Written by Jacque Casoni, Senior Director, Business Development
Does the workplace seem a little more stressful than usual? Does it seem like just when you’ve adjusted to one major change that another comes along? Have people that you would normally work well with seemingly gone ‘off-the-rails?’
In the wake of multiple elections worldwide, labour shortages, inflation, natural disasters, and all of the other stresses of daily life, the workplace has been inundated with constant disruption. Understanding how these external and internal factors affect our ability to cope and handle stress is more important than ever. This is where effective self-regulation, emotional intelligence, and stress management can make a difference in simply surviving versus successfully navigating the changes that are thrown our way.
What is self-regulation in emotional intelligence?
In order to properly define self-regulation, it’s helpful to first start with defining emotional intelligence. Here at Talogy, we define emotional intelligence (EI) by breaking it down into three parts:
- Behaviour – the ‘what’ of emotional intelligence: The practice of managing our personality to be both personally and interpersonally effective
- Feeling and thinking – the ‘how’ of emotional intelligence: Employed through the habitual practice of thinking about feeling and feeling about thinking to guide our behaviour
- Attitude – the ‘when’ of emotional intelligence: The extent and effectiveness by which we employ effective emotional intelligence is largely determined by our own attitudes
Self-regulation is a key component of emotional intelligence and stress management and is defined as a useful skill that helps individuals cope with certain emotional behaviours and physical movements during stressful situations. Emotional self-regulation is our ability to maintain our composure while navigating ourselves through the difficult circumstances that come our way. It is easy enough to do when everything – or at least most things – are going our way. It’s when life throws a curveball or our routines are disrupted that emotional intelligence and self-regulation really come into play.
Learning to recognise defensive habits
When we feel threatened, the brain can push us into a defensive state where we become less emotionally intelligent and more likely to adopt defensive characteristics and habits as coping mechanisms. Even if we have evolved as an emotionally intelligent person through our life experiences, research shows that individuals default to their natural tendencies during times of stress and are less likely to be able to call upon those compensating tactics when the going gets tough.
Defensive habit(s) we adopt when we move away from emotional self-regulation is likely determined at a young age as a coping mechanism, which over time becomes ingrained, automated, and habitual. The early theory of emotional intelligence described by Salovey and Mayer in 1990 along with more recent work by Daniel Goleman taught us how positive psychology can impact individuals in terms of our response.
There are specific defensive habits within the world of work that demonstrate how any number of stimuli can cause a shift from the ‘ideal life position’ to a defensive position, immediately calling for the deployment of our emotional self-regulation. Examples of these can include receiving critical feedback from a boss or colleague, being micromanaged, or dealing with organisational change.
These situations can ignite undesirable behaviours in employees who are normally pleasant due to the stress created. The good news is that these defensive positions are generally temporary states of mind that we hold onto until we feel safe and adopt the ‘ideal life position’ again.
How to self-regulate emotions: 3 tips
When you find yourself in a position where you feel on the defence and you need to improve your self-regulation and emotional intelligence, consider these three coping mechanisms:
- Take a step back: Ask yourself questions like am I on autopilot? Am I handling this the very best way I can? What attitude or belief is causing me to feel this way? Answering these questions will enable you to become more aware of the current situation and tailor your response in a productive, non-defensive manner.
- Get out of your comfort zone: Separate your feelings from your behaviours and choose to actively think through your options and desired outcomes. Will your current actions lead to those desired outcomes? Are you taking others’ perspectives and opinions – even if you might not agree – into consideration? If not, how can your emotional self-regulation help to get you there?
- Challenge your own beliefs: One of my previous bosses was a model leader when it came to challenging his team. Any time I would present to him what I considered to be a solid solution or suggestion, he would always respond with “That’s one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is…” This mindset has remained with me to this day and encourages me to find another way to look at any situation. It allows me to see if there is a more productive way to handle the situation and encourages me to meet in the middle. This is where that ‘thinking about your feelings and feeling about your thinking’ that I mentioned earlier comes into play which can help you reach that common ground.
How to improve self-regulation and emotional intelligence management
We all have the potential to be the very best version of ourselves, and a big part of achieving that is improving our self-regulation and emotional intelligence. Talogy has the tools to help you get there with a practical approach aimed at improving self-awareness and tips designed to help develop our personal effectiveness. The Emotional Intelligence Profile (EIP3) is a psychometric tool designed to help an individual measure their current levels of emotional intelligence and self-awareness by generating a personalised developmental plan to adopt a more emotionally intelligent approach to work and life. By learning to take a step back, get out of your comfort zone, and challenge your own beliefs, you can channel your strengths to adapt to unexpected circumstances and hone those ever-important emotional self-regulation skills.
About the author: Jacque Casoni is the Senior Director of Business Development here at Talogy. With more than 10 years of human capital management experience, she is continuously involved with defining and implementing organisational efforts for some of Talogy’s largest clients in many different industries, both regionally and globally. In her role at Talogy, Jacque oversees projects related to job analyses, validation studies, 360 and coaching initiatives, learning and development programmes, the selection of top performers, team development, and leadership development. Her ultimate objective is to guarantee the achievement of successful outcomes and ROI for her clients. She has worked in many different sectors including banking, finance, insurance, media, retail, pharmaceutical, and consumer products. Jacque received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications and Business from Pennsylvania State University. She is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Tri-State Human Resources Group.
