7: How to Build Trust through Emotion

How can embracing emotions transform your leadership style? This episode promises to unlock the untapped potential of emotional intelligence in leadership, from the significance of continuous learning and humility to the profound impact of authenticity and vulnerability. We challenge the traditional discomfort many leaders feel about emotions in the workplace, advocating for a deeper understanding of how our tone and body language, as explained by Professor Albert Mehrabian's 7-38-55 rule, can create a more connected and expressive work environment. Listen as we explore how genuine emotional expression can break free from superficial professionalism, building trust and deeper connections within your team.

We provide insights into balancing when to hold back and when to express emotions, and how incorporating emotions into feedback can create more meaningful communication. This episode is your guide to creating a safe space for emotional expression, proving that emotional openness is not just beneficial but essential for building a cohesive and satisfied team. Tune in and redefine your approach to leadership by embracing the power of emotions.

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I am a Confidence and Success Coach for leaders, Organisational Development Consultant and independent Leadership Circle Profile® Certified Practitioner. Information shared about this tool is courtesy of Leadership Circle®, all rights reserved. www.leadershipcircle.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Your emotions are impeding connection, but not in the way you think
• 9:29 Creating Trust Through Emotions
• 13:10 3 Ways to Build Trust through Emotion

Transcript

Jolynne Rydz: 0:36

The moment you think you're the expert, you're doing your team and yourself a disservice. This was a quote that I remember so strongly from a leadership program that I was a part of and one of the executives was presenting on emotional intelligence, and that's what he said the moment you think you're the expert, you're doing your team and yourself a disservice, and it was such a profound moment for me because I had, up until that point, thought I was great at emotional intelligence, but it was so true there's always something that you can learn, there's always a nuance that you can improve on, and when you stop doing that, it actually impedes your ability to connect with people. There's so much, I guess, need and desire to build emotional intelligence or EQ in leaders, and I often get asked to delve into EQ or things like critical thinking or database decision-making, and the thing is, we so often focus on the tools and on others. So what do you do when the person you're giving feedback to gets really emotional? That's probably one of the most common questions that I receive from leaders when I'm running workshops, and it's interesting because we find it really uncomfortable to be confronted with emotion in a workplace. There's this overarching need to be professional and expectation even, and it obviously varies depending on different industries, but in some industries it's almost like you need to be a professional robot.

Jolynne Rydz: 2:30

Don't show emotion, and the problem with this is that when we hide our emotions, or ones other than the positive ones and the happy ones, we get a really lopsided view of things and we lose the chance to connect, to see people as people and to create trust, because we have to show off a false mask and hide our true self. Off a false mask and hide our true self, which can lead to this situation where there's a really high judgment placed on leaders because of this lack of connection. So I know there's a lot of leaders that I'm hearing which are uncomfortable, leaning into vulnerability and showing emotion because they're worried about what people think both their peers, both their direct reports and both the people that they're reporting into. But it's almost like this untested fear. Now we have to be so professional and when we hold this really professional line as a leader, sometimes it can create a distance between the us and them kind of scenario, and what can then happen is the people that you're leading can create these really high expectations of you that you are therefore this perfect superhuman, when in fact, leader or not, title or not, we are all humans with emotions and needs and different personalities and different triggers. So emotions are not the issue, even though they get treated like they are. The lack of emotional regulation is the issue. So the lack of understanding of our own emotions, what triggers us, and awareness of how it impacts others.

Jolynne Rydz: 4:32

There's been so many times where I've seen emotion come out in the workplace, and when it's a strong emotion. So, for example, often every year you can't cry in a workplace. People go and do that in the bathroom. You do it in private. You don't show people that you are upset, but you might show people that you're angry. And there seems to be more acceptance of that kind of emotion in the workplace. And then the positive ones hey, yeah, let them out, but don't let them out too much. Yeah, don't get too excited, because we've got to be professional. So when we don't understand and we're dampening things and we don't understand how these emotions impact other people, we can be doing serious damage without even realizing, and I've seen it.

Jolynne Rydz: 5:22

I've seen people cower and jump and not know what to expect from a leader who's explosive one day and lovely to chat to the next, and so the issue is that we also lack strategies to embrace our emotions all of them, the full spectrum of our emotions in a healthy way, in a way that's authentic, in a way that allows people to connect. So what I've found is that you can build trust through emotion. So when you tap into your magnetic authenticity, you're going to naturally let some of your emotion out. Let people see the real you. Let people see how you're experiencing the world right now. Let people see what is challenging you in the moment. Let people see what's exciting you, what's lighting you up, and it gives people permission to not always be a mask of okay, and that goes so much deeper than some of the events that you can put on for like are you okay? Day, and all of the, the wellbeing initiatives that we put in at the tail end. If we just allowed people to show their emotion and connect on that and really understand someone's experience of the workplace and experience of your leadership and our leadership workplace and experience of your leadership and our leadership, then you kind of don't need those tail end fixes. You can preempt and prevent some of the issues right from the start, because when you show emotion and you see emotion in others. It creates connection. It creates this situation where you go oh geez, I feel like that too sometimes. Huh, right, and you can have that empathy and it makes us human. So before you learn all the techniques and tools you can use for empathy, we have to understand our own emotions, and when we understand our own emotions we can build trust through emotion.

Jolynne Rydz: 7:28

Professor Albert Mehrabian, I hope that's how you pronounce it, I'm not actually sure of the pronunciation from the University of California spent his career studying communication and he is the person that coined the 73855 rule or theory around communication, which is around when we're talking about feelings and attitudes. 7% of that comes from the words we say, 38% comes from the feeling and attitude in our tone of voice, so the way we say it, and 55% of that feeling comes through our attitude and our facial expression, so our body. So if we limit and dampen the emotion, we don't even say it or we don't show it in our tone, or we hold it back in our body and our facial expressions, we're basically dampening all of our communication. No wonder that we have misunderstandings in the workplace. No wonder that we have engagement issues from time to time, and no wonder we have relationship issues in the workplace if we can't actually connect and see people's real emotions. Because at the end of the day, an emotion is simply a signal from the body that something's you know working for us or not working for us, or we need to pay attention to something. It's literally like a signal to something. It's literally like a signal I remember for most of my life really, I was an incredibly emotional person and it wasn't until recently that I realized that I was just picking up on other people's emotions, because when I was on my own, my emotions were pretty neutral, but as soon as I came around other people, they would increase, they would decrease, they would go all over the place.

Jolynne Rydz: 9:30

It was to the point where I would be watching a show like Grey's Anatomy and after I watch an episode I would be wondering why am I feeling all of these weird feelings? They're literally the feelings that came out in the show, but they would stick with me. So for a lot of my life I heard sayings like you're too emotional or no one wants to see it, or it's unprofessional to show that kind of emotion. So I would literally tamper down my emotions. I would try and not get too excited. I would if I was really upset.

Jolynne Rydz: 10:06

I mean, there was many times that I cried from stress because my body just needed to release the emotion. So I would go and cry in the bathroom where no one could see and I was wondering why? Why was I the only one that was struggling? What was wrong with me? Why was I the only one that was struggling? What was wrong with me? And now I know that that's not the case. I know I'm not the only person that might feel like crying at work or getting upset or needing to let out some emotion, but back then I didn't and I spent so much energy trying to quell my emotions that I thought it was a weakness and I would stick to the facts when I was communicating and try and set boundaries, when I was using just words and I would wonder why people wouldn't get it, people wouldn't hear me, what I was saying wouldn't resonate, it wouldn't land, it wouldn't connect, and it wasn't until I came across this incredible leader who has changed my life, who was someone who openly shared their emotions.

Jolynne Rydz: 11:10

So they would tell the team how they were feeling. They would tell the team if they were going well. They would tell the team if they weren't going well and why and what they were doing about it and what support they needed going well and why and what they were doing about it and what support they needed. And these regular conversations and regular displays of emotion really created permission within the team to feel emotion, to be human. We could share and we felt heard and I'd never been so empowered to be me until I landed in this environment. I felt accepted for who I was and it was magnetic. There were people across the organization that wanted to be in this team, even if they had no experience in the area. They were knocking the door down trying to get in the team and we would have always a host of volunteers for any kind of project they were working on, because people just wanted to be in that proximity.

Jolynne Rydz: 12:13

So when we understand our own emotions first, we create space to understand and respect the emotions of others. Space to understand and respect the emotions of others, we enable people to literally feel the excitement we feel, the energy we have, the sadness we feel, the injustice we feel. We can better understand what people are experiencing, what's driving their behavior and their motivation, and we can start to build that trust through emotion, and I think that's so much more powerful than running a survey to ask how people are going to check in on engagement satisfaction. Whilst those things are great, I think they're absolutely needed and important needed and important I think the power of a real conversation with emotion is totally underrated right now in today's society.

Jolynne Rydz: 13:11

So if you want to build trust through emotion, if you want to start to notice your own emotional regulation or lack of like mine was, it was all over the place emotional regulation or lack of like mine was it was all over the place I've got some reflection questions for you to consider. The first one is to just focus on how could you start being more open with emotion? So to do this, the first thing you can do is notice when do you feel emotion and when do you hold it back in the workplace, and you can do this in life as well. And, as you're noticing, I'd love for you to ask these questions Is there a genuine need to hold that emotion back Like? Are you actually doing it for your safety, and it's necessary to keep you safe? If it is, then great, hold it in, because there certainly are environments where it is unsafe, whether that is in terms of your career or your emotional safety, or sometimes even your physical safety. It's unsafe for you to be the true you and reveal all of you and reveal those emotions. So the question, though, is to actually stop and judge. Is there a genuine need for that safety?

Jolynne Rydz: 14:30

Or, like I like to tell my kids, our amygdala likes to think that everything's a lion, right. Everything that could possibly impact our emotions, our identity, our self-worth, our ego. Basically, it thinks everything's a threat like a lion, but it's not actually a lion, right. A lion could actually physically attack us and do some damage, but these emotional dangers sometimes and often are perceived or we expect them, but when we actually try it out in reality, I've often found and my clients have often found that that reality we pictured, the one that we were anxious about, doesn't actually eventuate or rarely does.

Jolynne Rydz: 15:14

So that's the first one is is there a genuine need for you to hold back that emotion? The second one, as you're noticing, is to just see if it's a habit. Am I just doing this on autopilot, or is it something that you think you actually do need to do? So it's a very rational and logical and purposeful sharing of that emotion or holding back of that emotion. So that's step one to really notice. So the second step in building trust through emotion and starting to be more open with your emotions is to do a small test Let some emotion out, and the safest way to do it is obviously to be your more positive, happier emotions. Be a little bit more excited about something that you're sharing, like a win that the team has had. When you're presenting to the executive, and just notice what happens. Maybe play with some stronger ones when you're feeling frustrated. Don't take your frustration out on someone, but just let them know I am so frustrated right now and see what happens. So you can do that by using your words, so describing how you feel, or you can show it in your tone, or you can show it using your facial expressions and your body.

Jolynne Rydz: 16:36

And now the third thing that you can do to build trust through emotion and start being more open with your emotions is to notice, then, what happens once you do these things. How do people actually respond to these little tests? Are they judging you? Are they looking at you strangely, like what's going on, or do they just go throughout their day as if nothing's changed because maybe the test was so, so small that they couldn't even notice. Or is it possible that something might surprise you in a positive way, that you might get someone to pause and think and notice and reflect for themselves, that that you might get someone to pause and think and notice and reflect for themselves, that maybe they feel that way too, or maybe you've been able to articulate something that they've been feeling, that they hadn't been able to put their finger on, or maybe you've opened up a permission and a space to have an open conversation about the true impact that things are having on someone. And this brings me to another point. I was going to wrap it up there, but I want to make this point.

Jolynne Rydz: 17:40

I was facilitating a workshop today and I often facilitate on things like giving and receiving feedback in a really impactful way, and one of the key things in that is actually sharing what the impact is of someone's behavior or actions when you give someone feedback. Now, if you're in a workplace that is not allowed to actually share emotion, it becomes much harder to understand the impact when we're just using words and we're trying to pare back the emotion and keep it really logical and neutral and professional, and that makes it so much harder to give meaningful feedback, but also to receive it in a way that people really understand. We're literally taking away a part of our human language by diminishing our emotions. So if you're wondering, as a leader, why maybe someone isn't getting what you've told them, why they're not understanding what they need to do, or maybe why their performance has dropped and they're not engaged, my question to you is have you created an environment where people can openly show and talk about their emotions and the real impact that things are having on them? Because that is so, so powerful. When you can show and bring your whole self and talk about those real impacts. That's when you can get to the root cause and actually design initiatives that are going to help turn around people's satisfaction and their engagement, more so than what's topically on the news at the moment.

Jolynne Rydz: 19:21

In terms of returning to work. To get that cohesion and engagement going, I think there's more to it than physically being present in the office. Look, I love being present with people, but I also have been in incredibly strong, healthy cultures that are completely online and remote. So, whilst being present can help, I don't think it's the necessary solution. That emotion and a safe space to express that emotion is critical for connection.