Welcome everyone, to Emotional Intelligence for Supervisors. This is the last in the 2020 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate Webinar Series. This is the last topic. There were four topics in the series and as most of you probably know if you attend all four topics in this year's series, there were four quarterly topics, you will receive the Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate at the end of the series.

And so, for those of you that may have missed some of the earlier presentations, I want to do a quick review here because there is still time. You need to attend all four sessions but you can attend them either live or view them on demand. And so, all of the sessions have been recorded, the first session was back in January, it was called How to Build a Strong Team. If you need information about how to go online and view the on demand recording of that presentation, just hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and our team would be happy to send you a copy to that recording link.

The second quarterly presentation or the second topic for the series was presented in April, and the title of that one was, How to Become a More Effective Manager. If you missed that one and would still like to go back and view that on demand, again hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and ask our team to send you the recording link to that one, again that was called How to become a More Effective Manager and that was back in April.

The third topic in the series took place in July, it was entitled Presentation Skills for Supervisors. And again if you missed that one and would like to still go back and view it on demand and either as part of your interest or to qualify for this year's leadership certificate. Again, feel free to hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and just ask our team to send you the recording link for that.

And today's presentation of course is the fourth and final installment entitled Emotional Intelligence for Supervisors. I'm glad that you're with us today. We've got a great turnout. Before we get started, I want to make sure that our technology is working for us. If you could please locate the raise hand icon in the GoToWebinar software, in the upper right hand corner of your screen, and if you can see my slides clearly and hear my voice clearly, could you please click on the raise hand icon now.

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During these sessions participants are in listen only mode, which means, of course, you won't be able to audibly ask questions during the content portion of the presentation. Which really should last today somewhere around 30 to 35 minutes, give or take, but your questions are important to me and so at the end of the content portion of the presentation, we will have a question and answer session. And at that time, please feel free to type any questions you have into the question box in the GoToWebinar software, again in the upper right hand corner of your screen and we'll get to as many questions as time allows today.

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So, I've got three objectives for our presentation today. Number one, I want to go into some detail about the importance of emotional intelligence as a leadership skill. The second objective that I've got today is to help all of us have a little bit more insight into the connection between how we think, how we feel and how we act as leaders. And then last but not least, we're going to talk about ways to utilize emotional self-management skills, to minimize ineffective leadership behaviors, like overreacting in conversations, or micromanaging employees.

So, let me start with a little bit of a quote. This is from Aristotle the Greek philosopher, this quote was probably made over 5,000 years ago give or take, but I love it. He was wise beyond his years obviously and he really, really understood the issue with emotion, and so he said "The problem is not with emotionality," in other words, the problem is not with having emotion. Every human being that's ever lived has a full range of emotions, right?

Sometimes we feel happy or excited, we feel joy, anticipation, and other times we feel emotions that might not be as enjoyable like anger, or bitterness, or anxiety, or fear, or sadness, but we all have the full range of human emotions. So, the problem is never with how emotional we are, never, but the issue is as Aristotle said and that's what the premise of emotional intelligence is. The issue is with the appropriateness of how we experience and express the emotion, and so, we'll be talking a lot about that today, but I wanted to start with that quote

All right, so part one is the importance of emotional intelligence for those in leadership positions. Interestingly there was a Harvard study that was referred to in Daniel Goleman's book called Emotional Intelligence. If anyone is taking notes on that and is interested in the book. It's a really good book. It's kind of scholarly but it really does really explain what emotional intelligence is and why it's so important.

Goleman is spelled G-O-L-E-M-A-N, and again Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence. The Harvard study really was following, the study was based on following a Harvard graduating class. And back in those days, I believe was back in the 1900s, back in those days the hypothesis was that the higher intelligence you had, so IQ, the higher intelligence that you had that made you basically a more successful person or was going to predict that you were going to be a more successful person.

And so that people really, back in those days it was really believed that those that had the highest grades in the graduating class at Harvard, for example, highest GPA can be an example over these representative of how folks were trying to determine IQ back in those days. That those folks then would go on to be more successful later on in their life and in their careers than those that maybe finished lower in the class and had a lower rate grade point average.

And it was interesting, the study actually you know bear it out some different results, that it showed that those that finished at the top of their class had the highest GPA. And again, the connection made back then was that meant they would have higher IQ in general. Those folks were not necessarily the more successful and in terms of life satisfaction and career success down the road, decades down the road.

And so that really had researchers trying to understand what were the predictive factors for success. Because for so long people thought those with the highest grades would naturally on to be the most successful people. but they started to understand back then through that kind of research that there was more to success in life than IQ that maybe our social abilities, our emotional abilities were also important in predicting career success.

And now I want to talk a little bit more about it's generally accepted in management circles nowadays, and in leadership circles that managers or supervisors. And again anyone in a leadership position regardless of your title with well-developed emotional management skills are more likely to be effective leaders. And so, we're talking about people with a higher degree of emotional intelligence or emotional management skills typically have more ability to demonstrate compassion for employees, to interact with others in a caring way.

Interesting, there's been research done by the Carnegie training company and they basically found that the number one predictor of an employee becoming fully engaged, wanting to come to work and give 100% on the job. The number one predictor of that is if they believe that their boss cares about them. And so people in leadership positions with higher emotional management skills or emotional intelligence typically are better able to demonstrate caring and compassion for employees, to be empathetic with their employees.

And that again comes across to employees as, "My boss cares about me," and that's going to fuel that employee typically wanting to give 100% on the job. So that's really important. Number two, from a social standpoint people with better defined emotional management skills or a higher degree of emotional intelligence, be able to interact more effectively with staff day to day. And some of it is they're sensitive to the emotional needs of staff.

And so, think about this, if someone can manage their emotions well, typically as they interact with another person, they would be calmer. If there is a disagreement in that conversation they would be able to more skillfully handle that in a calm and effective way. Someone with lower degrees of emotional intelligence or a lesser ability to manage their own emotions might end up overreacting in those conversations. Where they might get escalated, they might get defensive, or get argumentative, or just end up in an argument in that conversation. Instead of managing how they feel and staying calm, so that they can work through the issue together with the other person patiently.

And then last but not least, managers and supervisors or really anyone in a leadership role with well-developed emotional management skills will tend to be more rational and objective in decision making. I think most of us have heard the old saying, "When you're upset don't make an important decision, wait until you calm down so you can be more rational in your decision making." And so again, managers and supervisors with a higher degree of emotional intelligence will tend to be able to make better decision.

Next, let's go into characteristics of emotional intelligence and I'm going to talk really about three of these four characteristics that are listed here on the screen. And so, really the first part of emotional intelligence really is self-awareness of what you're feeling. And some individuals have a hard time staying aware what they're feeling. And so for example, if something happens during a workday and you're really, and something made you angry.

Let's say you're going through the day and you're just not in touch with your anger, and you're going through the rest of them people are saying, "Hey, are you OK? Everything OK"? "I'm fine. " And we've all been around people that don't seem to have a good self awareness of how they're feeling, but they're wearing that emotion on their sleeves. And others can tell that they're upset or angry but they're not in touch with that.

That can cause that person later on in a conversation with someone else to maybe overreact out of the emotion they weren't even aware they had. Folks I've got to give you a great example, the worst professional interaction I ever had in my career happened about 20 years ago. I came to work one day, I had a colleague at the time that I was working with. And I ran into another, a third colleague who happened to see that, "Hey, your colleague last night was sitting around the office saying some pretty negative things about you."

And when I heard that, I felt really, really angry, I really did. Now, the problem was I wasn't aware of just how angry I was, I just went off and found that colleague and I confronted her. And we end up having a shouting match right there in the office, it was very unprofessional. And I take responsibility for it because I should have waited until I was calmer before I went and confronted her, I did need to talk to her.

What I heard from the third party was that what she had said about me was pretty negative and it really hurt my feelings and make me feel disrespected. But I didn't even give her the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity to explain herself, I just went and confronted her and we ended up having this big argument. And it ruined the relationship, we never spoke again after that day, and we had to work together for a while after that. So, it became very uncomfortable even seeing each other in the hallway.

And it happened because I did not have emotional self-awareness, I was not in touch with the fact that I was really angry. And because I'm so angry, perhaps I should wait until I am calmer before I go and confront her so that anger doesn't spill over into the conversation. And I learned a lot from that and thankfully having made that same mistakes since, but that's an example.

If we're not aware of how we're feeling those emotions can spill over into our conversations later on and cause us to maybe say things will regret later or cause that conversation to not go well and actually hurt the relationship, like in my situation. So, that's the first piece, being aware of how we're feeling.

And then number two, once you know you're angry, or once you know you're upset, or you're sad, or whatever the feeling is. To be able to then rationally manage your feelings so that, for example you can think before reacting. Like to have the wherewithal in that situation 20 years ago, if I had a higher degree of emotional intelligence back then, I would have hopefully had the wherewithal to realize, "I'm really angry right now, I need to not go talk to her now. I need to wait until I am calmer, because if I go talk to her right now I might say something I'll regret later," which I ended up doing.

And so, it's important to be able to rationally manage your own feelings, but if you're not aware of what you're feeling, you can't manage what you're not aware of, and so those two go hand-in-hand. And then, the last piece I want to mention here that's an important characteristic of emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and be sensitive to emotions and others.

And so for example, if you're walking up to someone, about to talk to them about an important issue and maybe you're really intense. But all of a sudden, as you walk towards that person you notice they look upset, and because you're sensitive to the needs and feelings of others, you change gears and decide, "I'll wait to talk to her about this issue," and then you go into support mode and say, "Hey, is everything OK? Anything I can do to help?" That's a characteristic of people who have a high degree of emotional intelligence, they tend to be sensitive and then they can be responsive to what others are feeling and be supportive.

So, let's talk about the problems with poorly managed emotions, and I gave you an example in my situation 20 years ago, but we need to remember. Folks, that emotions are not necessarily rational. And they do go up and down depending on a lot of different factors, emotions go up and down depending on our circumstances, like if something good is happening you'll tend to feel, it's human nature to feel more positive emotion. But if you're confronted with a problem, or stress, or a threat, it is human nature to feel more negative emotions like anxiety, or fear, or frustration.

And so, again your emotions can change depending on your circumstances, and they can even change based on your frame of mind. If you're in a good place, let's say you're in a really good mood on a Monday and you hear some, about an issue, or something that's going on, or a problem that's happening in the office. But you're in a pretty good place so you don't let it bother you too much that you're like, "It's OK, we'll get through this. No worries."

But then a couple of days later when you're not in such a good mood, when you're in the middle of dealing with a problem. And let's say, you're not in a good mood that day, you're frustrated in general, and you're feeling anxious, and all of a sudden you're confronted by that particular issue on a different day, when you're in a different mental state. Chances are you may not be handle that as comfortably, that might really agitate you, or make you even more angry, and maybe cause you to overreact again.

And so, I want us to recognize that we can't necessarily, just because we feel something, we can't necessarily assume that what we're feeling is, completely indicative of the reality of what's going on right now. Our feelings are going to be changeable based on circumstances, based on our frame of mind, based on our past experience, and they can change from situation to situation, or day to day.

But unconscious emotions can drive ineffective behaviors in leaders, we need to be aware of that. Like for example, the situation I mentioned a few moments ago. I was not conscious that I was angry or as angry as I was, and as a result I ended up totally overreacting in that conversation with my colleague, and it ruined the relationship, and I regret it to this day. And so, we need to be aware, that's why it's important if we don't stay aware of how we're feeling, those feelings could absolutely have an impact, and even a negative impact in the way we handle a situation or a conversation.

So, it's important to stay aware of your emotional state, and so it's good to practice staying aware of what we feel and why we feel it. I was remembering a time, I was driving home several years ago, it was a beautiful Friday afternoon and I was headed home from the office for the weekend. And all of a sudden I started to feel a lot of anxiety, and I didn't understand where I was coming from.

So, I took a step back in my mind's eye as I was driving down the road and I asked myself, "Hey, what happened this afternoon? Why would I'm feeling anxious? What happened this afternoon?" I started thinking back through the last couple of hours at the office, and I all of a sudden remembered, I had a brief interaction with my boss in the hallway. And I shared an opinion with my boss and he had a strange look on his face.

And so, now we were both in a hurry, I had to hurry to another meeting and he was going in the opposite direction. So, we really didn't talk through the situation, but I just went on to the next thing, and then after my last meeting I just ran out to the car. And it was a sunny day, and I got in the car started driving home, and then all of a sudden I started feeling a anxiety.

And it took me a moment just to reflect that "Oh, I'm feeling anxious because I'm not sure how the boss felt about the opinion that I shared a couple hours ago." And so that's when I was like, "Oh, that's why I'm feeling anxious," and once I became aware of why I was feeling anxious then I could start to try to manage the emotion a little bit, I'm going to go into some of those strategies here in a moment.

But if you don't know what you're feeling or why you're feeling, again it's tough to try to manage it or try to get it under control. Now, there's different ways we can stay aware of our emotional state, being reflective like I mentioned is one way. Other times it's getting feedback from people saying, "You know I'm really upset and I'm not exactly sure why," and talking through it with a colleague or a family member or friend, who can say, "Hey, you know you're probably pretty upset right now because this particular thing happened and maybe that rubbed you the wrong way."

And sometimes getting feedback from other people and perspective from other people can help. But it's also important to know and to recognize part of self-awareness is to know, if I'm feeling angry this is how I typically act or if I'm feeling anxious this is how I typically act. So, it's really important that we know our own behavioral tendencies. 20 years ago, I've been managing people now for probably going on 26, 27 years.

And 20 years ago or give or take, but back in the day I from time to time would get into the habit of micromanaging others. And it was something that I'm not proud of, and it was a habit I needed to change, and I did get some better training and was able to minimize doing that. So, I don't do that much anymore, but I had to understand what was motivating me to micromanage others, why would I be motivated to look over people's shoulders or to get down into telling them what to do and how to do it, why.

And I had to realize it was anxiety, if I was anxious about a particular assignment, if it was a high profile assignment, maybe my boss was really concerned about the work being done just right. Then when I would delegate that work or when I would assign that work, I would feel anxious about that person doing it just right because my boss was going to be looking. And that would cause me my anxiety, especially when I wasn't aware that I was anxious, my anxiety would cause me to be looking over their shoulders or be very hands on, and telling them what to do and how to do it.

And micromanaging, and I think we all recognize as leaders, micromanaging others is not a good and it's definitely not a motivating management style. Most employees don't like to be micromanage, it feels oppressive, it just feels uncomfortable, feels you're not being valued, you're not being trusted. And so, it's not a very motivating way to manage people or lead people.

Until I learned what it was that was leading me to do that, it was anxiety. It was nervousness about making sure the work was being done right. Once I understood what my behavioral tendency was, or excuse me, once I understood what the underlying emotion was that was causing me to behave in a micromanaging way, I was able to better manage that emotion and let go of the habit of micromanaging.

So, it is important for us to stay in touch with how we feel, why we feel it and then know what we tend to do when we're feeling really emotional. So now, in terms of managing our emotion, it starts with managing our thinking. And so, once we're aware of what we're feeling and why we're feeling it, I want us to recognize there's a direct connection between how we think and how we feel.

So for example, if you've got an employee on your team that is difficult to deal with, and you think a lot of negative thoughts about that person, they're frustrating to work with, they're always negative, they pull the team down, I don't enjoy working with them. If you think negative thoughts about an employee, you're going to feel negative emotions. How we think does connect to how we think, or excuse me, how we think connects to how we feel.

And so, if I'm thinking negative thoughts about an employee, if I'm thinking the kinds of thoughts or just talking about, "This guy is really hard to work with. He's really frustrating. I don't like working with him. He's a pain, " if I'm thinking those kinds of thoughts, you know what I'm going to feel? Frustrated, angry, bitter, resentful, upset and that could have an impact on how I treat that person, I want us to see that.

I might avoid that person because they're uncomfortable to deal with or to be around, when I'm interacting with them I might be more impatient because of those negative emotions I'm experiencing. So, I want us to recognize the way we get those emotions under control so we can be effective in the relationship with that employee, is we have to start replacing negative thoughts with more positive ones.

And so, if I'm thinking negative thoughts like, "This guy is really a pain. I don't like working with him. He's really negative," I need to reframe some of that and be more constructive and more positive. And I'm not saying deny how you feel about someone, if you have an opinion about someone, that's your opinion and those are your thoughts and your feelings. But let's be fair, let's be constructive, no one's all bad.

So, to reframe negative thoughts into, "Yeah, he's kind of hard to deal with the times, but you know what he's not the worst employee in the world. He is somewhat productive. He's got some positive traits too." So again, reframing your thinking about that person into something constructive and as you do that, some of that negativity and some of the anxiety and the frustration and bitterness that you feel towards that individual will also will lighten up a little bit. And you'll start to feel some more positive emotions like encouragement and hope and those kinds of things.

And so, it really is, it's those of us that can practice and this is a skill that everyone can learn. That's why I'm excited about it. A lot of you probably heard cognitive behavioral therapy, those cognitive behavioral counseling, those kinds of things. In the world of counseling that's all about understanding what we're thinking and managing how we're thinking to have a more positive emotional experience, and even modify behavior.

Because for example, if you're avoiding a difficult to deal with employee because you're thinking a lot of negative thoughts about him, and having a lot of negative feelings about him. Guess what, that could make your relationship with that employee even worse. People know when they're being avoided, people know when they don't have the boss's favor, the boss's approval. Which could make that employee even more negative and even more frustrated.

But if you can at least try to be more balance, to be more constructive in your thinking about that employee, again thinking, "This guy's not the worst employee in the world. He does have some positive traits. He is productive at times and who knows maybe if I spend a little bit more time coaching. And maybe he can even become a little bit more productive and maybe get along better with others."

And so, as you're thinking more constructive thoughts, again you're going to have more feelings of hope and encouragement which will fuel you typically to avoid him less and interact with him and coach him a little bit more, to do the things you need to do as leader to make a positive change. So, I want us to think about that, I want us to recognize.

Same thing with negative situations, some leaders will look at a problem that's confronting them or a problem that their team is experiencing and just get real negative about it like, "Oh, I can't believe this is happening. This is terrible, I can't handle this. This is the last thing I needed right now, " and I'm not saying we should be happy about negative circumstances, not at all.

And you can be honest to say, "I don't like this situation, I wish it wasn't happening, but you know what, it's not the end of the world. We've got a good team, we support each other. We'll figure out something. We always do and if nothing else we'll help each other get through it. I mean there's light at the end of the tunnel, it's not the end of the world."

And again, as you get more constructive in your thinking, you'll feel, instead of feeling hopeless and negative about that situation you'll start to feel a little bit more encouraged, and hopeful, and happier, and more peaceful. And as you have a better emotional experience, you're going to be more motivated to take positive behavior to solve that problem or to turn that situation around.

Negative thinking and negative reactions to difficult situations can keep us stuck in really negative emotions, again like anxiety, and fear, and frustration, and sadness, and being upset. And it's hard to take positive action when we're stuck in negative emotions, but as we can manage our thinking to be more constructive, your emotional experience will typically improve. And then you'll tend to be more motivated to take positive action to turn that situation around.

All right, the next piece I want to talk about is how not to overreact in challenging situations. One of the places where a lack of emotional intelligence or a lack of emotional management skills, shows itself in a negative way is in relationships and in interactions between people, like in the example I gave you 15 minutes ago. Because I did not manage that anger that day, I totally overreacted and really ruined it ruined a professional relationship.

And so, I've learned through better training and through trial and error and just continuing to work on this, to do a much better job in this area. It started with me recognizing a little bit more of my reactions during stressful times. And so, we do we do need to recognize folks, that we all experience the fight or flight response when we're confronted with a threat or a stressor. And so, where your heart will beat faster, you'll start to feel adrenaline flowing through your bloodstream.

And so, it is normal to get amped up or get excited both physiologically and emotionally when you're going through a stressful time, or you're confronted with a problem, or a challenging situation. But we need to stay aware of the dynamics of what would push our buttons. A great way to stay on to manage our emotions better on a day to day basis is to stay more aware of the dynamics of what could cause us to overreact.

And it's a little different for all of us, some people when they feel threatened they'll get really emotional, some people like me when they feel disrespected like I did with my colleague 20 years ago get really emotional. Others of us if we get our buttons pushed and get really emotional and tend to overreact with particular difficult people, most of us probably have that one person that we work with or that we interact with from time to time that can get on our last nerves, we've got to be careful with that.

And still others of us can tend to overreact and not handle things well, not handle our emotions well when we're tired or when we're stressed out. And so, ask yourself what is the situation where your buttons could get pushed, is it an underlying issue like losing control, or feeling disrespected, or feeling threatened? Is it an energy level thing like you're just exhausted, you didn't sleep well last night? You tend to overreact when you're tired, or when you're under a lot of stress, or is it that one person that gets on your last nerves that can cause you to overreact.

Just be aware of that, remember awareness is the beginning of management. If you're aware that this kind of situation could cause me to overreact, let me be careful now. Now that I know this is starting to happen because to this day, whenever someone disrespects me at work, and it still happens sometimes, we're all human. And I feel myself getting angry, now I'm quicker to understand that I'm getting angry and then I can start to manage it, so I don't you know overreact and cause a problem in the interaction like I did before.

And so, the beginning of that is to practice responding instead of reacting, and the best way to handle when you feel like your buttons being pushed and you're starting to feel really upset or really angry so that you don't overreact is to build in a pause if you can. Pause to think before you speak or maybe put off having that conversation until you're a little bit calmer, so you can intentionally respond more rationally, calmly and rationally instead of emotionally reacting.

All right, so let me give you the last thing we'll talk about today and open up for questions. Let me give you some approach, a practical approach to skillfully handling difficult conversations. Now remember difficult conversations oftentimes push people's buttons. So, this could be a disagreement, this could be someone not treating you the way you believe you should be treated, this could be an argument, this could be just a really difficult situation, uncomfortable topic to discuss with someone.

So, going in recognize the difficulty and go in carefully, recognize this could be a hard conversation. The worst thing to do is run out of one meeting where you're upset and run right into another conversation, that could lead to an overreaction because you're not being intentional and you're not staying aware of how you're feeling.

And so, if you're coming out of a meeting and you've got to go into another meeting with a difficult to deal with individual for example, slow down a minute and get your head right and think, "OK, I need to be careful going in here because this guy has pushed my buttons before or this lady has pushed my buttons before and I don't want to overreact. I want to have a good conversation." And so, be aware of your feelings and then go into the conversation carefully, of course being sensitive to the feelings of the person you're talking with, absolutely be sensitive to the timing of the interaction.

If you realize when you're about to go talk to someone that this is not a good time, for you are really, really angry like I was 20 years ago, put the conversation off if you can. Sometimes we can't and you have to go in and do the best you can, but try to put the conversation off and go in when you're in a better place or when the other person is in a better place. And you do that again by pausing to prepare.

Unless you recognize the difficulty of the situation and how you're feeling, you won't necessarily consider the timing and you won't center yourself and get ready to go in. All right, so now when you do have a conversation, OK, I want to make a suggestion that can lead to a better outcome. Go in listening instead of going and speaking. A lot of people, particularly during difficult conversations when they're experiencing the fight or flight response. Their heart's beating fast, they've got adrenaline, they're feeling a lot of emotion, and so they're amped up.

A lot of people go in talking and we end up maybe getting escalated or talking at the other person, which can cause the other person depending on the words we choose or how we interact, and cause the other person to feel attacked, and maybe they might respond in a more defensive or argumentative way. Where if you go in asking questions respectfully.

Stephen Covey and the famous book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, one of the seven habits is seek first to understand and then be understood, which basically is let the other person go first. And so to start the conversation by saying, "Hey, I know we didn't see eye to eye," for example, "That brief interaction we had in the hallway yesterday, and I want to apologize. It caught me by surprise and I didn't listen very well. So, but my relationship with you as a colleague is important. So, I wanted to circle back and I wanted to do a better job of hearing you out. So, could you please explain again where you were coming from, I want to be respectful of your opinion here, I want to better understand that," and let the other person go first.

And as you ask the other person to speak first, oftentimes that can help you calm yourself, especially if it's a difficult conversation where you're feeling a little bit stressed or you're feeling a little bit emotional. And as the other person is talking, you can be taking deep breaths, you can gather yourself, so that when it's your turn to speak, then you can more calmly and rationally respond.

And that's really a difference maker in a difficult conversation, if you go in speaking oftentimes people get more emotional as they're speaking, particularly if you're talking about something they feel strongly about, though they may tend to get even more escalated as they're speaking. But if you go in listening not only with the other person feel more respected, but you're going to give yourself a chance to calm down a little bit and gather yourself and keep your emotions under control. As the other person speaking and then when it's your turn to speak, hopefully you'll be by that time you'll be in a better place to speak more calmly and rationally so.

All right, so I know we covered a lot in a very short period of time today. I want to open it up for questions. I want to go back to the cover slide. All right folks, if you have any questions if you would please type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software. All right, we're starting to get questions folks.

I just want to let you know ahead of time, we've got almost 200 people on the call today, so it's a really great attendance. Thank you all for attending and for your time. And we really appreciate you taking part in today's presentation and in the series in general. I would get to as many questions again today as we have time for. Because there are so many people, there may be more questions than time allows but I'll do my best to get to as many as possible and I will be sorting through the questions to try to identify the questions that will have the widest appeal to the most number of people.

And so, all right, first question is really good, because I do want to make sure, again and I'm going to again remind, I know we had a few folks that started after the beginning today. I want to make sure that everyone recognizes again that this is the fourth and final topic in the 2020 Deer Oak Leadership Certificate webinar series.

Those of you that have attended all four, you don't have to attend them live, you can either attend them live like today or you can go back and attend the other ones or view the other ones on demand, because they've all been recorded. You get credit whether you view it on demand or whether you attended live. And so, I've got a good question from one of your colleagues, she's saying, "Is there a way to check to make sure that I've attended all the sessions?" That's a great question.

Hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and ask our team, ask them could they please check to see if you've attended all four sessions in this year's leadership certificate webinar series and they'll check for you. Thank you for asking that question. But I do want to remind you all that there are four, I'm going to go through one more time very quickly just for those of you that missed the intro.

Back in January we did How to Build a Strong Team, if you missed that one and still want to qualify for your certificate, hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and ask our staff member or ask our staff, our team if they would please send you the link to the recording, so you can get credit for that one. The second one was in April, it was How to Become a More Effective Manager. If you miss that particular topic, again hit Reply to the global GoToWebinar invitation and ask our staff to send you the link to that recording, we'd be happy to.

The third presentation in this year's series was in July, it was presentation Skills for Supervisors. Again, if you missed that one and you'd like to view it, just hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and ask our staff to send you the link to that one and we'll be happy to send it to you. And then for those of you that do, I think they'll be processing these towards the end of December.

Those of you that have attended all four of these either live or on demand, you will receive, from our team, you'll receive the 2020 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate. We had many, many people attend this year, so thank you all for your interest in this year's series. All right, we've got a lot more questions that have come in.

OK, "Asking people to turn on cameras during Zoom meetings considered micromanagement?" That's a good question. I've certainly done more than my share of Zoom meetings particularly during the pandemic and I feel like the best, and I'm just talking about from a leadership standpoint. I don't know if I would consider that micromanagement but my best practice as a leader is to let people decide whether they want to be on camera or not. And some people don't want to, sometimes it's because they just don't want to be seen that day.

Maybe they don't look their best that day, there are when we work from home that we tend to, there's a natural tendency of course understandably so to be less formal. Other times people prefer just to be anonymous and not have to have a camera on them where they have to maintain a certain look on their face or those kinds of things. They want to be in a more relaxed atmosphere and they'd rather just listen to the conversation that way, and some people like having the camera on.

So, I tend to just make an optional, when I do Zoom meetings and let those that want to be on, be on and let those that don't, not. But of course every leader is going to have their own preference, I wouldn't necessarily consider that micromanagement but a best practice really would be to let people decide. And there might be a business reason why they want to have everyone on camera, it might be team building.

Because there are some advantages obviously to interact together where you can see each other's faces, you can see body language, and there is a bonding, a greater degree of bonding that occurs when we can see each other. All right, next question. Another great question, "How can we avoid numbing emotions instead of managing emotions?" I just had a talk with my adult daughter about that yesterday.

I tend to not get easily in touch with my emotions, I tend to have to take a step back and think about it intentionally, "Oh, that's why I acted that way because I was feeling that way." And so, some people are less aware of their emotional experience hour by hour or interaction by interaction or situation by situation. And so, avoiding emotions is not unusual, I think most of you recognize, people can avoid emotion especially if you start to feel something you're not comfortable with.

You can just change your circumstance or leave the room or shut down and turn off how you're feeling right now, "I'm not going to go with this right now, because I don't want to feel this, it's uncomfortable." And so, there's a lot of reasons why people avoid their emotional experience in the moment. And most counselors would say, although there's times when keeping your emotions under control is a good thing where you want to stay professional and you want to be able to get through a situation more rationally.

But in general it is healthy to feel what we feel and express how we feel, I mean that's an important part of emotional health is to stay in touch with how we feel. And so, if you have a habit of avoiding your emotions on a regular basis that probably wouldn't be healthy in the long term, and so you might want to consider talking to a counselor about that. I got some great help and counseling about 30 years ago initially where I was someone that typically is a lot, even more back then I tended to avoid my emotions and I was more comfortable staying cognitive, staying in my head instead of in my heart and in my feelings.

And so, working with a counselor really helped me to be more comfortable in acknowledging how I felt and experiencing and expressing my emotion. And remember everyone on this call today has Deer Oaks as your Employee Assistance Program. And so go to your HR office and ask for the 24 hour help line to Deer oaks. You all have free counseling sessions as part of your EAP benefit and so we'd be happy to connect you with a counselor to help you work through some of those things.

So, thank you for that great question. All right, next question folks. I've gotten a lot of really good questions. Thank you all for staying on this and for taking this so seriously.