The Emotionally Intelligent Manager [Electronic resources] : How to Develop and Use the Four Key Emotional Skills of Leadership نسخه متنی

How to Get into the Right Mood

Our message has been that changing how you feel may be a good idea or a bad idea, depending on the situation. Now that you understand how moods facilitate thinking, we’ll turn to ways in which you can get into a certain mood.

Feel the Feeling

How do you generate a mood? Actors have well-developed techniques to do so—not just any actors but those who have been schooled in method acting. Which method is that? Some say it’s the method, and it’s what many actors call the approach to acting developed by the Russian director Constantin Stanislavsky.[17]

Stanislavsky believed that actors must be properly inspired to play their part. Although he did not develop fixed rules of acting, he did discuss many ways in which actors could prepare, physically and mentally, for their part.

As you know, this is not a book on acting. It is a book on becoming a more effective manager and leader. Yet there will be times when the emotionally intelligent manager has to display some acting skills in order to direct, guide, and influence the actions of others. Franklin Roosevelt, a four-term U.S. president, was known to have said, “It is necessary for the President to be the nation’s number one actor.” When Howard Gardner, the educational psychologist, trained his sights on leadership, he concluded that leaders are storytellers—they communicate meaning through their words.[18] The emotionally intelligent manager may not become a Broadway star, but there will be times when a manager is cast into a role that is vitally important to a team’s success.

The methods Stanislavsky suggested include these:

Relax to focus attention.

Enhance the powers of imagination.

Recall memories of emotions experienced in the past.

Link past emotional memories to specific sensory details of the emotion (such as taste, smell, texture).

Learn how to re-create the emotions on stage as necessary for the character.

Learn to believe that the stage is reality and believe as well in the imagined truth of the character and the scene.

If you are thinking that this stuff is not quite corporate, we can understand that. However, before you skip down to the next idea, recall another idea attributed to Stanislavsky: there are no small parts; there are only small actors. These skills can help you to become a great actor on your stage.

First, you must relax. Relaxation allows you to become more open and flexible. Openness is key to mood change, and openness allows you to change your behavior and your style to help you get into a certain mood and frame of mind.

Second, enhance your imagination. Once you’re in a more receptive state, you can use guided imagery and similar techniques to generate various moods and emotions. Although this may be fun and interesting, the goal is to be able to generate moods that we can use to think differently. We can then create new ideas, feel what someone else feels (empathy), or switch perspectives.

One of our favorite ways to generate a relaxed mood is to try to create a mental picture of an idyllic, peaceful day. Close your eyes and think to yourself: “I am lying in a meadow on a hillside in early autumn. The sky is a deep blue, and the clouds are soft wisps high above. It is warm but not humid, and there is a sweet smell of hay and grasses in the air. I can hear the call of the whippoorwills. Fat honeybees buzz lazily through the air.”

What works for us may not work for you. But the general process should work for all of us and consists of these steps:

Find a quiet spot if possible. Then try to relax.

Come up with a scene that you find peaceful.

If you have trouble doing this, think about where you might like to be.

Look around and imagine what objects there would be around you.

For each object, notice its details: color, shape, size, and texture. Where is it placed in the scene?

Can you hear anything? Listen and create the sounds that the scene should have.

How do you feel?

Look around and notice as much as you can.

Here are other suggestions:

When there are gaps in the scene, put your energy into filling in the missing pieces.

Try to make your imagined scene as real as possible by adding as much detail as possible. Use all of your senses.

Where are you in the scene? Are you there at all? Are you seeing it with your own eyes, or is this a feeling of being above the scene. What is your perspective?

Of course, unrelated thoughts and sounds will enter your imagined world. When this happens, simply acknowledge the sound or intrusion and then go back to the imagined scene.

Experience the Feelings of Others

Leveraging your imagination requires an additional step: injecting the right sort of physical feelings into your imagination—feelings that map onto the emotion you are attempting to create.

First, you have to know what different emotions feel like. A feeling is a bodily sensation such as warmth, heart rate, or respiration. Although many people believe that each emotion is related to a specific set of physical sensations or feelings, research does not support this belief. Emotions are not all distinguishable by a unique set of feelings or sensations. Still, by linking feelings to emotions, we can provide a way to more easily and accurately access or generate emotions. Consider some basic emotions, as listed in Exhibit 9.2, and the possible feelings associated with each of them. This is the starting point for developing your feeling side. You start by simply paying attention and enhancing your emotional awareness. Next, you identify the various sensations and feelings that accompany emotion.

Develop Your Emotional Imagination

How can you develop your emotional imagination? This exercise will help you develop this important skill—one you can apply as needed to help you get in the same mood as others, to create a sense of interest or urgency, or to enhance your thinking processes. You will first need to determine what sort of mood, or emotion, you wish to create; start by trying to understand how mood influences thinking. Then:

Select the emotion you want to generate, and then think of a time when you felt this emotion. If you can’t think of a specific incident, maybe these questions will help you remember one.

Sadness: you lost something of great value.

Anger: you were treated unfairly.

Fear: you were worried that something bad was going to happen.

Surprise: something unexpected just occurred.

Happiness: you get something you really wanted.

Retrieve an image of this situation. Consider what the situation was. Who was involved? Picture the scene in your imagination. If you have trouble doing this, try a different situation, one that is more recent or vivid, and is easily recollected.

Try to experience or feel the sensations that accompany emotions.

Sadness. It is cold, and you are feeling chilled. You feel heavy and slow. You find it hard to move about, as if there are weights on your ankles. You are hunched over slightly. It seems dark all around you, and although you can distinguish shapes, you seem to be in a fog. You breathe in slowly and deeply, taking time to slowly exhale. As you breathe out, make a low moaning sound. Your eyes droop down and your mouth relaxes.

Fear. It is perfectly still all about you; there is no movement of air. Something is going to happen, but you are not sure what it is or when it will happen. All your muscles are tense. You are standing motionless. Your heart is pounding, and your skin grows pale. Your mouth is dry.

Love. Warmth suffuses your body. You cannot help smiling. A glow emanates from you, and you are sure that anyone who looks at you just knows that you are full of joy and passion and hope. Your heart beats just a little faster. The world is colored brightly.

Anger. Your jaws are clenched, and you are staring at the other person with a fixed gaze. You clench and unclench your hands and pound one hand into the other. You feel warm, and your heart begins to beat faster. A frown pulls the corners of your mouth down, and your mouth tenses up, as do your shoulders.

Happiness. You are feeling nice and warm—not hot, but safe, satisfied, content, and protected. Your body seems like it is floating, just as if you were in a warm spring-fed hot tub. You are laughing and smiling. Every now and then you shout out. You move about excitedly and feel like dancing around.

Intensify the visuals and the physical sensations as necessary. Intensifying the image may help you experience the physical sensations of different emotions. Take the image and replay it in your imagination in slow motion. With each frame of the scene, go through the sensations one at a time. Try to increase the overall vividness and intensity of the feelings.

End on a positive note. If the image is one of anger, sadness, or fear (or other negative emotion), it is important to end this exercise on a different note. Imagine a peaceful scene in which you are relaxed and happy. Intensify this image and the feelings until the sensations are suffused throughout your body.

[17]Stanislavsky, C. An Actor Prepares. (E. R. Hapgood, trans.) London: Routledge, 1989.

[18]Gardner, H. Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership. New York: Basic Books, 1996.