are important. They are relevant to our
  everyday lives They are not merely vestiges of
  our evolutionary past, like our wisdom teeth or
  appendix. Nonetheless, for all the importance of
  emotions, they receive so little attention in our
  formal education that we are woefully inadequate
  when it comes to understanding or dealing with
  them.
• David R. Caruso and Peter Salovey, The
  Emotionally Intelligent Manager

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Emotional Planning

• Emotional Regulation
• Emotional Competence
• Emotional Awareness
• Emotional Blueprint

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Lessons Learned

• Accept That Leadership Involves Emotional
  Experiences
• Be Prepared!!
• Take Care of Yourself
• Become Emotionally Sensitive to Others
• Be Aware of Emotional Potholes
• Be Willing to Change

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Lessons Learned, II

• Own Your Expressions
• Dont Panic
• Be Persistent
• Become Emotionally Aware
• Learn to Regulate Your Emotions
• Develop Your Emotional Plan