Controlling Emotions

Recently I had an individual share with me the impact of what it was like to work with a colleague who lacked emotional control. Listen to what she had to say.

He would go on absolute tirades screaming and yelling and throwing things around. Usually, because I was his assistant I was on the receiving end of most of it. He didn’t have to actually be mad at me, if he was mad at anyone he would yell at me about them. I was so afraid to do anything wrong that I started passing off a lot of my responsibilities in meetings onto other people and stopped attending meetings. I now work with individuals who are very respectful and kind, but somewhere inside I continue to believe that it’s better not to do the work than get in trouble for doing it wrong. As a result, I continue to have a difficult time getting work out on time, and can appear incompetent to the people attending meetings.

This individual is working on regaining her personal strength, including how to stay engaged and involved in conversations and meetings.

The reason I am sharing this with you is to remind everyone that getting louder, tougher, more critical and aggressive is a direct route to having people become less successful at their job, not more. I remember a time when a particular individual found fault with every move that I made. My confidence went out the window and I started to question everything I did in her presence. Fortunately, I saw what was happening within myself and decided that I was going to bring my confidence back in the room and give my personal best regardless of what this person thought of me.

If you are overtly critical of someone in an effort to get them to change you are going down the wrong path. Like the individual above they will become more and more hesitant to do work at all. People improve because you see what they are capable of doing and you are quick to call out when they are progressing.

Some quick reminders:

• Compliment more often than you criticize, at least four times more often.
• Point people in the direction of how they can be successful, instead of just pointing out their mistakes.
• Never give yourself permission to blow up at someone, apologize if you do, and commit to not doing it again.
• If you are unable to control your emotions, make this a priority for you to overcome this year.

Finally, it is highly unlikely that emotionally volatile individuals are on my email distribution list. If you know someone who needs to read this email, please find a way to pass this newsletter along to them.

Do you have a question for Patti? Send an email to patti@pattilind.com and it may be answered in next month's newsletter.