By Tyler Reimschisel, MD
This fall we are devoting the Tips for High-Impact Teamwork articles to the theme of emotional regulation within teams. Last month I discussed the dimensions of emotional intelligence and pointed out how emotional regulation is embedded within two dimensions: self-awareness and self-regulation. I also discussed how the Dunning-Kruger effect applies to individuals with poor emotional regulation—those who lack effective emotional regulation frequently overestimate their abilities, cannot grasp how their emotional dysregulation impacts themselves and their teams and are resistant to exerting effort to improve their emotional management. In this article I will build on these topics as I introduce Susan David’s concept of emotional agility. This is a relatively cursory overview of her work, and I recommend reading her book Emotional Agility and visiting her website to learn more about this important teamwork concept.
When I see a patient in clinic, I frequently tap my reflex hammer just below their knees to assess their patellar reflexes. Automatically, and without conscious awareness, their tendon contracts and the lower leg extends. I find that many people consider their emotional responses to situations completely analogous to this reflexive response. Someone on one of our teams pushes our “emotional buttons” or “triggers us,” and we respond immediately and seemingly without thinking by lashing out, saying something sarcastic, making a passive-aggressive comment or stuffing our emotional response deep inside us hoping it won’t spill out uncontrollably at some point. David observes, “many people, much of the time, operate on emotional autopilot, reacting to situations without true awareness or even real volition” (David, 3). But our emotional responses and how we regulate our emotions do not need to function like a simple knee reflex, and we can learn to be intentionally aware of, experience, and ultimately regulate our emotional responses.
I acknowledge that many people experience their emotional responses as mere reflexes that lack awareness and volitional control, but according to David and others that is only because they have not developed the skills of emotional agility. Emotional agility is “being flexible with your thoughts and feelings so that you can respond optimally to everyday situations” (David, 5). It is about “loosening up, calming down, and living with more intention. It’s about choosing how you’ll respond to your emotional warning system” (David, 5).
To help us achieve emotional agility, it is important that we reframe how we think about our emotional responses. Notice in the quote above that she treats thoughts and feelings similarly. Cognitive science shows that our emotions are not hard-wired into our brain, even if our responses to them appear to occur without awareness or volitional control. Rather, we have the ability to approach our emotions as something to be considered and reflected upon, just like a thought or idea. Also, similar to a thought or idea, emotions contain information that may be helpful to us if we make the effort to consider what our emotions are telling us (David, 85). In a future article, we will explore in more depth the process of treating emotions like thoughts and ideas when we discuss Lisa Feldman Barrett’s fascinating research on emotions as constructs in our brain, not hard-wired realities. For now, suffice it to say that our emotions do not need to inevitably control our behaviors any more than a thought or idea that comes into our heads needs to be treated as unquestionably true. David asks, “Who is in charge, the thinker or the thought?” (David, 29). Similarly, I ask us to consider, who is in charge, the feeler or the feeling? We do not have to respond to an emotion as if it has us, as if we are merely automatons like a foreleg extending to a hammer tap beneath the knee bone. Our brain’s capacity is much greater than a simple tendon. Indeed, we have the ability to slow the process down and respond with emotional agility in a way that is productive and professional.
In this context, David mentions one of my favorite quotes. Although it is frequently attributed to the holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, my research shows that we do not know where the quote originated. Nonetheless, I have found it to be exceptionally helpful as I try to learn how to regulate my own emotional responses:
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
This metaphor is not just a hopeful dream; it is an accurate representation of our brain’s capacity to regulate our behaviors, including how we act on our emotions. Notice that we have the ability to create a space between the stimulus that “pushed our emotional button” and our response to that stimulus. But, to achieve and refine this skill, we need to consider emotions as comparable to any other stimulus our brains encounter. David observes, "In a productive conversation, people treat their feelings as a rough draft. Like art, emotions are works in progress. It rarely serves us well to frame our first sketch. As we gain perspective, we revise what we feel. Sometimes we even start over from scratch." This process of reframing how we perceive, experience and respond to our emotions is the beginning of demonstrating emotional agility.
Unfortunately, as David points out, many people manifest “premature cognitive commitment” when it comes to their emotional responses. These are habitual, inflexible responses to ideas, things, people and emotions (David, 30). Sometimes people even blame the other person for their own behaviors by saying something like “they triggered me” as if the brain can be tapped with a proverbial emotional reflex hammer and we have no power to resist an automatic emotional response. As trauma expert Gabor Mate points out, “whenever we are triggered, somebody else may pull that trigger, but we are the ones carrying the ammunition inside us that causes us to react the way we do." I am not saying that we should try to be immune to what others say and do to us, but our response to the triggering can be reined in with effort and practice. Ultimately, we control our behaviors, and what seems automatic and irresistible in the moment can actually be regulated as we strive to gain emotional agility.
Yet, I acknowledge that emotional agility frequently appears to be a rare skill among our friends, co-workers and even ourselves. Instead of responding with emotional agility, David offers three ways that emotions are typically managed: bottling, brooding and feigned happiness.
Bottling occurs when we attempt to stuff our emotions deep down inside us, as if we can avoid experiencing them by hiding them away. Research shows that trying to minimize or ignore emotions actually requires a lot of effort and could have the opposite effect of amplifying them (Waxer, 1987). Because emotions and thoughts can be processed similarly in our brain, bottling an emotion is a bit like telling yourself not to think about a pink elephant. Ultimately, suppressed emotions will seep out in our interactions with others.
On the other hand, brooding is looking back on a strong emotional experience and ruminating about, creating a mountain out of a molehill by perseverating ad nauseam. Venting about our emotional experience falls into this category. Although people generally believe they feel better through venting, research shows that this form of brooding makes us feel worse because there is no resolution or forward movement out of the experience (Rose, 2014).
Feigned happiness is when we try to be more positive and “keep on smiling” (David, 54) despite reality. Presenting a façade of happiness when we are actually in emotional pain or distress is not effectively experiencing and working through our emotions, and, like brooding and bottling it is ultimately self-defeating (David, 59).
I am not sure why, but David fails to mention a fourth way of managing our emotions—“broadcasting” them for all to see through unrestrained yelling, the silent treatment, revenge and other maladaptive responses that undermine effective teamwork. Ugliness, but not so rare.
In his book on negotiation, Out of the Chaos, Walker observes, “It’s no exaggeration to say that understanding your emotions and how they influence both your own and others’ behavior is a superpower that can enable you to get what you want” (Walker, 16). Growing up, I suspect all of us wanted to be a superhero. Based on my work coaching teams, I completely agree with Walker that emotional regulation can be a potent superpower for team leaders and other team members. Emotional regulation begins with the ability to fully experience our emotions in the moment, letting them roll over us without judgment or any other active response. As our awareness increases, we can deepen our understanding of them by considering them, pondering them and reflecting on their meaning just like we do with a thought or idea. Now that we have considered the various ineffective ways of engaging with our emotions, in my next article I will discuss the four “movements” of emotional agility and how they can help us gain the superpower of emotional regulation that Walker alludes to. I cannot promise that these emotional agility skills will provide a cape that enables us to fly or a wristband to deflect bullets, but I do think developing emotional agility will help you become a more impactful team member and leader. Most days, that superpower is even more helpful than leaping tall buildings.
References:
Bushman B. “Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 2002;28(6): 724-731.
David S. Emotional Agility: Get Unstruck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life. Avery, 2016.
Rose A et al. “An observational study of co-rumination in adolescent friendships.” Developmental Psychology 2014;50(9): 2199-2209.
Waxer PH. “Nonverbal cues for anxiety: an examination of emotional leakage.” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 1977;86(3): 306-314.
Walker S. Order Out of Chaos. Harvard Business Review Press, 2024.