Emotions
Managing emotions in an organization is a challenge, for a number of reasons, and many organization prove ineffective at this. There are several possible reasons. One is that the emotions themselves can be quite complex, varying between individuals and even within an individual over time. For a single individual to manage their own emotions is a challenge, much less a third party (like a manager) trying manage the emotions of multiple individuals simultaneously. People typically have multiple emotional roles, and this can affect them in the workplace, especially where there is an element of role confusion, such as being asked to work overtime on a stressful project at a time when they are needed at home (Wharton & Erickson, 1993).
Organizations can also struggle in dealing with emotions in the workplace because they fail to place sufficient emphasis on developing emotional intelligence in the workplace. Managers are often selected, in many companies, for their technical abilities rather than for softer skills such as conflict resolution and emotional intelligence. Compounding the issue is that few companies offer any sort of training on these things. If managers come into their roles on the basis of expertise and systems management, they are ill-equipped to deal with conflict resolution and may have low emotional intelligence, yet most companies lack training programs to upgrade these critical skills. The result is that the organization is unable to handle emotions effectively both at the individual and collective levels (Jordan & Troth, 2009). Thus, the ineffectiveness that some organizations show with respect to managing emotions seems to relate to a lack of emphasis on understanding the roles and manifestations of emotions in the workplace, leaving managers with little understanding of the issue and little latitude to work with emotions in a positive way. They become attached to systems that might not reflect emotions well, and are unable to deal with emotional aspects of decision-making and problem-solving. Organizational emphasis on emotions would help...
Research has long sought to understand if emotions exist within or without cultural context. Wierzbicka (1986) sought to determine a framework for understanding the different emotions to see if there were universal truths. However, there is a cultural dimension to the outward expression of emotion. Different dimensions of emotional intelligence are affected by culture, in particular the elements of uncertainty avoidance, collectivism and long-term orientation (Gunkel, Schlagel & Engle, 2013). Outward emotional expression is preferred where uncertainty avoidance is high, so that everybody knows what is on the table, so to speak. A long-term orientation is also correlated with outward emotional expression because the costs of outward expression are not high -- it is not risky. In cultures where outward expression can carry high social and professional costs -- North America, Japan, China and northern Europe -- emotions are usually reserved in the workplace. In southern Europe, India, Arab countries and Latin America, the lack of costs of outward emotional expression allow for more such expression.
So for strategic use of emotional expression, this is very culturally-dependent. In most business cultures, emotions are kept to a minimum, and must be read through context. There are very few world-caliber poker players in the boardroom -- most people's emotions are on display in some way, even if they are restrained from direct expression. It simply takes a knowledge of cultural context to understand how somebody feels, and good emotional intelligence to recognize the signs. In that way, covering true emotions does not necessarily cause more problems because most people are pretty easy to read anyway. Overt expression of emotion, on the other hand, can lead to destructive conflict because the issue at hand gets…
