What Does Leading with Emotion Really Mean? | Tips Tuesday for Leaders feat. Nancy McLeod

What does leading with emotion really mean?

Yikes! There are so many misconceptions about what it means to lead with emotion. In this week’s Tips Tuesday for Leaders video, Nancy McLeod will unpack these for us. (If you’d rather read about it than watch the video, keep scrolling to see the transcript.)

What Does Leading with Emotion Really Mean Video Transcript

Nancy McLeod: Leading with emotion does not mean that you’re suddenly talking with everybody about every little thing that has been going on in your world or your mind. Leading with emotion doesn’t mean dumping all of your emotional stuff on other people.

Leading with emotion means understanding your own feelings, and in understanding those feelings, being able to regulate them. It means not just understanding your own feelings but understanding how the decisions you make from those feelings have an impact on the people with whom you work. 

Leading with emotion means knowing your values. It also means having a clear idea of where you want to go and how you want to get there, and how you can encourage inspire other people to come along for the ride with you. 

Sometimes when we think about Emotional Intelligence, it’s like, “I don’t want to have anything to do with that! I’m smart. I know my stuff. I know what my goals are and we’re going to get there!” Well, leading with emotions just means that under stress, you’re not going to verbally attack somebody else. It means that you’re going to take a step back and reflect on what’s happening for you so that you’re not making rushed decisions that are actually based on your emotions.

Sometimes when we talk about Emotional Intelligence, we think about just being something where we’re being touchy-feely and talking about our emotions. It’s actually means being very sophisticated in understanding what our emotions are so that we can stay in control, practice being calm and hold ourselves accountable. When things go awry, we’re not blaming everybody else around us. We’re really looking to, “What did I do in this situation? What might I be able to do differently so that I’m going to be more supportive of the people around me?”