Three strategies for emotion regulation: a critical skill for leading through change
If you are a leader (business leader, community leader, parent) you will have or are most likely leading a change or multiple changes as you are reading this. Whether the change you are leading is imposed or self-initiated, the resulting impact is always destabilising for you and the people you lead.
Change fatigue is common - the very nature of change can take its toll on people mentally, energetically, physically, and emotionally. Leaders are faced with the challenge of sustaining their own and their team’s well-being, energy, focus, motivation, and resolve. There is increasing recognition of the need to support leaders to develop their ability to regulate and co-regulate emotions in the workplace. A recent, personal life-changing experience has reinforced three key strategies for emotion regulation that I have found very effective and equally applicable to the work context.
Why emotion regulation is critical for leading through change.
Last year, we found ourselves in the emergency department with our daughter in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), a life-threatening complication. Once she was stable, test results confirmed a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes. We learned that there is currently no known cure but that it can be managed. It has become clear to us that management of it is not an exact science but requires an experimental mindset given the multitude of factors at play. The journey so far has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions laden with so much complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Does this landscape sound familiar?
Whilst organisational transformation may not be as dire as a life-and-death situation, complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity are very real challenges that leaders need to help their people face up to and navigate through. The case is clear for leaders to become skillful at emotion regulation, and to develop their team’s ability to regulate emotions too. So, here are three key strategies for emotion regulation that stood out to me this past year as especially powerful for leading any kind of change and transformation. This may not be new knowledge for some of you, but the magic lies in learning how to inhabit and embody them and coaching others to develop this skill.
#1 - Centering and Awareness, Acceptance, and Choice (AAC).
You may have come across Viktor Frankl’s famous quote: “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.” Simple but not always easy to inhabit. The space is where we can become aware of our state of being and of our surroundings, choose to accept it as it is, and then choose to respond consciously with kindness. AAC is a learned behaviour that can help you and your teams effectively regulate emotions. Another effective strategy is centering, especially for regulating the fight/flight/freeze response. Centering and AAC helps us better regulate our nervous system and influence the regulation of others (coregulation). If we stay in a dysregulated state, we feed the dysregulation of others. Put simply, when you meet frustration with frustration, you create more frustration. When you meet frustration with a calm, open, and curious state, you invite calm, openness, and curiosity from others. A profound effect.
Try some of these simple and quick techniques today. AAC - before stepping into your next meeting/interaction: awareness - “How am I right now?”, acceptance - “This is how I am” and choice - “How do I want to show up?”. Centering - take a long deep in-breath and slowly sigh on the out-breath, three times. Pull up and lengthen the spine and relax the face, shoulders, and belly – you can do this sitting or standing. Tense and then relax your body - feet, legs, belly, hands, face. Notice how you are and then ask how you want to show up. Give them a go, notice what happens for you and those around you. Consider sharing these techniques with those you lead.
#2 - Gratitude and appreciation.
Exhaustion, irritability, impatience, and reactivity are often signs of change fatigue. We all experience that infamous dip in the change curve, time and time again. I certainly did this past year. There were so many challenging moments when I felt helpless and ill-equipped to provide direction and guidance and yet still needed to despite the ambiguity and the distress I felt. Practicing AAC, can help us to get into a state where can choose gratitude and appreciation instead of pessimism and negativity. We can choose to look for the good in difficult moments and appreciate the small wins along the way. I’ve noticed that experiencing gratitude and the act of appreciation, affects how I perceive the size and intensity of the issue or problem – it no longer seems so big and overwhelming. A feeling of positivity emerges and builds self-confidence and a sense of progress within you and in others.
The power of gratitude and appreciation inspires hope and optimism and refuels us with the energy to keep going and enjoy life rather than feeling burdened by it. Try waking up and reflecting on what you are grateful for as the first thing you do before getting out of bed. Try giving out more high-fives or fist pumps (covid safe) even for the smallest wins that your team experiences throughout your day. Try smiling at someone that you walk past or giving a family member a playful hug just because. Try telling a team member, peer, or client what you appreciate about who they are and what they’ve done. Try stepping outside and appreciating the weather that is, be it the warmth of the sun on your face or the smell of the rain, or the humidity and stickiness on your skin, and let it remind you of your aliveness. Notice the effect on you and those around you.
#3 - Self-care and empathy.
‘Put your own oxygen mask on first’ is often the analogy used for self-care. We all know that if we ignore self-care, we run the risk of burnout, fatigue, reduced mental effectiveness, health issues, anxiety, frustration, and struggle with sleep. Investing in self-care helps us better manage our state and capacity to regulate emotions, and therefore lead, influence, make decisions, and coregulate more effectively.
Leaders often have many people that they serve and support (teams, clients, children, aging parents, and so on). For this reason, self-care becomes low on the priority list for some. This is true for me. Someone once said to me ‘busy is a choice’. I found this a useful challenge to my habit of deprioritising self-care. I’ve found creating mindset anchors serves as reminders to help me pay attention to and prioritise my health and well-being – for example, ‘self-care is necessary’, and ‘caring for myself means I can better help others’. What mindset works for you?
Self-care can be a myriad of different things for people. At this moment, stop and ask yourself – ‘What kind of self-care do I need right now? Is it as simple as giving yourself permission to stop and relax or play? Is it more about learning to set clear boundaries and consciously saying ‘no’? Right now, do you need to reach out to others and ask for help? Do you need to make specific changes to your sleep routine? Is it booking Pilates or FITHIIT classes for next week? Whatever it is, choose self-care and act on it. Ask your team members to consider the same question and check in on what support they might need from you or their peers.
Empathy is a learned behaviour even though we are born with the capacity for it. Empathy is core to relationships, connection, and the coregulation of emotions. Empathy enables leaders to connect and build trusting relationships which are key to leading others through change and transformation. Empathy is about being present with another, connecting with another’s emotions, and holding the space for what another is experiencing without trying to fix it or change it. The resulting impact I have noticed is that the person’s emotional state regulates in a matter of minutes and often the person feels seen, safe, and cared for.
In the workplace, empathy is the foundation of trust and generates genuine engagement, motivation, and commitment to being part of the change or transformation you are leading. Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” A simple start to embody empathy is to practice #1 above - centering and AAC and choose to approach the person with full attention and intention to be curious about their experience and listen without judgement but with receptivity.
Conclusion.
The silver lining to the challenges and discomfort that come with change or transformation is that it is fertile ground for meaningful leadership growth. As a leader, there are no regrets to choose to develop your ability to regulate your own and others’ emotions. It is a necessary skill for navigating change so consider investing in developing this skill in your team. Try some of the techniques shared here and notice what happens to you and those around you.
Want to discuss how we can help your people increase their capability to lead through change? Feel free to reach out!
JOAHNNA CORVETTI, DIRECTOR