The Emotionally Intelligent Manager

Emotions at Work

The common view of emotions in the workplace is negative. "Don’t get so worked up," people will advise you. Or they may say, "You need to keep a cool head" or even, "Let’s not let our emotions carry us away here. We need to think rationally."

All of this is bad advice. These statements actually reflect a common, misguided notion of what emotions really are. It’s the idea that emotions are remnants from millions of years of evolution, and that a more "perfect" person would necessarily be more rational and, thus, less emotional. Emotions, then, are about as useful as your appendix, and to the extent they can be removed from your behavior, you’re likely to be better off without them.

The problem with this view is that it is patently, scientifically false. In fact, work conducted by University of Iowa neuroscientist Antonio Damasio shows that emotions are integral to the human thought process, rather than a secondary legacy. Indeed, as human brains have grown more complex through millions of years of evolution, the wiring for emotion remains. Emotion cannot be surgically removed from intelligence. The time has come for managers, instead, to say things...