People often think that leaders need to be smart, sober and not mind negative emotions. But that goes against human instinct. The survival mechanism makes us always try to anticipate problems to solve potential problems early. Therefore, no matter how strong people are, there are times when they doubt, fear, and lose confidence in themselves.
As a leader, you will often have to worry about work: about your priorities, jealous of other people's success, afraid of upheaval, suffering from a lack of competence. But many people stumble not because they have those pessimistic thoughts and feelings, but because they are overpowered by those negative things.
There are two opposite ways of dealing with negativity: Someone indulges in it ("The result will be like that. I'm a failure in my career"); others are so afraid of them that they refuse to even imagine the dangers. In both cases, the negative thoughts manipulated and cost you or your awareness to solve the problem.
Many people are so rational that they find ways to ignore negative thoughts and focus on practical actions such as sticking to a priority list, indulging in tasks. But trying to ignore thoughts and feelings only amplifies them further. In an experiment by Harvard professor Daniel Wegner, participants were asked to avoid thinking about polar bears. As a result, they struggle to do so; and after that requirement was lifted, they thought about polar bears more than the group that didn't receive the ban.
Successful emotion managers don't try to suppress their inner feelings. Instead, they perceive to handle it. Many studies show that this method can help people reduce stress, reduce errors and improve work efficiency.
Attention
The first step is to notice the times when we are swept up in negative thoughts and emotions. When you are angry or immersed in a stream of emotions, it is not easy to notice. But when an idea or emotion keeps repeating over and over, even making you whine to others, for example, that's a signal. You have to find yourself in those deadlocks before you can fix them.
Label emotions
The strategy to help you see those emotions objectively is to label them. Just as you call a spoon a spoon, call a thought a thought and an emotion an emotion. “I am angry”, “I am frustrated” instead of “The lazy employees are too much… Am I not able to lead?…”. Identify emotions instead of letting them attract and overwhelm thoughts. As you begin to label them, these inner monologues and self-criticisms will gradually lighten like a cloud in the sky.
Accept emotions
Acceptance is not letting go of your feelings, but confirming that you are having those feelings, feeling their impact on you. Take 10 deep breaths and then observe yourself. You may realize how upset you really are. Instead of letting our feelings of frustration and anger explode or trying to suppress it and kick it, acknowledging helps us see the root cause. From there, make more objective decisions to solve the problem.
Make choices
After examining our own insecurities with the steps above, we can see the reason is that there are priorities that are not being met as desired, sometimes it is the inability of management ( We are not superhumans to anticipate all possibilities )
For example, you may be depressed and feel guilty because you have countless work goals stalling while your family is also neglected. When you've calmed down, you can see the option to go home for dinner with the family and not check your work email in the meantime. At the same time you can look for new technological solutions to better support your tasks.
Of course, we don't always do the above steps smoothly. But over time, the people who practice them well will be the ones who are most able to train the mind in the most stable way.
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