Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2013. The description of Sundheim as having “more than 20 years of experience” is as of 2013.
A lot of leaders’ speeches come out sounding too scripted and polished. Just look at today’s political leaders. Messages are manufactured to strike the right tone while trying not to show any kind of emotion. When a message comes across like that, people unconsciously pick up on the leader’s lack of authenticity.
Leaders are usually advised not to show their emotions: to stay in control at all times, to look cheerful if they are worried, to hold back if they are upset, and to keep up appearances if they are delighted with the results. But in reality, this kind of attempt to control our emotions is exactly what makes us lose control of situations. At least, that is what Doug Sundheim thinks. He is a strategy and leadership consultant with more than 20 years of experience managing leaders and helping them reach their goals.
For Sundheim, being too emotional in business can cause you a lot of problems, since it can cloud your capacity for analysis, make you lose your objectivity and lead you to make rash decisions. Even so, according to Sundheim, showing our emotions too openly doesn’t cause as many problems as showing no emotion at all.
Emotions are essential for a leader, because they help build trust, strengthen relationships, set out a vision and get people moving in a very natural way. On top of that, showing our emotions helps us learn from failure.
(Read: How to be a more charismatic and persuasive leader)
In his 20 years as a professional, Sundheim has come to believe that women leaders don’t show their emotions because of an inequality that comes with the position. When a woman lets her emotions out, she tends to be called hysterical and weak, while a man gets labelled tough, passionate and open. They show the same emotions, but they are perceived differently, so women run the risk of being fired more easily than a man if they show their emotions.
To motivate and inspire, you need to convey your emotions
Sundheim thinks that over the years people have tried to project a false image of a leader who doesn’t exist, one who must always be “in the trenches” and never show weakness or exhaustion. But that is not how bonds are built within teams, and besides, the leader who looks like reinforced concrete actually feels like a sheet of tissue paper.
A good leader is usually the one who fights hardest in the company and for its people, and because they fight the hardest, they are also the one who can end up exhausted and frustrated. Employees don’t want someone who looks fine but is emotionally shattered.
More than once, a leader has felt frustrated, tired and worn out after months of fighting over a particular case, and when the team has seen them practically crushed, that is when the team has shown that their leader prepared them perfectly, and they have quickly and stoically taken the situation on. It is at that moment that the leader feels motivated, discovering that they really are a team, a tight-knit group.
Remember the old proverb: “Falling down is allowed, but getting back up is mandatory.” A leader is a person of flesh and blood, and therefore not perfect. If you prick them, it hurts, and if you cut them, they bleed. Showing joy and strength while you are being pricked and cut won’t make anyone stop cutting and pricking you.
Likewise, there is probably nothing more beautiful in leadership than seeing a leader shouting furiously at their team because they are falling short of the target, and then, once they reach it, that same leader ends up shedding a few tears of emotion while thanking the team for finally getting there. Bonds are created and a kind of family takes root in the company.
The leaders we have been sold probably don’t really exist, or they would be closer to the bosses we described when we set them apart from leaders. In fact, one great leader, among his many other great virtues, was Steve Jobs himself, who was a constant explosion of emotions, to the point of being emotionally uncontrollable. But he generated passion, and at the same time hatred and admiration. He was not a prefabricated image but an authentic person, for better or for worse. That said, Jobs is probably not the best example of leadership, though he certainly is of explosive emotion.
See also: The day I realized that to succeed in business you have to become a cold person
Further reading
- To be a great leader, start by making changes in yourself
- 5 things successful people do
- 9 simple, extraordinary things to say to people at work every day
Featured image: Ben Stanfield from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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