Emotional Self-Control

Emotional Self-Control is the ability to manage disruptive emotions and impulses and to maintain effectiveness under stressful or even hostile conditions. Such self-control does not mean suppressing emotions, but rather noticing the feelings and their accompanying body signals and choosing whether or how to act on them. Having emotional self-control means staying clear-headed and calm, balancing one’s impulses and feelings for the good of the group or mission.

Emotional self-control implies the ability to recognise and manage your emotions and remain effective even in stressful situations. It doesn’t mean to avoid, ignore or repress them as people sometimes misinterpret. It’s an ability that can be acquired by constantly repeating certain actions, even if people with weak emotional self-control have the impression that their emotional state doesn’t depend on them and they often feel overwhelmed by the tumult of emotions as if they control them and not vice versa.

When emotions take over the ability to concentrate, cognitive mental capacity or "functional memory" is blocked. This makes all other intellectual efforts possible, from forming a sentence to solving a complicated problem. The blockage of our cognitive mental capacity often makes us act impulsively, make or say uninspired and unhealthy things and damage relations. We are the ones who have the power to amplify or diminish our emotions. For example, the more we worry about something that has made us angry, the more we find good reason and justifications for being angry, and the more we get angry. If we try to see things from another perspective, we manage to calm down. Rethinking a situation in a positive manner is one of the most effective ways to quell anger.

Emotions are part of our daily life, and the way we feel and express them influences the quality of our life, but also the way others see us. If, for example, we are used to get angry and make a real drama when our partner doesn’t answer the phone, instead of addressing the situation in a rational, calm manner, this will certainly predispose the relationship to many conflicts. Or if we react aggressively in traffic, this can put our life in danger, and we can also put others at risk.

Our emotional responses depend on how we perceive and evaluate the situations we are going through. If our emotional responses are functional, that is, they are appropriate for the situation we are in, we have nothing to worry about. But if we often feel negative emotions, if their intensity overwhelms us, stops us from naturally carrying out our daily activities, affects us both professionally and personally, we have to do something to change that.

One of the critical abilities that a good leader should have is to be aware of his/her emotions and what he/she is feeling.

You allow yourself to become angry or frightened. Different people will respond differently to the same event. It is therefore important to understand that you do have power over your thoughts and emotions. You are able to apply emotional control.

There is nothing wrong with any emotion; they are there to trigger a response for your own safety and survival. They serve as an outlet for inner-reactions to life’s challenges. As a leader however, it is critical that you deal with your emotions responsibly.

This does not mean that you will no longer feel any uncomfortable emotions. It means that you will be able to:

• Recognise uncomfortable emotions quickly.
• Understand what underlying thoughts evoked the emotions.
• Deal with the emotion in a responsible manner.