The danger of misunderstanding “emotional constancy”
What do the words “emotional constancy” mean to you? For most of the leaders we work with, those words are nearly synonymous with “unemotional.” They tend to view emotional constancy as a desirable leadership skill: the ability to put on a good emotional poker face.
It’s understandable that leaders want to avoid being overly emotional. No one wants to be seen as erratic or untrustworthy. But many leaders striving for “emotional constancy” have actually internalized a different, more extreme idea: that emotions in general are bad. Or, at least, “negative emotions” – like fear, anger, or sadness – are things to be avoided.
And if we’re trying to lead people through difficult work while avoiding some of our most fundamental human emotions, then we’re just denying our basic circuitry.
Nowhere - in our six million years of human evolution - did we develop an emotional cruise-control button. In fact, the opposite. Emotions are a form of intelligence. They are a tool that Homo sapiens have been refining for millions of years. The butterflies in your stomach, the lingering heartache, the flash of anger – those aren’t signs of weakness or areas of growth. They’re all telling you something important.
As psychotherapist and author Ilene Dillon puts it, “Emotions are energy – each with a different pattern that carries a different message. Connection says, ‘come closer.’ Loneliness says ‘you’ve got more energy going out than coming in.’ Emotion gives us a message and once we learn that message and use it to deal with our experiences then we complete the learning and turn the emotion loose and move on.”
And that’s key - when we let ourselves feel, we can learn and set the feeling loose. The choice is not between performing “emotionally constant” or getting stuck in a fit of rage, uncontrollable sobbing, etc. Instead, we can accept normal feelings like frustration, fear, disconnect, mistrust, sadness, etc. We can let ourselves feel them, take their message, and move on. What leads to the sobbing and the rage? Suppressing emotions and trapping them inside. As Dillon writes, “All emotions, when held inside of us, grow and start festering, trying to find a way out.” We explode with anger only because of our many, many attempts to hold the anger inside. We burst into tears after continually pretending like we’re okay. We’re up all night with anxiety after days of trying to deny - or work around - our fear. Trying to control emotions is what ultimately allows our emotions to control us.
And herein lines the paradox. If we want to be emotionally constant, we have to get more in touch with our emotions, not less. We have to sense and feel emotions like fear and anger when they’re a trickle, not a raging whitewater river.
When we take “emotionally constant” to mean “unemotional,” then we inevitably try to repress our emotions. We think it works - until we snap, take a charged tone, or get really defensive. Then, we probably get feedback that we need to be more emotionally constant. And the cycle continues.
The consequence of holding all that in is real - for us as humans, and for our leadership. The research tells us that striving to be “unemotional” creates psychological unsafety, team dysfunction, and exhaustion. The effects are even greater on people (often women and people of color) that feel heightened stakes for being seen as too emotional.
And the opposite is true. Being aware of – and willing to share – your emotions, gut feelings, and raw experiences isn’t just healthy for you as a human, but the very foundation of psychological safety, the single most important factor in the performance of a team.
So I’d invite you to explore your own relationship with “emotional constancy.” Do you feel like there are any emotions you’re not allowing yourself to have? Are there feelings that you’ve held inside? Are they festering? What are those emotions signaling or trying to tell you? What would it feel like to just feel them, let them move through you, and let them loose?
