What's Your Emotional Style? - Daniel Goleman - Part 1

Who hasn't found themselves wishing they could take back a heated email to a coworker, or had spoken up in a meeting?.No matter how rational or logical we may think we are, we are emotional, too. 

Emotions are built in to our reactions to everything, though we can be unaware of the role they play – at least in the moment.Often, though, we’d benefit from greater awareness of our emotional state and how it drives us.
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My long-time friend and colleague Richard J. Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, has done intensive research on emotions.

There are six elements in his “Emotional Styles” framework.

Specific networks in the brain each control unique aspects of emotion, and we differ in the degree to which these operate in our brain.

Self-Awareness, Resilience, and Social Intuition comprise the first half of these styles. There's much to say about each, so I've broken this up into two parts. (Here's part 2.)

Let's start with the first 3.

Self-Awareness

The insula has connections throughout the brain that allow this node to monitor the rest of the body. Messages from the entire body register here, and our responses begin here. Davidson’s research reveals that people who are highly Self-Aware show greater activity in the insula, and so are more in-tune with the physical reactions that accompany an emotional response. They know what they are feeling, and so can articulate their emotional state: "I feel stressed," "That makes me feel better," and so on. Lessened insula activity correlates with lower self-awareness – a state in which people, for instance, deny feeling a certain way despite physical evidence to the contrary, such as an elevated heart rate and sweating in a tense situation.

Emotions are signals to us about what’s going on in the moment. The more in-tune with their emotions leaders are, the more they can react appropriately as new challenges emerge. They can articulate their feelings to their teams, which creates a shared sense of emotional clarity. This aspect of self-awareness helps leaders stay on-point in a dynamic environment. Uncertainty about what the boss feels feeds a vague sense of anxiety which weighs down the effectiveness of any team.

Resilience

Have you noticed how some people remain indomitable in the face of setback after setback, while others seem to wither at even mild criticism? The main circuitry here runs between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala. People who Davidson’s research calls “slow to recover” – who struggle to bounce back from adversity – have less neural activity between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala than those who are “fast to recover.” The brain’s stress recovery time defines this dimension: faster recovery means more resilience.

Those who recover faster showed greater activity in the circuitry of the prefrontal cortex that inhibits the amygdala's arousal of the fight or flight response. The fast recovery group, compared to those with slow recovery, Davidson’s research found, had 63 times more activation in the relevant prefrontal circuits.

This resilience is a leadership essential. Stress, surprises, and challenges arise for leaders on a daily basis, if not several times a day. Plus, it would be impossible to function in a leadership role if every difficulty or setback was taken as defeat. A resilient manager works through challenges while learning the lessons they have to offer. Such leaders instill this fortitude in their teams, motivating them to overcome obstacles and keep things on track.

Social Intuition

We've all been in the situation where someone seems out-of-sync with the group’s overall mood: boisterous when everyone else is somber, or somber when people are making jokes. The relevant dimension is social intuition, which runs along a spectrum from puzzled to socially aware. The underlying brain circuitry here depends on a neural network running between the amygdala and an area called the fusiform gyrus. Low levels of activity in the fusiform gyrus, along with high levels of activity in the amygdala, indicate puzzlement. The opposite – high activity in the fusiform gyrus with low levels in the amygdala – make a socially intuitive brain: someone who can "read the room" and adapt to the social cues.

Without good-enough social intuition, leaders are clueless and out-of-sync. One symptom might be disjointed teams that struggle to be productive; another: a team avoiding their boss. Successful, socially intuitive executives interact with their peers and subordinates with attunement, responding to the dynamic needs and moods of the group. Leaders lacking in social intuition can come across as harsh or ineffective, because they aren't engaging with their team members. All too often they just boss people around, rather than truly leading, and that curtails motivation and lowers productivity.

Very few people, if any, are perfect balance in the elements of emotional style.

Davidson offers ways to assess your own emotional style in his book The Emotional Life of Your Brain. This assessment can give you a rough profile of your strengths and limitations on each of these styles. Indeed, simply evaluating your own emotional style is an exercise in self-awareness.


In the second half of this article, I’ll discuss the remaining Emotional Styles: Context Sensitivity, Outlook, and Attention.

And here are some more resources worth exploring:

• The Foundational Skills of Emotional Intelligence - a new facilitated virtual course in developing the competencies of EI alongside a cohort of fellow professionals.
• Emotional Intelligence Coaching Certification - a comprehensive training experience that combines in-person gatherings, virtual learning, and ample coaching for those who seek to coach others in developing EI.

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PS : The Article is written by Daniel Goleman and it is published in his Website.