Hello readers and welcome back to another week at the Educated Leadership blog! In this entry we’ll look at emotional tipping points at work and how things turned out.
Dr. Richard Boyatzis talked about tipping points in a presentation we watched for class (So Relatable, et al, 2013). Taking care to understand the power of emotions when coaching and leading is mandatory. Those that attempt to lead without doing so will find their teams underperforming consistently. Dr. Boyatzis also discussed what he calls positives emotional attractors (PEA) and negative emotional attractors (NEA). It is important to note that leaders cannot provide solely PEAs, to provide perspective and balance both types of emotions are necessary as was pointed out by Howard (2006).
Dr. Boyatzis provided some examples of positive emotional attractors, to include: building on the positives that a person brings to the workplace, discussing opportunities that would be exciting for the person to try, and building on possibilities and their hopes and dreams. The negative emotional attractors include discussion of problems, weaknesses, performance improvement plans, and jobs that have to be done that are not interesting.
I recall an emotional tipping point in which I was involved as the employee and my manager failed to inspire me. The incredible part of the story is that the opportunity for me was an extremely rare chance to start a new organization and launch a new business model for our company.
My manager at the time was very fearful of being “embarrassed” by her workers. I know because she regularly told us. In hindsight, I know she felt that way because she had been put into a position for which she was not prepared. Because she was always unsure of what was the right course of action, she was constantly working to make sure whatever happened, she wouldn’t “look bad” to her leadership.
She presented me with what should have been a grand opportunity to grow, learn, and be excited by pitching the opportunities to fail and the probability of failure. Because I wanted the chance to run my own shop, I jumped at the chance…however, I was full of trepidation and my negative emotions were high. As I moved forward with the project, the stress grew and the support from above was harder to find. I felt as if I was being “hung out” to be sacrificed.
After suffering a serious illness, sparked by my stress level, I resolved to change the situation. I stopped going to my manager for help and only provided status reports. I resolved to lead my team the way I wished to have been lead, which would be the opposite of what was actually happening. A moment that is burned into my mind was a dinner meeting with me, my manager, and a peer of mine that also reported to my manager. When my peer proposed that I be promoted (an unprompted surprise to me) my manager said, “What makes you think this guy could be the leader?” while pointing at me. The NEAs outweighed the PEAs fifty to one. By then, I had begun looking for PEAs from other managers and peers. My respect for my manager was all but gone and her comment hit me as comical more than anything. However, this was my emotional tipping point and I moved definitively to separate myself from her leadership and to let others know that her toxicity was detrimental to the company and its goals.
I set up meetings with other leaders in the company to discuss the status of my new team and my vision for where it could go. As interest in my team’s capabilities grew, questions about why we had been unable to grow or, even be utilized in some cases, my manager had to come up with answers. In the past, she had hoped to protect herself from these types of questions by forbidding her direct reports from talking with any of her peer managers.
The end result was that my manager suddenly “decided to retire” about 90 days after the infamous dinner meeting. Upon her departure, the attitude of her entire team was improved, another sign of the use of too many NEAs. As Dr. Boyatzis noted, the ratio of NEAs to PEAs needs to be at least three positive to one negative (2013).
If I had to live through that situation, I don’t know that I could do anything differently. The timing of many things had to be “just right” to ensure the politics were accounted for in the company. I cherish the lessons I learned about how to lead with positive emotion instead of negativity. The amount of stress and soul-searching I lived through was agonizing at times. I would not want to be the generator of those emotions for those I am charged with leading.
Thanks for stopping by the blog! Take some time and think about how you would deal with a boss that is more interested in looking good than in leading and I’ll see you next week!
Ferrell, D. L. (2008). Marketing Ethics. Retrieved from http://college.cengage.com/business/modules/marktngethics.pdf
Howard, A. (2006). Positive and negative emotional attractors and intentional change. The Journal of Managment Development, 25(7), 657-670. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/10.1108/02621710610678472
So Relatable & Case Western Reserve University. (Producer). (2013). Module 2: The Positive (PEA) and Negative (NEA) Video. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=197x4dmuug8&feature=youtu.be
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