Robots and Loose Cannons, eek! How Genuine Leaders Balance Emotions at Work
Are you burdened with the assumption that normal human emotions don’t belong at work? That emotions are bad and need to be harshly controlled, like poison ivy or an aggressive dog?
The idea that we aren’t supposed to be humans with emotions at work is one of many outdated assumptions from the world of top-down “do your tasks and go home” management.
I think of it as the Robot Assumption. The Robot Assumption goes like this:
At work, we are supposed to be nice, do tasks, and make decisions with no joy, hope, anticipation, confusion, irritation, or anger. Be a person at home. We can turn our emotions back on once we are on the way home, to our separate (!?) personal (!?) lives. It’s the old stiff upper lip. It’s a frozen smile. Everything is totally fine, I got this, even when it’s not and you don’t. Or everything is chill, I’m totally even-keeled, even when you are pumped up and want to whoop it up.
Here’s why the Robot Assumption doesn’t work:
Being a Robot is exhausting. Because it’s impossible. As people, not robots, we have emotions. It takes extra energy to always keep that smile plastered on when it’s not real. To keep enthusiasm bottled up and everything quiet. This leads to alienation and burnout. This is part of the problem when someone says they can’t be themselves or can’t be “authentic” at work.
Being a Robot hides useful data. Excitement, annoyance, even anger, these emotional reactions are part of the information a team needs about what people really think and how well the work is going. Pretending we don’t have emotions means missing important signals.
Being a Robot is fake and creepy. Fake leads to unease and distrust. I think of the rictus smile in the ads for Smile, the 2022 horror movie. (I like horror movies, but I haven’t seen it. That trailer is freaky.) When someone shows no emotion, no personal connection to the work, it can be hard to build the trust required to collaborate.
The Robot Expectation hurts inclusion. Denying emotionality is harder for some people than it is for others. To put a fine point on it, the stiff-upper-lip expectation is part of the old-school white dominant culture of the American workplace.
Now, over on the other end of the workplace-emotionality spectrum from a Robot, is the character I think of as the Loose Cannon.
This is the person who blows up a meeting with a big emotional reaction, or uses reply-all and cc’s 10 more people to lodge a complaint or place blame.
Most people do something emotional and dramatic every once in a while. Again, we are all emotional creatures and everybody has a bad day every now and then. But the Loose Cannon reacts emotionally and explosively frequently, so that their bosses and teams expect this type of drama from them. (I’m thinking specifically about negative emotion-led behaviors here, less the big positive emotions.
When a Loose Cannon realizes that their unthoughtful reaction created a negative or questioning response, they might say, “I call it like I see it.” Or “I’m just being authentic.” Or “Everybody can just deal with it.” Which is valid to a certain extent! We want people to be themselves at work. The problem arises when we make our emotional reactions everyone else’s problem.
The Loose Cannon causes disruption and distrust. People see the Loose Cannon as unreliable, someone to walk on eggshells around. Even when the Loose Cannon is 100% right about the concerns that led to their emotional response, their important and useful concerns get lost because people want to stay out of the drama.
Note: Having a mentor or trusted individual bestie at work to help process big emotions before responding is so healthy and helpful.
The opportunity here, the balancing act that is a big part of mindful leadership:
Feel your emotions. Don’t judge your emotions by trying to be the Robot. Then pause and figure out what those emotions mean and how that informs your work and your work relationships, instead of reacting emotionally in the moment like a Loose Cannon, without considering the impact you want for yourself and your team.
Examples:
“That email makes me mad. I want to tell everybody off. But let me pause. Why am I so upset? What’s upsetting here?” It could be stress in reaction to urgency, feeling disregarded by someone in power, our wish to protect your team from criticism.
“I am so stoked and proud of my team at their success. I want to run around the office hooting and hollering.” … People are working and in meetings. Maybe wait till Friday afternoon? Or celebrate a team meeting?
I will close with a comment on Robot and Loose Cannon from a wise student in a recent leadership course: “I think it's a healthy practice to be authentic (for your own mental health) … this helps provide context in your work performance or can be valuable to impacting the performance of the organization. I operate in the middle, it takes too much work to be a Robot and too risky to be a Loose Cannon.”