Breaking through emotional barrier to productivity

In today’s VUCA work environment, productivity is a top priority for individuals, teams, and organisations. However, despite the best efforts of employees and leaders, many workplaces struggle to achieve optimal productivity levels. A contributing factor often overlooked is emotion. Unrecognised and unmanaged emotions can significantly interfere with productivity, causing decreased motivation, performance, and job satisfaction.

Emotion plays a critical role in the workplace; it influences how employees interact with each other, their tasks, and their environment. When emotions are not acknowledged and managed, they can become a significant barrier to productivity. Here are some ways emotions can impact work:

· Distraction and Lack of focus: Strong emotions can divert attention, making it challenging for employees to concentrate on tasks. This distraction can lead to mistakes, errors, and decreased productivity.

· Motivation and engagement: Negative emotions like anxiety, fear, or sadness can decrease motivation and engagement, while positive emotions like enthusiasm or excitement can boost them.

· Energy levels and well-being: Emotions can influence energy levels and overall well-being. For example, stress can exhaust employees, while happiness can energize them.

· Decision-making and judgement: Emotions can cloud judgment, leading to impulsive or irrational decisions. This can result in poor decision making, negatively impacting productivity and performance.

· Time management and prioritisation: Emotional turmoil can lead to procrastination or excessive time spent on non-essential tasks. This can disrupt workflow, lead to missed deadlines, and decrease productivity.

Given the significant impact of emotions on productivity, it is not just essential, but also highly beneficial for supervisors and leaders to develop emotional intelligence (EI). EI refers to the ability to recognize and understand emotions in oneself and others and to use this awareness to guide thoughts and behaviours. The benefits of developing EI are numerous, including improved team dynamics, enhanced decision-making, and a more positive work culture. Leading with high emotional intelligence can be done by:

· Recognizing and acknowledging emotions: Emotionally intelligent leaders can identify and recognize the feelings of their team members, creating a safe and supportive work environment.

· Empathizing and providing support: Leaders with high EI can empathize with their team members, providing guidance, support, and resources to help them manage their emotions and improve productivity.

· Developing effective communication strategies: Emotionally intelligent leaders can communicate effectively, watching their tone and considering their team members’ emotional sensitivity.

· Creating a positive work culture: create a positive work culture that promotes emotional wellbeing, motivation, and productivity. This is not just a responsibility, but also an opportunity to make a significant impact on the lives of your team members and the success of the organization.

· Make informed decisions: Emotionally intelligent leaders can make informed decisions, considering both the logical and emotional implications of their choices.

It is imperative to develop emotional intelligence, here are some strategies to adopt to breakthrough the emotional barriers:

· Self-reflection and self-awareness: these help to regularly reflect on one’s emotions, values, and motivations to better understand oneself and appreciate others journeys.

· Active listening and empathy: Practicing active listening and empathy helps to see things from the perspective of others.

· Feedback and self-regulation: Soliciting input from other people and using it to adjust one’s behaviour and improve one’s relationships.

· Emotional labelling and recognition: Learning to recognize and label emotions in yourself and others.

· Mindfulness and stress management: Practicing mindfulness and stress management techniques, such as meditation or deep breathing to improve emotional regulation.

· Personal emotional check: Burdening leaders, supervisors, and colleagues with someone else’s emotional wellbeing would be most unfair. Individuals who often find themselves on emotional rollercoasters should also take responsibility for their emotions.

Emotions play a significant role in the workplace, impacting productivity, motivation, and job satisfaction. Supervisors and leaders must recognize and manage these emotions to create a positive work culture and improve productivity. By doing this, you can create a work environment that supports your team members’ emotional and psychological wellbeing, leading to increased productivity, job satisfaction, and overall success.

Call To Action

Emotional wellbeing significantly contributes to productivity in and outside work. Therefore, we all must be aware of our emotional stability. Even when we don’t have control over others’ actions or inactions, we must control our emotions by reasoning things out logically and reacting appropriately. Your emotional well-being is rated mainly by your resilience, your ability to overcome challenges or keep going in the face of it. So, how do you get rid of the emotional stress factors that prevent you from achieving your goals? While internal interferences can pose significant obstacles to achieving personal goals, you can overcome them with the right strategies, mindset, and support.

Apply the outlined strategies by reflecting on your own emotions and how they may be affecting your leadership. Then, consider how you can use your emotional intelligence to better understand and support your team members. Finally, take steps to create a positive work culture that promotes emotional wellbeing and productivity. Kindly share your thoughts via email to [email protected].

Olayinka Opaleye is a Well-being Specialist and Corporate Wellness Strategist. She can also be reached via email: [email protected], call on +234 8100371304 or by clicking on www.linkedin.com/in/olayinkaopaleye.