The 5 Rs of Emotions Management

To achieve efficiency at scale, organisations need strong governance and processes. However, to alleviate human tensions, organisations must also acknowledge the emotional processes happening in parallel.

The physical or virtual interactions that trigger engagement and emotional reactions are key organisational features. In all kinds of groups, people must navigate their own inner emotional transitions, but in an organisation, awareness of both institutional and potentially emotional processes is a matter of efficiency and wellbeing.

As such, understanding different process dynamics is essential:

• Organisational processes are functional and serve their own needs (i.e., achieving performance targets). They seek consistency and predictability. They are managed according to predefined roles and responsibilities.

• Emotional processes are underpinned by a need for security, often colliding with the organisational structure. They require context and validation. Emotional management is everyone’s equal individual responsibility.

Successful leaders run organisations through the mindful and skilful management of emotional processes. To do so, they must reflect on their own need. Indeed, emotional intelligence doesn’t require leaders to fit in, but rather to gain awareness about what is happening at an emotional level when decisions are being made.

Embracing emotional intelligence as a value, an ability, and a mindset will help conscious leaders understand when to align and when to rock the boat, when to engage, and when to step back.

It is a balancing act.

1. Recognise

To build trust with their teams, leaders need to understand why something is meaningful in the first place. They can do so by asking themselves how they feel about a specific issue — being as specific as they can about what they feel. This is the difference between reaction and response.

2. Respect

By acknowledging that emotions are justified, leaders can leverage emotions as signals for the reasoning behind them, whether interlocutors disagree with them or feel the need to abide by their directions. Emotions are an indicator of the time needed to align perceptions and share context.

3. Regulate

Discussing how people feel about issues at stake creates a sense of sharedness and validation. If no emotions are shared, it is important to acknowledge and respect the reasons why. Understanding how a situation, or a desired solution “feels” for all stakeholders is the cornerstone of strong organisational cultures.

4. Reciprocate

Especially when interlocutors hold different statuses within the organisation, the risk for toxicity or manipulation in emotion management is attested. Leaders need to check in with themselves as they make decisions. This reciprocity in vulnerability will be rewarded with trust and greater legitimacy.

5. Reflect

Emotional processes are tiring and reflecting on them can be healthy. Leaders should seek clarity regarding when and how to address the emotional processes underlying the organisational ones. Emotional process management requires agency. If institutionally, it is about capacity and access, emotionally, it is a matter of perception and timeliness.

The ‘5Rs’ are a reminder that ‘Do no harm’ should be a guiding management principle balanced by awareness, responsibility, and vulnerability regarding the harm that may be done.

Baptiste Raymond - 02/2023.