Emotional Competence

How many times have you responded to a critical email or comment and wished that you could recall the email or retract your statement the moment after you hit send or responded? We've all reacted to situations in our business and personal lives where our emotions got the better part of our judgment.

Dealing with our emotions effectively not only helps prevent making bad decisions, but also can help assure that we make better ones. When we are anxious, not confident, embarrassed, fearful of a task, meeting or potential confrontation, we tend to become defensive and subsequently are unwilling to challenge someone or speak our minds. How can you keep emotions in check? Social Scientist and New York Times best selling author Joseph Grenny offers some practices that you just may want to explore.

The first is to own your emotion. Grenny says that you can't change an emotion you don't own. If you are insulted or your professional competence is questioned, it's okay to accept that you are angry or embarrassed. Most emotional reactions are caused by an incident or event. It's not the event that should be the focus on your response, but instead your role in the event.

Emotions are the result of both the event and the story you subsequently tell yourself about what happened. Grenny gives each of the stories a name. A villain story is one that exaggerates the faults of others and attributes what's happened to evil motives. A helpless story, on the other hand, is one in which it does no good to respond. When we are challenged, we often focus on how the person causing the emotional reaction was wrong.  Instead, it is often better to look through the lens of the accuser and assess what is actually correct about what they are saying. If someone is critical of you, ask yourself, what is the right thing to do? When you ask questions, you move from a defensive posture to one actually working towards a resolution.