Posts
The Emotional Minefield: Why Managing Your Emotions at Work Isn't About Being a Robot
Related Reading:
Here's something that'll ruffle a few feathers: emotional intelligence training is mostly garbage. Not because emotions don't matter at work – they absolutely do – but because most of what passes for "EQ development" these days treats humans like malfunctioning computers that need a software update.
I've been running workplace training programs across Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth for the better part of two decades, and I can tell you this much: the people who bang on about "leaving emotions at the door" have never actually managed a team through a proper crisis. Or dealt with Sarah from Accounts when she's having her third meltdown this month because the new system keeps crashing.
The Real Problem With Workplace Emotions
The issue isn't that people have emotions at work. The issue is that we've created workplaces where having normal human reactions is treated like a character flaw.
Take last month – I was consulting with a manufacturing company in Adelaide where the floor manager was losing his mind because one of his best operators broke down crying during a team meeting. The manager's solution? Send him home and dock his pay. Brilliant strategy there, mate.
Here's what really happened: the operator's wife had just been diagnosed with cancer, they'd received a redundancy notice that morning, and the meeting was about "optimising headcount." But instead of recognising this as a human being under extraordinary stress, management saw it as "unprofessional behaviour."
This is exactly the backwards thinking that's killing Australian workplaces.
Why Emotional Suppression Backfires Spectacularly
I used to be one of those idiots who thought emotions were weakness. Spent five years in corporate consulting believing that the best teams were the ones where everyone kept their feelings locked away tighter than Fort Knox.
Wrong. Spectacularly wrong.
What I discovered – through some fairly expensive mistakes, I'll admit – is that suppressed emotions don't disappear. They go underground and resurface as passive aggression, sick days, mysterious "personality conflicts," and the kind of workplace toxicity that makes good people quit without warning.
The research backs this up, though most managers ignore it. Teams that acknowledge and properly manage emotional dynamics consistently outperform their "professional" counterparts by roughly 35% on productivity measures. Not because they're having group therapy sessions, but because they're not wasting mental energy pretending to be robots.
The Australian Way: Practical Emotional Management
Now, before you think I'm suggesting we all start having feelings circles and crying into our flat whites, let me be clear. This isn't about turning your office into a counselling centre.
It's about basic human decency mixed with smart business practice.
First thing: stop pretending emotions don't exist. When someone's clearly struggling, acknowledge it. "You seem pretty stressed about this project – what's going on?" works better than pretending everything's fine while watching productivity plummet.
Second: set actual boundaries instead of fake ones. "Leave your emotions at home" is meaningless. "We deal with problems here, not drama" is actionable. Big difference.
The mining companies get this right, interestingly enough. BHP and Rio Tinto have some of the most sophisticated emotional wellness programs in the country because they know that stressed, angry, or distracted workers in their environments can literally kill people. The rest of us could learn from this.
The Conversation Skills Nobody Teaches
Here's where most emotional intelligence training falls apart – it focuses on identifying emotions instead of managing conversations about them.
Knowing that Steve is frustrated doesn't help if you don't know how to have a productive conversation with Frustrated Steve. And trust me, after fifteen years of dealing with Frustrated Steves across every industry imaginable, the skill is in the conversation, not the diagnosis.
The best managers I know use what I call "practical acknowledgement." They don't psychoanalyse or try to fix people's feelings. They acknowledge what's happening and redirect toward solutions.
"I can see this deadline is causing you stress. Let's talk about what support you need to get it done."
Not: "You seem stressed. How does that make you feel?"
See the difference? One moves forward, one gets stuck in feeling-land.
But here's the thing most leadership books won't tell you: sometimes people just need to vent. Sometimes the solution is listening for three minutes while they get it out of their system. The trick is knowing when that's what's needed versus when action is required.
When Emotions Actually Help Your Business
Controversial opinion incoming: passionate disagreement is often more valuable than polite consensus.
I've watched too many teams make terrible decisions because everyone was too "professional" to express their real concerns. The accountant who's worried about cash flow but doesn't want to be "negative." The operations manager who thinks the timeline is impossible but doesn't want to seem "difficult."
These are emotions – worry, concern, frustration – and they often contain crucial business intelligence.
The companies that really excel at this create space for what I call "constructive conflict." They want people to speak up when something feels wrong, even if they can't articulate exactly why. Especially if they can't articulate exactly why.
Gut instinct and emotional reactions often spot problems before the spreadsheets do.
The Gender Factor Nobody Talks About
Let's address the elephant in the room: we respond differently to emotional expression depending on who's doing the expressing.
When a male executive gets passionate about a project, he's "driven" and "committed." When a female manager shows the same level of intensity, she's "emotional" and needs to "calm down." This double standard is not just unfair – it's economically stupid.
I've seen brilliant women leave companies because their natural communication style was constantly policed while their male colleagues' identical behaviour was praised. These companies lost talent they couldn't afford to lose because of unconscious bias around emotional expression.
The solution isn't complicated: apply the same standards to everyone. If passion is good, it's good regardless of gender. If emotional outbursts are unprofessional, they're unprofessional regardless of who's having them.
The Technology Trap
Here's something that's making emotional management harder: we're losing basic human interaction skills.
Teams that communicate primarily through Slack, email, and video calls miss about 60% of emotional context. You can't read someone's stress level through a project management tool update. You can't catch brewing frustration in a quick Teams message.
This is why the fully remote companies that work well are obsessive about creating opportunities for real conversation. Not just status updates – actual dialogue where people can express concerns, share ideas, and yes, occasionally get a bit worked up about things that matter.
The ones that fail treat their teams like a collection of task-completing algorithms.
Getting Started: Three Things You Can Do Monday
Stop waiting for the perfect emotional intelligence framework. Start with practical changes:
Listen for emotional content in regular conversations. When someone says "I think we should postpone the launch," they might really be saying "I'm worried we're not ready and I don't want my reputation damaged." Address the underlying concern, not just the surface request.
Create specific times for concerns. Don't wait for problems to explode. Weekly "what's worrying you?" conversations catch issues early. Make it clear this isn't therapy – it's business intelligence gathering.
Model the behaviour you want. If you want people to be honest about challenges, be honest about yours. "I'm frustrated with how this vendor relationship is going" gives others permission to share their concerns too.
The Bottom Line
Managing emotions at work isn't about becoming everyone's therapist or creating a consequence-free environment where feelings trump results. It's about recognising that emotions contain information, and that information can help you make better business decisions.
The workplaces that get this right aren't necessarily the happiest – they're the most effective. People know they can raise concerns without being labelled as problems. Problems get solved before they become crises. Teams perform better because they're not burning energy on pretending everything's fine when it's not.
And frankly, in a job market where good people have choices, creating an environment where humans can be human isn't just nice to have. It's competitive advantage.
Further Resources: