Emotions at Work

Emotions at Work
Overview Managing your emotions in the workplace is more important today than it
How to manage your
emotions in today’s
ever has been -- because today’s workplace is a challenging place. Change is
changing workplace. constant due to reorganizations, mergers, transfers, and individual job
• Five hard-to- changes. Most of us are juggling multiple priorities, sometimes with limited
handle emotions
resources. And the work force is more diverse than it has ever been, with a
• Frustration
• Worry or insecurity
wide range of people of different ages, backgrounds, and beliefs working
• Anger together.
• “Feeling down”
To succeed in today’s work environment, says Daniel Goleman, author of
• Dislike
• Ways to manage your
Working with Emotional Intelligence, it’s important to understand our
emotions at work emotions, control our reactions, and recognize how our emotions affect our
• A sense of control actions and the actions of others. When we manage our emotions, we’re
better able to handle the changes and challenges all jobs bring, such as
adjusting to a new boss or co-worker, working on a team, or handling a
conflict with a co-worker or customer.
Five hard-to-handle emotions

The range of emotions we experience at work is enormous. During a 5-minute
presentation to your boss, you might feel worried, proud, relieved, and happy, and
your boss might experience a variety of feelings as well. In fact, whether we are
aware of it or not as we work, we are constantly moving from one emotional state
to another.
Some emotions present an extra challenge when we encounter them at work. Five
hard-to-handle emotions that are common in the workplace that we need to pay
attention to, according to research by Ohio State professor Cynthia Fisher, are:
frustration; worry or insecurity; anger; feeling “down”; and dislike.
1. Frustration
The complexity of today’s work environment and the demands that are placed on all
of us to perform make frustration or irritation one of the most common negative
workplace emotions. Frustration can build from many situations including:
• a lack of resources impacting our ability to perform well
• a co-worker’s poor performance that is undermining our performance
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2  Emotions at Work
• limited promotional opportunities that make us feel stuck in a job
• a difficult manager who ignores our suggestion for a process improvement
Frustrations, especially those that are chronic, need to be dealt with early, or the
feeling can spiral into anger, a much more difficult emotion to control.
2. Worry or insecurity
Change, and the feeling of loss of control that change often triggers, can make us
feel nervous or insecure at work, and can even affect our self confidence. Typical
changes that can cause us to worry and that may increase our feelings of
apprehension are:
• hearing a new downsizing rumor
• finding out a new manager is going to lead the team
• being assigned to a new project or area of responsibility
• learning the company may merge with another company
With so much change in our everyday work world, it’s no wonder that many of us
feel more worried and insecure than ever before. Finding ways to cope with this
feeling is a positive way to take some control in times of uncertainty.
3. Anger
Slamming doors and yelling come quickly to mind as examples of anger. But it’s
important to remember that anger takes many forms and that most of them are not
physical. Here are some common forms of anger at work:
• being excessively critical of others
• berating or bullying others
• being abrupt and dismissive
• being cynical and sarcastic
• “sabotaging” other people’s work indirectly; for example, by being consistently

late to meetings, responding late to messages or not sharing information
Anger sometimes is a symptom of fear, insecurity, depression or even substance

abuse. Unless anger is managed it can be misdirected to targets in our personal and
work lives, without us realizing it. Many of us, after a bad day at work, have gone
home angry and then erupted in an angry outburst at a partner or a family member.
Unmanaged anger has obvious costs -- in productivity, team relationships, and
physical and emotional well-being. It is often a signal that something serious is
wrong and this needs to be addressed.
4. Feeling “down”
Everyone feels “low” or has a bad day now and then. When we feel down, we
may:
• have low energy
• worry more than usual
• feel distracted or guilty about time away from family and friends
• feel disappointed or unhappy
• just not feel “up” to doing a full load of activities
Feeling down can be a response to a setback-- not being recognized for an

achievement at work, for example -- or feeling overloaded. Some people feel down
after they’ve finished an important or especially exciting project and return to more
ordinary tasks. Others feel low because of circumstances in their personal lives.
Most people bounce back from these occasional “blues.” But left unchecked, feeling
down can interfere with productivity and with relationships with co-workers. It’s
important to keep in mind that a prolonged period of feeling low, or feelings of
worthlessness and despair, can be a sign of depression, which should be treated with
professional help.
5. Dislike
We work with many different types of people who have a wide variety of
personalities. All of us, from time-to-time, find ourselves working closely, or
even reporting to someone we do not like from a personal point of view.
Examples could be:
• a demanding boss who rarely thanks employees for a job well done
• a co-worker who doesn’t pull her weight
• a customer who speaks rudely to you
All of us need to find ways to work effectively and productively with people we
dislike, without letting our emotions affect our actions.
Ways to manage your emotions at work

It’s possible to become more aware of your emotions and to recognize and
identify the feelings you’re having so that you understand what triggered them
and learn to manage them more effectively.
• Recognize your emotions in their early stages, before they feel out of control. By
reviewing your day’s activities and the feelings that were triggered by them,
there’s a good chance you will discover the source of whatever difficult feelings
you may have experienced. If writing things down helps you clarify your
thoughts, you might try doing this as you’re reviewing your emotions and the
work circumstances when they occurred.
• Learn to express your emotions in appropriate ways. Allow yourself to deal with
difficult feelings in appropriate ways for the work place. If you feel angry, take the
time to consider what may have triggered the feeling and consider actions you could
take to diffuse such a situation in the future. You don’t need to pretend you’re not
feeling the way you are, but you do need to deal with the emotions so that they do
not affect your interactions with others. Kerry Patterson’s books Crucial
Conversations and Crucial Confrontations contain practical advice for managing
difficult emotions even when talking about difficult subjects.
• Give appropriate feedback to clear the air. For example, if a co-worker has said
something in a meeting that offended you and this is bothering you, talk with the
person about it, preferably soon after the event and in private. Be matter-of-fact and
focus on what was said or done and how it made you feel, without attacking the
person individually. Remember, even though expressing your emotions can be
useful, it’s never appropriate to do so at work by yelling at or demeaning others.
• Remember how you managed a problem in the past. If an event at work -- like a
conflict with a co-worker or an unusually stressful workload -- is triggering an
emotional challenge, consider how you overcame a similar problem in the past.
What worked? What didn’t?
• Problem-solve by writing it down. This can be especially helpful if a problem is
keeping you awake at night. If you are having an ongoing conflict with a co-worker,
you might write: “Every time we talk, even about unimportant things, we end up
arguing. Maybe I did something to offend him once but don’t know it. Maybe ask
him out for lunch and find out.” This can help you come up with strategies, and can
keep the problem from distracting you.
• Seek support from your company’s employee assistance program (EAP) or the
program that provided this publication. Talking to a professional can help you
gain perspective on problems and come up with solutions as well as specific
techniques that will help you manage your emotions more effectively.
• Build up your emotional resilience. Pay attention to your overall physical and
psychological health. Eat well, get enough sleep, and exercise regularly. If you’re
well-rested, well-nourished, and physically strong, you’ll have more energy to meet
emotional challenges. This will help keep you “emotionally resilient” and help you
feel more in control of your emotions and your life.
• Maintain support systems outside of work. Talking honestly about your concerns
with close friends or your partner can help reduce your anxiety and keep problems
in perspective. Choose someone you trust who knows you well enough to give you
honest feedback when you need it.
• Cultivate interests outside of work, including activities with good friends.

Remember, not all satisfaction comes from work accomplishments.
Researcher Sigal Barsade observes, “You bring your brain to work. You bring your
emotions to work. Feelings drive performance.” Emotions often have a positive
impact at work. Learning to manage our most challenging emotions takes effort, but
the payoff is big. We learn to deal with problems before they overwhelm us, we’re
better team participants, and, most importantly, we increase our sense of control and
effectiveness in our lives -- both at work and outside of work.
Written with the help of Elizabeth Bakken, B.A., M.A. Ms. Bakken has a certificate in
organizational development and an extensive background in the fields of human resource
development and career coaching. She writes a column, CareerWise, on executive career
issues for the Rochester Business Journal.
© 2000, 2011 Ceridian Corporation. All rights reserved. 092211

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Emotions at Work

Five hard-to-handle emotions

• a lack of resources impacting our ability to perform well

• a co-worker’s poor performance that is undermining our performance

• limited promotional opportunities that make us feel stuck in a job

• a difficult manager who ignores our suggestion for a process improvement

• finding out a new manager is going to lead the team

• being assigned to a new project or area of responsibility

• learning the company may merge with another company

• berating or bullying others

• being abrupt and dismissive

• being cynical and sarcastic

• “sabotaging” other people’s work indirectly; for example, by being consistently

Anger sometimes is a symptom of fear, insecurity, depression or even substance

• worry more than usual

• feel disappointed or unhappy

• just not feel “up” to doing a full load of activities

Feeling down can be a response to a setback-- not being recognized for an

• a co-worker who doesn’t pull her weight

• a customer who speaks rudely to you

Ways to manage your emotions at work

• Cultivate interests outside of work, including activities with good friends.

© 2000, 2011 Ceridian Corporation. All rights reserved. 092211

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