Hello, everyone. Welcome to Emotional Intelligence for Supervisors. This is the next topic in the 2023 Deer Oaks Supervisor Excellence Webinar Series. My name is Greg Brannan from Deer Oaks. Nice to be with you today.

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We do have a really good turnout today. We have well over 200 people who are attending today, but we will get to as many questions during that Q&A period as time allows today. Looking forward to that coming up here shortly. And again, Emotional Intelligence for Supervisors. Today's topic is the next topic in the 2023 Deer Oak Supervisor Excellence Webinar Series. Let's go ahead and get started, folks.

All right, I've got three objectives for our time together today. First is I want to discuss the importance of emotional intelligence as, really, what I think is a crucial leadership skill. I've been a supervisor now for going on 30 years, and I'm a supervisor at Deer Oaks. I've been at Deer Oaks for the last 12 years.

And I truly believe my ability to manage my emotions throughout the day helps me to make better decisions, helps me to be more effective as I interact with other people. It helps me-- I'm able to better keep myself under control and more thoughtfully and intentionally respond to situations instead of just reacting emotionally. And I think that-- I mean, that's obviously an important skill set for every human being, every professional.

But I think it's even more important for a leader. I mean, when you're in a leadership role, your team is looking for you to set the tone. And when you have the ability to manage yourself well and be stable emotionally and make good decisions and interact consistently in respectful ways with your team, you're going to create a more positive workplace environment for them, of course. And they're typically going to be motivated to do their best work.

I also want to talk about the connection between how we think and how we feel and how we act as managers. And a lot of you probably that already. But there's a direct connection between how we think about a situation, about an employee, about a struggle that you're having in your department, how you feel about that emotionally, and then what we do, how we act in response to that situation.

And then last but not least, I want to talk about ways that we can learn to even more effectively use our emotional self-management skills, the ability to think before you speak, to think before you take action when you're emotional, to be able to take a step back and understand what you're feeling and why you're feeling it. And to keep those emotions under control so they don't manage you will help you to be more successful as a manager and help you to definitely minimize ineffective leadership behaviors, like overreacting in conversations or micromanaging employees.

All right, let me begin with Aristotle, the Greek philosopher. I mean, this guy really understood emotional intelligence thousands of years before it was even a thing, but he really-- he really understood this. He was a very wise man, of course. And his quote was, "The problem is not with emotionality." So in other words, the problem was not with being emotional, because every human being who's ever lived is an emotional being. But the problem is with the appropriateness of the emotion and its expression.

And so Aristotle really understood that we're all going to feel emotional. You're going to have as a human being a full range of emotions. At times, you're going to have positive emotions, like happiness and joy and excitement. Other times, you're going to have emotions that are not as comfortable, like feeling really anxious, really fearful, really frustrated, really discouraged, really angry.

And so the problem is never with what we feel. Again, we're all emotional beings. We're going to have the full range of emotions day in and day out, depending on our circumstances. But the key is being able to manage that emotion and express it in an appropriate way.

For example, when you're on the road, if another driver cuts you off-- we all that term "road rage--" obviously, it would be a time when you're going to get emotional. At least, chances are, if a driver cuts you off, and you're probably going to feel emotional about it. You might be angry about the driver cut you off. You might be frightened because you were almost in an accident, and you may be tempted to express your anger towards the other driver. I mean, it's not unusual. I mean, we're all human beings.

But someone who has a good amount of emotional intelligence can recognize that they're feeling angry and keep that anger under control so that they don't express the anger towards the other driver in a negative way that could create a conflict while you're both driving. That's what they would call road rage, so you're able to keep that under control so you don't allow yourself to get into road rage, which can be dangerous, as we all know. So that's an example I think we can all relate to, and I just love the way that Aristotle-- Aristotle framed that.

All right, next let's talk about the importance of emotional intelligence for those in leadership positions. As I mentioned at the outset today, I really feel like it's a crucial leadership skill. If you want to be a successful leader and an effective leader, I think it's really important for us to be able to have a good amount of emotional intelligence.

Now, one study-- there was a Harvard study that pointed out that emotional intelligence is even more important than-- for success than IQ, than raw intelligence or our intellect. Now, obviously, our intellect is important. We need to be bright. We need to be able to think well and to solve problems and to come up with good ideas. Obviously, that's an important part of our success as a professional.

But the research has gone on to show over the years that our ability to manage our emotions is even more important to our success as a professional than our intellect. There was a study done back in the 20th century. It was based on a Harvard graduating class. And back in those days, the middle of the 20th century, like the 1940s, '50s, '60s, back then, it was commonly believed that IQ, raw intelligence was the most important factor in job success or career success.

And so this particular study was measuring that kind of thing, and they were following a graduating class from Harvard University. Now, obviously, you're going to be pretty bright just to get into Harvard University. And back then, oftentimes IQ is measured in part by your GPA, your Grade Point Average. If you had a high grade point average, you got good grades in school. People assumed you had a high-- a high IQ. This was back before the evolution of personality tests and intelligence tests that are much more prevalent in the world now.

But interestingly, what the researchers were looking for-- this was a longitudinal study that followed a graduating class from Harvard University for 20 or 30 years afterwards and what they were expecting to find I believe was that those that finished at the top of their class with the highest grade point average were going to be the most successful in career and in life. And actually, the exact opposite was true in this study, that those that finished at the top of their class-- actually, some of them were really struggling. They were struggling to get ahead in their career. They were struggling in their personal lives.

And it was interesting because, again, it was-- the current thinking back then was that if you had a high GPA, you were going to-- you were set up to be a successful human being throughout your whole life. And that's when people started to realize that through a test like this, that it's not just raw intelligence that leads to our success.

It's also our ability to manage ourselves, manage our thinking, manage our feelings, and be able to respond effectively and make good decisions, deal with situations in an effective way, difficult situations effectively, and get along with others really, really well, handle difficult conversations effectively because of their ability to keep their emotions under control and be sensitive to the needs and feelings of others.

And so I thought that was really interesting. Now, if you take that down into the world of management and leadership, managers and supervisors with well-developed emotional management skills, the ability to what we're feeling and why and the ability to keep those feelings under control so we can respond to people and situations effectively, are more likely to be effective leaders. For example, we can demonstrate compassion for employees.

One of the things-- let me go down-- I'm going to-- I'm going to go down a slide here and come back. This is kind of an overview of some of the major components, and this is a very high level of emotional intelligence, is people who have a high amount of emotional intelligence generally are emotionally self-aware. From situation to situation, they can stay in touch with what they're feeling and why.

That's important. You can't manage things, you can't manage feelings, for example, if you don't what you're feeling and why. I think we've all been in situations where we just overreacted emotionally in part because we weren't aware of just how strong our feelings were. Another part of emotional intelligence is the ability to rationally manage our feelings, for example, to that we're upset and to think before we speak or think before we make a decision so that we can be effective and not just react out of emotion.

Emotion sometimes, folks, is just raw energy. You're feeling intense emotion. If you just go with it, you may not do-- you may not make an effective decision or interact with someone else effectively if you're just going based on raw emotion. You don't take a step back and process what's going on there and make a rational decision as to what's the best way forward, what's the best way to handle the situation.

But when people are really feeling intense emotion, a lot of times they just react. And they just they just go off and say something or do something they might regret later. And then the other side of emotional intelligence is the last part of this bullet or the last bullet on the slide that says, people with emotional intelligence generally have the ability to recognize and be sensitive to emotions and others. They have empathy. They can put themselves in other people's shoes and just be sensitive and interact with people in a sensitive manner, especially when people are going through things emotionally.

And so let me go back up to the slide we were at a moment ago. And that's why-- that's the connection I want us to make as to why managers and supervisors with well-developed emotional management skills are more likely to be effective leaders, because we can demonstrate compassion for employees. Managers who have a high amount of emotional intelligence generally are empathetic. They're sensitive to the needs and feelings of people, and they'll take that into consideration.

A great example would be if you as a manager are walking up to one of your direct reports, and you're about to confront them about something they do wrong. And as you're walking up to that person, all of a sudden you recognize that person looks upset. Or they look really stressed. And so because you're sensitive to the needs and feelings of people, you decide to hold off confronting this person with something that they did wrong and go into empathy mode and say, hey, is everything OK? Anything I can do to help?

And be supportive in the moment. Put off your agenda until later. There's always time later to talk to the person about that situation. But in that moment, because of your sensitivity to what that person might be going through, you go into support mode. That would be a great example of a manager or supervisor with well-developed emotional management skills that would respond situation by situation more effectively.

Now, also if you've got well-developed emotional management skills, you're more likely to be affected because of your interpersonal skills. People that have emotional management skills-- and these are skills, folks, that we can all learn, and we're going to talk a little bit more about that as we go on today. When you've got emotional management skills, you can stay calm during difficult conversations, for example, keep your emotions under control.

You can, again, be more sensitive to what the other person's thinking or feeling in the moment and be thoughtful about giving the other person an opportunity to share their opinion instead of just spending the whole conversation telling them your opinion, trying to sell your idea. You can be more mindful of the importance of bringing them into the conversation and treating them more respectfully.

And so it's really important for us to be thinking about. Now, it's interesting. There was one study that came out recently that said that 84% of our success as professionals is a combination of our emotional intelligence, what we're talking about today, and our social skills. And want us to see that emotional intelligence and social skills are very connected, are people skills.

When you've got a good emotional intelligence, you'll typically be more effective interacting with others, again, keeping your emotions under control during conversations so you can be effective. You can be respectful. Being sensitive to the needs and feelings of the other people you're interacting with-- so again, you're going to be more respectfully interacting with them.

And then last but not least, as we've mentioned a couple of times today, people that have a good-- or managers and supervisors who have a good amount of emotional intelligence are more likely to make good decisions, be more rational and objective in decision making instead of just making knee-jerk decisions like the saying goes when you're highly emotional.

All right, folks. Next, let's talk about the problem, the problem with poorly managed emotions. Now, we're all going to have emotions that are difficult to manage at times. But we need to recognize, though, that emotions are not always rational. They're not. Sometimes, you'll have a strong feeling based on how you're perceiving a situation, or it could be based on how tired you are because you didn't get a good night's sleep the night before.

Or it could be based on your mindset at the moment. Maybe you're having a bad week. And all of a sudden, something else stressful happens. And you just kind of overreact emotionally. I want us to recognize that we can't necessarily trust that emotions are rational. They're subjective.

We're all going to feel emotional based on a lot of different factors, how we're perceiving a situation, how much energy we have, do we get a good night's sleep, how we handled situations like that in the past. I mean, there's a lot of factors that go into how we experience emotions. And our emotions can be fickle. They can be up and down. You can be-- on a Monday morning, you can be in the office, hear about a problem. But because you had a great weekend, it won't bother you at all.

You're like, oh, well, I'm not happy that it's happening, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, it's not that big a deal, where, on another day when you're really stressed out and on deadline, you could hear about that same situation. And you could get really upset. That's an example of how our emotional experience can be up and down. It can be fickle, depending on a lot of factors.

Now, of course, we have to process emotion. That's important. So it's not just about managing emotions. We have to process. We've got to figure out what we're feeling and why and get support, and we'll talk a little bit more about that here in a moment, because you don't want to stuff your emotions. You don't want-- repressed emotions can be unhealthy. I think we all know that.

And then also, if you're not aware of your emotions, unconscious emotions can drive ineffective behaviors in leaders. For example, if you're really upset and you're not aware you're really upset, you could overreact to a situation and really not even understand why. Or you could start micromanaging employees.

I had a couple of problems in this area early on in my career, and I've been working on improving this over the years because these are important skills. And I'm definitely better at it now today than I've been in the past, but I'm not there yet. I overreacted emotionally here a week or so ago, so I'm still-- I'm a work in progress, like we all are.

But I've had a couple of-- I've made a couple of mistakes in this area over the years. There was one time-- and it was because I wasn't aware of how I was feeling. There was one particular time where I had a colleague that said something negative about me, and I heard about it second-hand. And when I heard about it, I got really, really angry. But I wasn't really aware that I was as angry as I was.

And I went. And without waiting to calm down and getting my emotions under control, I just went and confronted my colleague in the moment. And I was-- I was pretty hot. I was pretty heated. I was upset. I was angry. And of course, because I went into the conversation angry, my colleague didn't respond very well. They got very defensive, and we end up having a very uncomfortable interaction that actually made our relationship more difficult after that. It did some damage to the relationship.

And so I learned a valuable lesson that when I'm upset about something, when I'm angry about something, I have to take a step back and think before I speak, again, to practice emotional intelligence so I don't just overreact and say or do something that I'll regret later, like I did in this particular situation here.

Another example that's not uncommon is where managers who are not aware of what they're feeling can do something that's ineffective in leading their team, would be micromanaging people. I think we all that micromanaging employees is not an effective way to lead people. It's uncomfortable for employees.

But one of the things that you can probably think about and some of you may, may even be able to relate to from personal experience is if you're anxious about something-- let's say you're anxious or you're nervous that an employee may not-- you delegated them an important responsibility, and you're nervous they may not be able to do a good job with that. And as a result, you start hovering and looking over their shoulder to make sure they do it right. That's an example of micromanaging based on uncomfortable emotion.

That's one of the things that I've learned over the years too, is when I'm anxious about whether or not someone on my team is going to do a good job with something, I try to take a step back and realize, this is my anxiety. And I don't want to act this anxiety out by looking over this person's shoulder and make them feel like I don't trust them. But that's an example of something that we can do if we're not managing that behavior very well or if we're not even aware of the reason why we're so anxious in the moment.

All right, so now in terms of managing our emotions, it starts with practicing emotional self-awareness. As I mentioned earlier, if we're not aware of what we're feeling, it's really hard to manage it. It's hard to manage anything that we're not aware of. And so it's important to practice knowing what you feel and why you feel it.

Because I made that mistake with my colleague-- it was about 20 years ago in that example I gave you before where I got really angry and went and confronted that person in anger, and we had that very negative interaction-- I've learned from that. And nowadays, when I find myself angry or upset, I've trained myself to take a step back and try to figure out, OK, why am I so upset here? Why am I so angry?

That helps me get in touch with what I'm feeling and why, and that's the beginning of managing that feeling so it doesn't manage us. And then the second part of that is in addition to practicing staying more self aware of what you feel and why you're feeling it so you can manage those feelings, know your behavioral tendencies during emotional times. Like, know what your weaknesses are.

Some of us tend-- may tend to overreact emotionally, like I did in my example from 20 years ago. I totally overreacted out of that anger. I should have waited to talk to my colleague. I needed to talk to them, but I should have waited to talk to them until I was calmer. And I just went in and over reacted emotionally, and it really messed up the interaction. And it really hurt the relationship. I learned from it. I regret it.

If you tend to micromanage your employees from time to time when you're anxious or when you're nervous about whether or not they-- whether or not they can do whatever you've assigned them successfully, be aware of that so when you start to feel that anxiety, you can take a step back and say, OK, I'm feeling anxious now. And I'm nervous because this is a high-stakes project that I've delegated to my employee.

But I don't want to-- I don't want to look over their shoulders and make them feel uncomfortable, so I'm going to take a step back and work on managing my own emotion in an effective way instead of acting it out by micromanaging the employee, would be an example of knowing your behavioral tendency, your negative behavioral tendencies during emotional times and staying aware of what you're feeling so you can manage that feeling and still be effective.

I also want to talk about managing our thinking. I mentioned earlier on, there's a direct connection between how we think, what we feel, and how we act. And so I especially want us to be aware of the connection between our self-talk, our conscious thinking, and our emotions.

Like, if you've got an employee that's not performing well and you're frustrated with that employee, you think a lot of negative thoughts about that employee's performance or that employee's capabilities. Chances are you're going to feel more negative emotion about that employee. Every time you see that employee, you might feel frustration. You might feel upset. You might feel resentful or just discouraged, feeling like this employee is never going to turn this performance around.

But I want us to recognize that one of the reasons why you're feeling those feelings is how you're thinking about that employee. There's a direct connection, folks, between how we think and how we feel.

If I think about that employee in a more positive way, like, OK, well, sure, this employee is having some performance issues, but you know what, it's not the end of the world, I mean, the employee does have some good attributes, and they do-- they do some things well, and so I'm not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater and get all negative on this, I mean, I'll just-- I'll just hang in there and keep working with the employee, that's an example of, if your self-talk about an employee who's not performing well becomes constructive or more positive, you'll go-- you'll go from-- your emotional experience will be changed. You'll go from feeling really angry or resentful about that employee, really frustrated with that employee to feeling more hopeful, more constructive about it.

And so a really good coping mechanism or an emotional self-management mechanism when you're upset about something is to work, take a step back. Again, try to figure out what you're feeling and why, what you're thinking and why. And practice replacing negative thoughts with more positive ones.

So again, I might look at that employee that I'm frustrated with their performance and think to myself, I can't believe I've had to talk to this person three times about the same thing, and they're still not getting it. But to take a step back and say, but you know what, it's not the end of the world-- I mean, for some of us, it takes longer to get it than others of us. And this employee does have some positive attributes. I'm going to be a little bit more patient with them and hang in there with them, and let's see if I can coach them a little bit more and see if I can get a better outcome.

And so again, practice replacing negative thoughts with more positive ones will typically empower you. I want us to see, when you think negative thoughts about a situation and you have negative feelings about the situation, chances are it's going to impact your behavior. You may not even bother working with the employee, because you're feeling like, why bother? This employee-- I've talked to them three times. They're not getting it.

Where, if you looked at that employee differently and said, yeah, I'm frustrated with the fact that I've had to have multiple conversations with them, but you know what, it's not the end of the world, they do do a lot of things well, I'm going to hang in there with them a little longer, now you're feeling more encouraged and hopeful emotionally, that generally would motivate you to take positive behavior and coach that person a little bit more or train them or spend more time with them to hopefully bring about a better outcome or help turn their performance around.

And so it is important to try to reframe negative thoughts into something constructive, and I'm not talking about denying the truth about things. If something's not working, be honest that it's not working. But have perspective too to say, OK, this isn't working, but you know what, there are other parts here that are constructive, that are working. And maybe if I spend a little bit more time in this area, maybe I'll see a better result.

Again, when you can get your thinking more constructive, generally your emotions in the moment will-- won't be quite as negative. You won't feel quite as frustrated, quite as angry, quite as discouraged. And when you have more positive-- when you feel more hopeful and more encouraged emotionally, will typically be more motivated to take more positive action as a leader to help that employee improve their performance.

All right, the next thing I want to talk about, folks, as we're getting towards the end of the formal part of our presentation today is being aware again of the dynamics of overreaction. I want us to remember that as human beings, we are emotional. And our emotions can be triggered, and they can be triggered by lots of things.

I shared several examples about this at the outset today. Remember, the first thing I talked about was you might be tired. One of the dynamics of overreaction that can trigger people is when they're exhausted, or they're stressed out. When we're exhausted or stressed out, folks, we generally don't manage our emotions as well. We may be more prone to be triggered and overreact emotionally.

And then there's underlying psychological issues that can trigger us. And again, I want you to be more aware of your triggers so you can manage them when they come up. When you get triggered, you manage it instead of just going with it and overreacting emotionally.

So if a trigger for you is feeling threatened or feeling disrespected or feeling like you're losing control, those are common triggers in people. For me, if I feel disrespected, I really-- I get upset. And that's what happened in that example from 20 years ago that I shared earlier.

What I heard that person say about me really made me feel disrespected, and I really-- it triggered me. And I got really angry. But I didn't recognize I was being triggered, and I didn't realize how angry I was. So I just jumped into a conversation with that person, and it was-- it was bad timing. I needed to have taken a step back and calmed down so I could have been effective.

But becoming aware of what triggers you, the next time you get triggered, you can take a step back and think before you speak, think before you act, and get those emotions under control. So know what could cause you to be triggered. Again, for example, I know that, because I go to bed 9:00-ish and get up at 5:00-ish, I've been teased. Kindergartners stay up later than I do.

But I'm an early to bed, early to rise guy. After 9 o'clock at night, I know not to have any serious conversations with anyone in my family because I am half-asleep. I'm done. I've been up for a long time, and I just don't have much left in the tank. And so again, being aware of that, I try to stay out of important conversations after 8 or 9 o'clock at night when I know I'm not going to be the best version of myself. So just know yourself.

Another potential trigger for people is difficult people. You may have one person at work or in your personal life that pushes your buttons, that causes you to overreact. When you're interacting with that person, just stay aware of that so you can keep that under control.

Now, when you find yourself getting triggered, a good way to manage that is to build in a pause. So pause to think before you speak. Pause before you take action so that when you do speak or take action, you can be intentional and effective and not just react out of that emotion.

Again, all I had to do 20 years ago in that situation that I shared with you all was I needed to just take a break. I needed to take a pause and to take a step back and maybe talk to our HR director that I was friends with back then and would have easily probably helped me to calm down.

I could have called home and talked to my wife, who's talked me down off a thousand ledges over the years, emotionally. And she would have helped me to calm down a little bit and probably give me the advice of, sleep on it. Don't go in now. You're angry. You probably won't have a good conversation when you're mad like this. But practice pausing before you take action or move forward so you can respond calmly instead of reacting emotionally. We're much more effective when we respond calmly.

The last thing I'm going to talk about, folks, is how to skillfully handle difficult conversations. Difficult conversations are one of those times that are highly emotional. We all know the fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight response is when you feel your heart beating faster because-- and that's basically our human stress response.

Whenever you're about to have a difficult conversation, especially if the stakes are high or it's a particularly challenging person for you to deal with, you could-- your heart could be beating because you've got adrenaline in your blood stream. Or you're experiencing the fight-or-flight response.

And go into that situation being aware. Stay aware of your feelings. And if you're upset, know that you're upset and be-- manage that. If you're angry, know that you're angry and manage that, which is what I didn't do in that situation 20 years ago.

So be aware, and then be sensitive to the timing. If you realize that you're not in a good place emotionally, if you're upset like I was or angry like I was, take a step back. Maybe have the conversation at a different time when you're calmer.

That's all I had to do, was really wait until I was calm before I went and talked to my colleague. And the situation would have gone a lot better, and I wouldn't have hurt that relationship. I really, again, really regret that.

So be sensitive to the timing of the interaction, and that's what building in a pause is really good at. If you just make it a rule of thumb to not just jump into anything, that whenever you're triggered, whenever you're emotional, whenever you're feeling intensity, that you-- if you can. Sometimes, something confronts you in the moment, and you have to respond immediately.

But if you can, take a pause. And that can be go for a walk. That can be wait until after lunch. That can be sleeping on it. That can be going and getting some advice before you move forward in that situation. You'll typically handle it better because you've taken that moment to gather yourself and get yourself under control.

And then, when you do go into the conversation with that person, difficult conversation, remember, they call them difficult conversations for a reason, because they are. Sometimes, we hear them called crucial conversations because they're important. We don't want to blow it. We don't want to go in and do a bad job. We want to be effective.

So first of all, I think it's important, whenever you're feeling a lot of emotion, to not go in talking. A lot of people-- when they're upset or angry or feeling intense emotion, they go in talking and basically, tell, this is what I think, this is why we need to do this, this is-- and they start to sell their idea. And then sometimes, that triggers the other person to being defensive or feeling disrespected.

Stephen Covey in that famous book most of you are familiar with, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People-- one of the seven habits was seek first, understand, then be understood. And folks, I love that. If you go in listening-- so knowing that you're emotional, go in listening. That's going in kind of-- going in carefully and giving yourself an opportunity to stay under control, knowing that your heart's beating fast and you're emotional.

Go in and say, hey, I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about that. I know from our email exchange that we both see the situation differently. Let me ask-- let me take-- I really want to figure out why you think the way you think, and I want to be respectful of your opinion. Would you mind explaining in more detail your position and why you feel that way?

And then let the person go first. And while they're talking, you can gather yourself. You can calm yourself down and help you-- and get yourself under control. And then, when it's your turn to speak, you can typically do a better job of calmly and rationally responding because you gathered yourself while they were talking.

And if you let the other person speak first, they're going to feel more respected. It's always the-- when you let others go first, that's always a sign of respect. But it gives you the advantage of the opportunity to calm yourself and to be able to utilize their response in making your own response.

Like, you might be able to see a compromise way forward, or you might be able to-- or adjust your response based on what you feel like they'll be comfortable with. So a lot of good things can happen if you let the other person go first. Plus, the bottom line is by getting your emotions under control, you'll be calmer and more rational in your response and generally more effective.

All right, folks, I know we've covered a lot in a very short period of time today. I want to open it up for questions. If you have any questions-- come back to our initial slide here. If you have any questions, if you can please type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.

And we now have over 300 people on the call today, so I'm anticipating a lot of questions. We probably won't be able to get to everyone's questions, but I will get to as many as we can today. So again, if you have any questions today or comments that you want to make, you can certainly weigh in and share your thoughts about this. Please use the question box in the GoToWebinar software on your screen.

All right, here's our first question, folks, is, what do you do when your emotions are being intentionally challenged? Do you bring attention to this? That's a good question. I've come to believe just-- and I've been in the workforce now a little over 40 years. I've come to believe that most times, when people are confronting us or interacting with us, they're not intentionally trying to be disrespectful. But they're just approaching us in a way that's either not respectful or is ineffective.

And so I don't necessarily feel like I'm being intentionally challenged. That can happen sometimes. There are a few people out there that seem to enjoy provoking others. But in my experience, that's the minimum. I truly believe this.

In my experience, maybe 90% of the time, when people are being ineffective in interacting with me, it's not on purpose. They didn't get up that morning thinking, I'm going to I'm going to give Greg a hard time today. They're just being ineffective. They're either being insensitive, or they don't have-- or else, they're too emotional, not managing their own emotions. But I tend to try to give people the benefit of the doubt with that. Thank you.

I'm getting lots of good questions coming. How do you balance your emotions when it stems from an experience outside of work, but it seems to impact your reactions and interactions at work? That's a good point. And folks, let's remember that, OK? And I'm going to-- I'm going to hold on that one for a minute. That's a really good point.

Folks, remember, we take ourselves to work with us every day. And so what happens outside of work does have an impact on how we feel at work. I mean, think about this. For example, if you have in your background-- if you've been mistreated by people at times-- and that's happened all of us in one way, shape, or form-- and all of a sudden, someone at work is treating you in a way that's reminding you of a way you've been mistreated in the past, maybe disrespected in a conversation, talked down to, that can be triggering.

That can be a little bit of like a post-traumatic reaction and not-- probably not a full-blown, post-traumatic stress reaction. But we can all have these trauma responses when we're going through something that we went through before that was difficult or painful.

And so again, if someone's treating us-- if someone that we're interacting with reminds us of someone in the past that we had a hard time with or is treating us in a way that-- that's uncomfortable for us and it reminds us of how someone else treated us in a similar way, we can overreact in that situation because our reaction is not just coming from the current situation. It's coming from what that is triggering in us.

So we need to be aware of that. It's important, because, again, if you're aware that you're being-- that maybe your reaction here is a little bit more intense than the situation dictates, it might be because what's happening in the present is reminding you from-- of something that was really uncomfortable from the past. That's a good point. Thank you for asking that question.

We're getting a lot of questions, so I'm trying to read through and grab questions that are-- maybe might have the widest audience appeal. All right, when emotional intelligence doesn't work-- here's a good question-- what do you-- what do you recommend to correct or equalize a bad situation?

Folks, if you lose your cool, if you overreact, it happens. If you micromanage someone and you know that employee's uncomfortable, I always think it's important to go back and apologize, to own it, to take responsibility and to go back to say, hey, I'm really sorry. In our conversation yesterday, I was losing my cool a little bit. I have very strong feelings, as you could tell, about the situation, and I'm sorry.

I should have been more patient and respectful to you while you were talking, and I just want to apologize. And you're important to me as a colleague, and I don't want to have an emotional conversation like yesterday's hurt our relationship, because you're important to me. That would be an example of going back and just making it right. Thank you. Good question.

Right, here's another one, another good question. Got lots of well-thought-out questions, folks. Really appreciate y'all taking this topic so seriously. How do you know when enough is enough, and you need to come down hard on the employee because the soft approach isn't working? I truly believe that collaboration-- if you think about this, in the leadership literature, now the best practice in working with employees is to be more collaborative and more of a coach than a boss. Now, when you're coaching people, can still hold them accountable.

But what I mean by that is instead of just going in and talking down to someone and trying to put them in their place because you're frustrated with them-- and that strategy may really alienate the employee. They may feel like you're really treating them badly, even though their performance necessitated you confronting them, is if you come down too hard and you're, in some way, disrespectful or condescending, I mean, that can, again, hurt that employee's feelings and demotivate-- demotivate that employee.

And that's not what we want. We want to work with the employee in a way that's going to get them back on track. Remember, discipline is not about punishment. Disciplining performance or deficit performance is about getting someone back on track, is I want to be more of a coach. I want to point out what's not working with their performance and ask them what they could do to change the performance. I'm going to-- I'm going to be direct with them about it but in a kind way.

That report you turned on, turned in this week-- it's not meeting what our boss is looking for, and we really need to rework it a little bit. And if I give you some extra time, what could you do to beef this up a little bit and get it more in line with the normal reports that you turn in, would be an example of being more of a coach and managing that poor performance, instead of just coming down hard on what you don't like about the report that they turned in. People generally respond more to a collaborative coaching approach than come down hard on them.

Got some more really good questions coming here, folks. We got time for more questions. Let's see. How do you work on identifying your triggers for the long term to avoid counterproductive emotional intelligence repeat behavior?

It's practicing staying aware. It's practicing awareness. Like, I used to micromanage sometimes. And for years, I didn't why I was doing it until I finally figured out that, if I had delegated work to someone and I was really nervous that they were going to do a good job with it, and I knew my boss knew that assignment was important, I would feel pressure to look over that employees shoulder and micromanage them to make sure they did it right because the stakes were high for me, as the supervisor.

And once I realized that I would be more prone to micromanage when I was anxious, I learned how to cope with my anxiety better. So it was like, OK, I'm anxious now. I'm really nervous that this guy is going to get the work done right, and my boss is really expecting this to be done at a high level. And I'm nervous.

And then I would-- so then would learn some different ways of coping. Once you become aware, then, OK, what can I do different rather than go micromanage the employee? How about talk to one of my colleagues and get some advice or just process what I'm feeling with my colleague?