A committed optimist, I recently found out that always looking on the bright side shuts down an opportunity to gain some emotional intelligence.

I’ve always been the kind of person who looks at the positive side of life. I’ve always seen problems as opportunities to make things better. I don’t get depressed or overly concerned by bad news, believing that if you let it, it will drain you. This sometimes caused me to get into heated discussions with people who have a more dystopian view of life. I would then waste much energy trying to convince them how much better life is than it used to be and how much society has progressed over the past few centuries, all this to no avail, as you’ve probably guessed.

A recent peer-to-peer leadership coaching forum session challenged me to re-evaluate my approach to dealing with the downside of life. I noticed as the members were ‘checking in’ at the outset of the day (this is where we briefly introduce ourselves and say where we are at in life and business) that there was a more sombre mood than usual to their assessments of how business was performing. They were expecting a downturn, which they predicted would come about because of a combination of higher energy and raw material costs and inevitable wage demands. Some of them also complained about a drop in productivity in a number of their employees who are working from home.

The discussion is the outcome

As is our wont at our forum sessions, we decided the only way to get a better understanding of the impact of the concerns was to dive in and process the challenge that we felt captured the concerns of everyone present.

And so one of the members found himself nominated to present the difficulties of the current situation from his perspective. As the group got into examining all aspects of the challenge by asking the case-giver many in-depth questions, we started to gain a deeper understanding of why the presenter and others in the room felt the way they did about the issues.

The mood lifted as it became apparent that all those present had steered their respective businesses through a much worse economic crash in 2008 than they believed we are now facing. Their sense was that even if the economy worsens, each of their businesses is much better prepared to deal with it than it was in 2008. They also felt the country in general is in a healthier financial position to weather this talked-about economic storm than it was back then. They also saw advantages to what they reframed as a correction instead of a recession. I noticed with interest that the energy in the room went from negative to, if not exactly positive, balanced. What had happened to bring this about, I wondered.

And then I saw it: the reason for the turnaround was not just a new perspective on ourselves and the economy but the acknowledgement of the frustration and pressure the members were feeling due to the external circumstances.

Tapping into the visceral emotion

Later that week I was sitting at my computer trying to write a blog but feeling no energy, drive or motivation to just get started. I then remembered the forum I just described and I realised I was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. Rather than ignore or fight it as I would have in the past because it did not fit with who I believed I was, I decided to acknowledge how I felt.  

As I stayed with my feelings instead of being critical of myself as I would usually do, I noticed my mood gradually started to lift. This was sufficient for me to just start writing. That day I wrote three blogs; it would normally take me a month to write so many! But the real learning for me is that you can only gain emotional intelligence when you viscerally experience what you are feeling and acknowledge and accept it as totally natural.

Reframing the blues

Intellectually, I had always believed that worry and negative emotions drain you of your ability to focus on what is possible and can block your innate creativity. However, now I know that not acknowledging how you really feel at any given time is not good either: not acknowledging that you are a human being and that the most natural thing is to have emotions, not acknowledging that emotions are the energy that drives us to be more effective leaders and, at the same time, stops us from performing. I also believe that when you get caught up in overly positive and negative emotions your reality is distorted. For me now the key is to become aware of these feelings, not to judge them as either good or bad but to acknowledge and accept how I feel in the moment.

How could you benefit from being more in touch with your emotions and how would that help you have a more balanced relationship with yourself and those you choose to lead?