Joe walked in the front door of the office. The mood went from happy to stressful in a matter of minutes. Everyone ran to their desks to avoid seeing him. Although emotional intelligence wasn’t being discussed back then, he would have measured very low on the scale. Some days he was pleasant enough, but you never knew what would set him off. He would yell at people to get what he wanted when there was really no need to do so. He was cruel and thoughtless to his staff who was just trying to do the right thing. Many people just avoided him and kept their heads down doing their work.
This was the owner of the company that I worked for in my first real job out of college. He was smart and a good salesman. He could turn on his charm and turn it off just as quickly. His style was over the top command and control to get his way, even if those decisions weren’t in the best interest of his own company.
The inability to control emotions by one person causes a lot of stress and impacts the productivity of everyone around them. Are they self-aware enough to know that they are doing it? This may be hard to believe, but they may not have any clue that they are doing it. When they are emotionally out of control, the stressful feeling takes over and prevents good decision making, the ability to motivate people or to achieve the best results. This happens for them and everyone else working with them too.
Joe lost his company a few years after I left. I don’t think anyone ever gave him the feedback that he was causing such chaos. He was a bully and he probably wouldn’t have listened to the feedback anyway. That experience had a big impact on me and is an example that I use when people struggle with their emotions. Leaders have the ability to choose how they want to show up every day. If you feel yourself getting emotional, count to ten or walk out of the room until you can pull yourself together. If you don’t manage them, the emotions you are feeling will have a far greater impact on others than you realize.