2022 - Heartfulness

02/01/2022

The leader is responsible for the energy in the organization - the pulsating, visible, blocked and repressed energy. The source of energy is emotions. How to understand them, read them, what to do with them? Emotions have been driven out of professional life for decades.

It was almost an insult, and certainly a lack of recognition, to say that someone was emotional. We started to be ashamed of our emotions, hide them and, worst of all, suppress them. Now psychologists and psychiatrists have a lot of work. Displaced emotions find an outlet in aggressive and passive behaviors, diseases, addictions, and when they are displaced for a long time, they either escalate or cause numbness, which can be as masking and calming as a painkiller.
 
A frequently recurring topic in leadership trainings is emotional management? Often we are afraid of admitting emotions at work, because we do not know how to act then. Before we can manage emotions, however, we must learn to perceive them and understand their sources. "Below the surface" there are inexpressible emotions, even unrecognized and unnamed. Naming them is the first step to understanding their role.

Leaders are not always ready to spot what is below the surface. It has been said that it is easier to manage people by navigating the surface and distancing from emotions. However, there is energy in emotions - either low or high. We won't go any further if we don't look deeper, don't recognize my own emotions, employees or the emotions in the organization. If they are well identified, they will be a source of important information and a signpost on how to proceed.

- Blocked emotions block energy
- Not understanding emotions causes you to make wrong decisions
- Displacement of emotions is an effort that "gobbles up" a lot of our resources
- Blocking emotions prevents us from accessing the best of ourselves 

What questions should you ask yourself?

What are the dominant emotions in the organization, in my team? What do they mean? How to manage them? What do I have to disarm in the organization, what to understand? What do I have to do to change the energy into positive, upbuilding? How to use the potential? And even - Is this the right time to change? What do I have to deal with first, in order not to carry out "forceful" decisions and actions?

If leadership is about moving forward, among other things, it will only be possible if we first deal with what we are experiencing right now - our emotions.