Using Emotional Intelligence to Lead During a Pandemic
Leaders in business, government, and nonprofits have faced increasing challenges during the pandemic. In this piece, the authors of Leading with Feeling: Nine Strategies of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership provide tools for how leaders can support their teams using emotional intelligence.
Doug Watts (a pseudonym) is the president of a food processing plant in the northeastern United States that has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. Every day presents new challenges that he, along with other managers and executives working in diverse industries, must overcome in order to stay in business. As an essential business, the food processing plant has remained open throughout the pandemic with some employees working remotely and others working on-site. While no one in the organization has been diagnosed with Covid-19, the fear of catching it is leaving the organization and many of its workers anxious and stressed. Contributing further to the stress is the uncertainty that surrounds the company’s financial future. Sales are down significantly while trade shows and conferences have all been cancelled for the next 6 months resulting in lost leads and potential new customers. Doug and his managers have had to scramble to fill roles with those who are left while also trying to keep from losing employees to the virus. For a relatively small business with around 50 employees, the negative impact of these losses is strongly felt both personally and professionally.
Leaders in business, government, and non-profits are facing these dilemmas. As people confront the Covid-19 pandemic, stress levels increase, conflict between individuals and groups intensifies, and many of the usual ways of coping no longer are available. People turn to leaders more than ever for guidance, support, and inspiration.
Even though there is much that is beyond their control, leaders can use their emotional intelligence to help people carry on. When they are able to effectively manage their own emotions and those of others, leaders can think more clearly, develop more creative and effective solutions, and motivate others to become more engaged in their shared work.
These strategies emerged from a study of 25 outstanding leaders who were asked to describe a few incidents in which they had to use their emotional intelligence to achieve their goals. The group included mid-level managers as well as senior executives, and they were almost evenly divided between men and women. They came from small and large businesses of all kinds, as well as educational, health care, and social service institutions.
Leaders differ in their emotional intelligence, but most of them have enough of it to use the nine emotional intelligence strategies when faced with the anxieties and conflicts associated with the pandemic. We have developed a four-step process that can help any leader harness the power of emotional intelligence (see Box 2).
Step 1: Focus on your own emotions
It is often tempting for leaders to focus all their attention on managing the emotions of others during times of crisis. However, it often is even more important during such times to begin by managing our own emotions so that we will be better able to help others. Think of the video that airlines show before every flight takes off: if the oxygen masks drop and you’re with a young child, put yours on first!
Even in normal times, leaders in organizations encounter stress, conflict, and ambiguity on a daily basis. During periods of crisis, the stress level increases. And the result is not just discomfort for the leaders. Their performance is adversely affected in a number of ways. At a recent “virtual workshop” for 200 managers and HR professionals, we asked participants to identify some of the ways in which their performance had been affected by the pandemic. Comments included: “Shorter fuse, less patience,” “Lessens my threshold for mistakes/inaction,” “I’m less willing to help others, don’t listen as well,” “Short with people, snippy,” “Disconnected and disengaged,” “Poor decision making,” and “Impacts my ability to creatively problem solve during conflict.”
The emotions associated with stress are not always bad. Our emotions — both good and bad — motivate us to act, and they provide valuable information about our environment. However, when emotion and rational thought become disconnected and one begins to dominate, the results are often similar to what the participants in our workshop reported.
It often is even more important during such times to begin by managing our own emotions so that we will be better able to help others.
Emotionally intelligent leaders appreciate the importance of their emotions. When faced with critical challenges and opportunities, they do not try to ignore or suppress their emotions. But they use and manage them in ways that help them to be more effective. The outstanding leaders we studied typically used three of the emotional intelligence strategies to help them manage their own emotions. And any leader can do the same.
Strategy: Monitor the emotional climate. Most of the leaders in our study continuously monitored their own emotional reactions. Tuning into their own emotions frequently not only helped them to manage those emotions more effectively. It also helped them to identify potential problems — and opportunities — at an early stage. It helped them to be proactive.
Focusing on our own emotional reactions in order to identify and name what we are feeling may seem like a less useful way to respond when dealing with the kinds of problems Doug mentioned. It might seem like a luxury that we cannot afford then. But it actually can prepare us for more focused and effective action. On a neurological level, it is shifting the brain into a more balanced state in which thought and feeling are connected. So whatever the problem, whether it is the leaders’ sense of helplessness when confronted with the conflict between two groups of workers over wearing masks, or anxiety about how to keep tabs on employees who are working from home, monitoring their own feelings can help them manage those feelings.
In Doug’s case, he admitted that he initially felt angry when he realized that some of his employees had unfairly criticized him for keeping the business open as the infection rate increased. But Doug has always been keenly aware of the range of emotions he experiences during the day. As a result, he became aware of his anger early on, which helped him to activate the second strategy for managing his own emotions.
Strategy: Reframe how you think about the situation. We found that the outstanding leaders frequently used this strategy to manage their emotions. For instance, as they began to feel annoyed about having to deal with a thorny problem, they would remind themselves that the world is complicated and that there will always be problems to deal with. They also reminded themselves that dealing with difficult problems is a major part of their job; the easy problems are usually handled by others. Other ways in which the leaders reframed the situation included avoiding the “blame game,” switching to an attitude of inquiry rather than trying to come up with solutions or offer advice, and focusing on the positive rather than ruminating about the negative aspects.
In Doug’s case, reminding himself that he has successfully faced many difficult challenges in the past often helps him to manage his emotions more effectively. He knows that he has been down tough roads before in his 30 plus years with the company, and that gives him hope that he can manage through the pandemic and come out on the other side. He even thinks of it as being a bit like wartime. He expects work will be tough and grueling, and that things will not run smoothly until the business gains more sure footing, which may take some time. Reframing the situation in this way helps Doug not get discouraged when things go wrong or take longer to complete.
Strategy: Seek out others for help in managing emotions. We had assumed that the leaders in our study, who had been nominated for their outstanding ability to manage their own emotions and those of others, would handle emotionally charged situations on their own. But the most emotionally intelligent leaders sought out the help of others when dealing with especially critical challenges and opportunities. As one of them observed, doing so “is often the most emotionally intelligent thing to do!”
While he feels the weight of responsibility for keeping the business alive as the company’s owner and CEO, Doug doesn’t feel he is in it alone. He often reaches out to a trusted friend, who runs his own manufacturing facility, to talk through financial issues. He also shares long discussions with his wife which has helped him see things from a different vantage point. Doing so has helped him cope with the turmoil and anxiety created by COVID-19 and keeps him focused on moving the company forward.
Step 2: Focus on the emotional reactions of others
Once you have devoted some effort to managing your own emotions, you are ready to move on to helping others do so.
Strategy: Monitor the emotional climate is once again a good place to start. We found that many outstanding leaders continued to monitor the emotional climate during this second step, but the focus now was on how others seemed to be feeling. Not only did they listen carefully to what others said; they also considered how they said it. They also looked at facial expressions and nonverbal behavior.
But monitoring the emotional climate can be especially difficult in virtual meetings with several other people. We often do not see anything except a person’s face, which can occupy a very small part of our screen, making it hard to discern nonverbal behavior. To compensate, leaders will probably need to schedule more one-on-one meetings with individuals so that they can focus more on a person’s mood and reactions and can see nonverbal behavior more clearly.
Strategy: Put yourself in others’ shoes. When we ask participants in our workshops to describe an outstanding leader with whom they have worked, empathy is one of the most often cited characteristics. But when leaders are under pressure, it becomes harder to be emotionally available to others — even for the most empathic ones. Putting themselves in others’ shoes was a strategy that leaders used to help them focus on and understand how others were feeling rather than be preoccupied with their own emotions.
It can be especially hard to empathize with others when we are working remotely. Consciously trying to put ourselves in others’ shoes can thus be especially helpful. For example, during a one-on-one conference with an employee, the leader hears the sounds of a young child in the background and notices that the employee sounds a bit harried. Putting himself in the employee’s shoes, he realizes how difficult it would be for him to juggle everything at that moment. So he says, “It sounds like this might not be the best time for us to talk, so why don’t we reschedule this conversation later in the day? It won’t be a problem for me, and I don’t want you to feel torn in so many different directions.”
Step 3: Analyze what’s going on
Once you have managed your own emotions and perceived how others in the situation are feeling, you are ready to move on to the third step of the process. The first two steps created a more optimal emotional climate. Now you should be able to step back and use some of your cognitive abilities to analyze more fully what is going on in the situation.
Strategy: Decipher the underlying emotional dynamics of the situation. In using this strategy, the leaders in our study often asked themselves, “Why are the people in this situation feeling the way they do?” They also realized that there probably were multiple causes and effects of their emotions, and that there might be less obvious factors at play such as the person’s situation at home.
Strategy: Consider how your own behavior influences others’ emotions. Leaders usually have a significant impact on the emotional dynamics of a situation, so it is a good idea to consider how your actions might be affecting how others are feeling. For example, are you creating a safe environment? Yes? Are you sure? When you ask for feedback from others, and they offer some feedback that is negative, do you react in a way that discourages them from providing honest feedback in the future? As one of the leaders in our study said, “If there is an issue an employee has and they need your help, but they can’t approach you right away, the problem just multiplies by the time it gets to you.”
Once you have managed your own emotions, identified how other people are feeling, and considered what the underlying emotional dynamics in a situation might be, you are ready to use the EI strategies to create a more positive environment.
Step 4: Create a more positive environment
In the last step of the process, you can begin to take direct action on the factors in the environment that have the greatest impact on people’s emotions. The leaders in our study used three of the emotional intelligence strategies to do this.
Strategy: Create optimal interpersonal boundaries. Boundaries can be physical or psychological. An example of a physical boundary was putting a door on the office of an administrator who was continually bombarded by interruptions and the background noise of a larger outer office in a social service agency. On the other hand, when the CEO in another agency dropped in on her staff members periodically just to chat and find out how their families were doing in the pandemic, they were managing the psychological boundary.
Doug, the CEO of the food processing plant, rearranged his physical environment to create a psychologically and physically safe space during the pandemic. He moved two of his conference chairs further away from his desk so that there was over 6 feet of space between all three and removed others so that there could only be three people (including Doug) in the office at once. Utilizing his office in this way allowed him to be more available to have impromptu meetings with his employees and management staff while practicing safe social distancing.
Boundaries also can be too rigid and closed (overbounded) or too loose and open (underbounded). In hard times, the tendency is for groups and organizations to become underbounded. Routines become garbled or totally abandoned. Expectations become less clear. Roles become fuzzier. People find it harder to say no and become overwhelmed by all that they are expected to do. Distractions multiply. The pandemic has led to all of these factors.
In hard times, the tendency is for groups and organizations to become too loose and open.
But unlike some other crises, the need for social distance during the Covid-19 pandemic has sometimes contributed to dysfunctional overboundedness. When managing employees remotely, the interpersonal boundary becomes less permeable than it would be if there were frequent live contact. So at the same time that leaders fight against underboundedness by setting clear expectations, saying no, and minimizing distractions, they need to reduce social isolation by breaking down boundaries, such as providing more feedback and recognition than usual and setting aside time to chat informally about non-work related issues. Some examples we’ve heard about include: “Holding 20–30 minute coffee/lunch connections 2–3 times a week,” “At the beginning or end of Zoom meetings, we’ve held our pets, children, something we like,” and “We hold a Friday Social Hour while we work from home. It’s an hour of non-work-related activity, and is optional.”
Leaders also need to make sure that in their efforts to make the boundaries less rigid, they do not become too loose. One can easily imagine the following scenario: a leader begins a Zoom call by asking employees about how things are going at home. But as they continue to talk, they become so involved in the discussion that they end up using most of their time talking about personal matters and do not have enough time to discuss work-related topics. It takes emotional intelligence to create optimal interpersonal boundaries, especially during the worst pandemic to hit the U.S. in over 100 years.
Strategy: Express your feelings. When leaders let their people know how they are feeling about a situation, they can often create a more positive enironment — especially during a time of crisis like the coronavirus pandemic. When a large architectural and engineering consulting firm had to lay off 10% of its employees for the first time in its history, the CEO met with all of the remaining employees the day after the layoffs were announced. Some leaders might begin by giving them hollow reassurances (“Don’t worry, your jobs are secure. I have it on good authority that business will improve next month”) or a pep talk (“Okay, I know this is hard for some of you, but we can’t let our feelings get in the way; we’ve got to look beyond all this and stay focused!”). But this leader began by sharing with the employees how she felt. She talked about how she knew all the laid-off employees personally — some of them were her friends — and having to lay them off was extremely painful.
The strategy was effective for three reasons. First, she expressed her feelings about a situation that all of them were experiencing in similar ways. As she put it later when describing it to us, “It involved helping people manage their emotions by doing the same with them.” Second, it worked because the feelings that the leader expressed were genuine. She understood that if she tried to express emotions she did not feel, it could backfire. And third, once she had shared her feelings, she gave the employees a chance to share theirs.
In conclusion, this four-step approach can be used by any leader to deal with almost any challenge or opportunity. For Doug, the general manager of the food processing plant, any of the problems he faces would be daunting for most leaders; having to face all of them at once is almost overwhelming. But emotional intelligence has helped him deal with them effectively. And using the four-step process we have presented here can help many other leaders do the same. Using emotional intelligence does not solve all problems, but it often helps leaders to mobilize thinking and action in ways that lead to solutions.
Cary Cherniss is Director and Co-Chair of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations and Professor of Applied Psychology Emeritus at Rutgers University.
Cornelia W. Roche has performed management coaching in a variety of corporate settings and has consulted to schools, non-profit entities, and small business. The two are the author of the book Leading with Feeling: Nine Strategies of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership.
