Mastering the Art of Emotion Regulation in the Workplace

A flight attendant smiles when asking an airline passenger to close his tray table before landing. The passenger has not finished his drink and says, “I’ll close it in a minute.” The flight attendant, growing frustrated but staying calm, repeats her request with the same politeness as before.

She’s had this same exchange a hundred times. She knows that when she keeps her cool, the situation usually ends without incident. She also knows that if she shows her true frustration, it can get ugly and sometimes even unsafe for her and the passengers around her.

The flight attendant is just doing her job.

Psychologists call this part of her job emotion regulation.

Emotion regulation refers to any action that a person takes to change what emotion they experience or how intensely they experience an emotion. Sometimes, we regulate our emotions to ensure that our feelings appropriately match a social situation. Other times, we display an emotion that’s different from what we feel to influence someone to do something.

Emotion regulation requires significant self-awareness and often conscious effort, but it is worth the effort. People who can control their emotions and emotional impulses tend to have better social interactions and more success at work.

But wait, can we actually change how we feel?

Some people are better at regulating their felt emotions—the emotions we truly feel—than others, but it is a skill that we can develop. There are four strategies to regulate your felt emotions at work:

1. Engage in activities that elicit the desired emotion. For instance, scheduling time for mindfulness or a post-meeting walk can foster tranquility.
2. Take control of the situation to prevent undesired emotions. Setting a clear agenda for meetings, for example, can minimize frustration from unproductive discussions.
3. Redirect focus to mitigate the impact of negative emotions. Techniques include meditation, deep breathing, or shifting attention to neutral or positive thoughts, such as thinking about today’s lunch or tomorrow’s workout.
4. Reframe the emotional experience and reinterpret the situation. To reframe nervousness, for example, say “The adrenaline I’m feeling before this presentation will help me focus”. This can transform anxiety into excitement or reduce the intensity of stress by putting the situation into perspective.

When we can’t change how we feel, we can control how we show our emotions.

Only we know how we truly feel. We alone experience our internal emotional cues, like racing thoughts, heart rate, or sweaty palms.

Our coworkers, however, perceive our emotions through external clues like facial expressions, body language, and vocal tone.

The ability to manage the outward display of emotions helps us achieve our professional goals. It involves:

1. Understanding the Discrepancy in Perception: Recognizing that colleagues often cannot accurately gauge our internal emotions based on external cues.
2. Leveraging Nonverbal Cues: Use facial expressions, body language, and vocal tone to convey the appropriate emotions for a given situation, regardless of the actual feelings being experienced.
3. Maintaining Professional Composure: In scenarios where internal emotions may be intense or unhelpful—such as delivering critical feedback to an employee after they made a mistake—using a calm and composed demeanor garners trust and helps others to more easily listen.

Emotion regulation is a soft skill that can be developed with practice and intention. By employing the outlined strategies, you can do your job and lead better.

Try out one of these strategies and see how it helps you!