Emotional agility

The author offers us a new perspective that valorises so-called ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ emotions.

Emotional agility consists precisely in the ability to become aware of all our emotions, in order to learn to accept them and use the most appropriate strategies to better manage challenges.

Indeed, it has been shown that attempting to minimise or ignore emotions and thoughts only serves to amplify them.

Frequent clichés within the working environment state that emotions should not influence our decisions and that a leader, to be such, must be able to distance himself from feelings: the idea that managers must always show strength and transmit enthusiasm to their employees, avoiding any emotion deemed inappropriate, goes against the biology of the human being.

The motivations for all our decisions are generated by an emotional process, which we try to rationalise only after the decision has been made.

All emotions are actually adaptive responses designed to anticipate and solve problems.

Susan Davis shows us that the conflicts and problems faced by leaders arise when they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by emotions and thoughts unconsciously.

In both cases, leaders devote too much attention to their ‘internal chatter’, and thus waste important cognitive and emotional resources that could be better utilised. .

Emotional Agility helps people relieve stress, reduce errors, be more innovative, and improve work performance.

Everyone can improve their Emotional Agility through a method that allows us to apply certain tools on an ongoing basis to improve our Emotional Intelligence.

The first three steps we recommend you take are:

• Monitor your thoughts and emotions

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• Focus your attention on the “here” and “now”

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• Act in line with your values.

If you would like to learn more about this topic, we recommend you read Susan David’s book and give voice to your emotions!