The Impact of Emotions on Leadership Effectiveness By Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. I once asked the CEO of a technology company how his employees were dealing with a proposed change. “We’ve presented all the facts,” he replied. “But it would be much easier if people weren’t so emotional!” In the business world, we are taught to approach organizational challenges objectively and logically. We quantify everything we can and guard against emotions that would highjack our objectivity. But, according to neurologist and author Antonio Damasio, the center of our conscious thought (the prefrontal cortex) is so tightly connected to the emotion-generating amygdala, that no one makes decisions based on pure logic – despite the belief that we do. Brain science makes it clear that mental processes we’re not conscious of drive our decision making, and logical reasoning is often no more than a way to justify emotional choices. Nowhere is this link more evident than in leading organizational change efforts, and most leaders are aware of the need to present change in ways that resonate both
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logically and emotionally. Fewer leaders, however, realize how much their own emotional state influences a team’s (or an organization’s) attitude and productivity. From The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body Language Can Help – or Hurt – How You Lead, here are five things a leader should know about the link between emotion and leadership results. 1. Emotions affect people instantly. In a study at the University of Tubingen in Germany, subjects were shown photos of happy or sad faces, then asked questions to gauge their emotional reactions. People reported corresponding emotions to the photos – even when the pictures lasted only fractions of a second. Likewise, those who report to you will instantly and unconsciously pick up your emotional displays, even if you believe you have quickly suppressed them. 2. Emotions are contagious. A simulation experiment at Yale University gave two groups of people the assignment of deciding how much of a bonus to give each employee from a set fund of money. Each person
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