How to Handle Your Emotions at Work | Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy
Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy, co-authors of *No Hard Feelings* and *Big Feelings*, discuss seven rules for managing emotions at work. They explore finding a middle path between emotional suppression and oversharing, emphasizing psychological safety, understanding emotional data, and recognizing burnout.
Deep Dive Analysis
12 Topic Outline
Introduction to Emotions at Work and Authors' Background
Rule 1: Be Less Passionate About Your Job
Rule 2: Inspire Yourself and Find Meaning in Work
Rule 3: Emotion is Part of the Equation
Navigating Emotions in Hiring and Firing Decisions
Rule 4: Prioritizing Psychological Safety in Teams
Dealing with Conflict and Building Trust
Rule 5: Your Feelings Aren't Facts
Rule 6: Emotional Culture Cascades from You
Understanding and Managing Crying at Work
Cultural Differences in Emotional Expression
Recognizing Early Signs of Burnout
9 Key Concepts
Portfolio of Meaning
This concept suggests that individuals should balance their investment in work with other aspects of life that bring joy, such as family, hobbies, or creative pursuits. Over-investing solely in work can make challenges feel disproportionately intense and lead to burnout.
Rest Portfolio
This refers to the intentional and personalized collection of activities or practices that help an individual rest and recharge. What constitutes rest varies greatly from person to person, and it's crucial for sustainable success and overall well-being.
Relevant vs. Irrelevant Emotions
A relevant emotion is useful and pertinent to a decision or situation, like excitement for a job offer. An irrelevant emotion is one better regulated or set aside, as it stems from unrelated factors (e.g., lack of sleep) and can bias decision-making.
Psychological Safety
This is a state where everyone in a group feels comfortable suggesting ideas, admitting mistakes, and taking risks without fear of embarrassment or punishment. It is crucial for effective teams and open communication.
Micro Actions
These are small, positive gestures that contribute to psychological safety and human connection within a group. Examples include correctly pronouncing someone's name, explicitly thanking people, or providing context to newcomers.
Task vs. Relationship Conflict
Task conflict involves disagreements about ideas or ways of doing things, which can be productive if managed well. Relationship conflict is personality-driven or about personal arguments, often arising from unresolved task conflict and leading to resentment.
Emotional Culture
Unlike explicit company culture, emotional culture is implicit and formed by small gestures and behaviors, influencing how emotions are expressed and perceived within an organization or team. It can vary significantly even within a single company.
Selective Vulnerability
This is a leadership approach where managers share authentic emotions (e.g., sadness or anxiety) but couple them with a clear path forward or actionable steps. It builds trust by showing humanity without creating instability or oversharing anxieties.
Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
This describes the act of delaying sleep to reclaim personal time, often by doom-scrolling or engaging in other activities despite being exhausted. It's an early sign of burnout, indicating a desperate attempt to regain control over one's schedule.
14 Questions Answered
The middle path involves not completely stifling emotions, which is unwise and impossible, but also avoiding being a dysregulated, sloppy, compulsive oversharer. It's about acknowledging and understanding emotions without letting them take over unproductively.
Being less passionate about your job means caring more about your own mental and physical health. Over-investing in work can lead to burnout, make critical feedback feel like a personal attack, and diminish other sources of meaning in your life.
Rest and recharging are the foundation for everything you do, accelerating success and helping maintain a sustainable career. Viewing rest as something to earn is backward thinking; it's what enables you to perform effectively in the long run.
Managers should define outcomes rather than processes, allowing team members to create their own ways of doing things. This gives people more control over their schedules and fosters a sense of meaning in their work.
When you don't acknowledge what you're feeling, you tend to make worse decisions and have worse interactions. Emotions are always present, and factoring them into your decision-making checklist, alongside other data, leads to better outcomes.
Envy can reveal what you truly value and desire, prompting you to explore career paths or opportunities you might otherwise ignore. Anger signals that something you care deeply about has been violated, providing information about your core needs and values.
You should not rely strictly on gut feelings when hiring or firing, as emotions can introduce biases like similarity bias. Instead, use structured processes, objective tests, and blind evaluations to curb these biases and make fair decisions.
Psychological safety is when every team member feels safe to suggest ideas, admit mistakes, and take risks without fear of embarrassment or punishment. It is the number one factor for effective teams, fostering open communication and innovation.
While everyone is responsible, managers have an outsized impact on psychological safety. They can create space for difficult discussions, lead with vulnerability, and implement 'micro actions' to foster an inclusive environment.
The best teams don't avoid conflict; they develop systems for navigating it. They differentiate between 'task conflict' (clash of ideas) and 'relationship conflict' (personality issues) and address task conflict proactively before it escalates into personal resentment.
Strong reactions or feelings are often based on assumptions or conclusions jumped to without full information. It's important to approach situations with curiosity, check underlying assumptions, and give yourself time to process before acting on initial emotional responses.
Emotions can go viral, spreading from person to person, even between those who don't directly interact. Leaders have an outsized impact because people look to them more closely for emotional cues, making their emotional expression cascade through the team.
Crying at work is more common than often admitted and is not necessarily a sign of sadness; for women, it often stems from anger, frustration, or feeling overwhelmed. It's a human reaction that signals a strong emotional response, and managers should approach it with curiosity rather than making assumptions.
Early signs, or 'feather taps,' include finding normally lovely people irritating, cutting out activities you know are good for you (like exercise or therapy), feeling relief at the thought of getting sick, and engaging in 'revenge bedtime procrastination.'
25 Actionable Insights
1. Prioritize Self-Care Over Job
Care more about your mental and physical health than your job, as your well-being is the foundation for sustainable success and a balanced ‘portfolio of meaning.’ Actively invest in activities that bring you joy outside of work, such as spending time alone, with family, or engaging in creative pursuits.
2. Personalize Your Rest Strategy
Actively experiment and identify what truly re-energizes you, whether it’s a long vacation, shorter breaks, rescheduling meetings for focused work, or daily meditation, as effective rest is highly individual. Create your own list of practices that genuinely recharge you, rather than relying on generic advice.
3. Acknowledge Emotions for Decisions
Recognize that emotions are an unavoidable part of decision-making and interactions, and failing to acknowledge them can lead to worse outcomes. Before making a decision or engaging in an interaction, pause to identify your current emotional state and consider how it might be influencing your perspective.
4. Use Emotions as Data
Understand that feelings provide valuable information, such as envy signaling what you truly value or anger indicating a violation of something you care about. Instead of suppressing or judging ‘difficult’ emotions, explore their underlying message to inform your actions and growth.
5. Regulate Irrelevant Emotions
Differentiate between emotions relevant to the immediate situation and those that are irrelevant (e.g., stress from lack of sleep affecting a job application decision). For irrelevant emotions, consciously regulate them or delay important decisions until you are in a more balanced state.
6. Question Assumptions, Not Facts
When experiencing a strong emotional reaction, pause before acting and approach the situation with curiosity, questioning the assumptions underlying your feelings. Give yourself time to process and avoid projecting the worst possible interpretation when information is missing.
7. Address Conflict Early
Develop systems for navigating conflict by addressing ’task conflict’ (clash of ideas) before it escalates into ‘relationship conflict’ (personality-driven arguments). Proactively name potential issues and communicate your intention to resolve them in the interest of mutual success to build trust and strengthen relationships.
8. Cultivate Psychological Safety
As a manager, dedicate explicit time for discussing difficult topics and invite opposing viewpoints, leading with your own vulnerability to create space for others to share. As a team member, you can also lead from below or the side by sharing vulnerability and suggesting open discussions.
9. Practice Micro-Actions for Inclusion
Foster psychological safety through small, positive gestures like correctly pronouncing and spelling names, asking questions when unfamiliar with something, and explicitly thanking people for their feedback. Provide context to new participants to ensure they feel included and can contribute effectively.
10. Leaders: Selective Vulnerability
As a leader, be highly aware that your emotional expression cascades throughout the organization, influencing others. Practice ‘selective vulnerability’ by sharing authentic emotions (e.g., sadness or anxiety during layoffs) but always couple it with a clear path forward, avoiding oversharing personal anxieties.
11. Understand Emotional Expression Tendency
As a leader or manager, identify whether you tend to be an ‘over-emoter’ or ‘under-emoter’ to consciously adjust your expression for stability and clarity. If an ‘under-emoter,’ verbalize your thoughts and feelings more explicitly; if an ‘over-emoter,’ check yourself to avoid creating instability.
12. Co-create Explicit Emotional Norms
Work with your team or group to co-create an ‘it’s okay to’ list, making explicit the desired emotional culture and acceptable behaviors (e.g., ‘it’s okay to have a bad day,’ ‘it’s okay to take a break’). This codified list helps clarify norms and holds everyone accountable.
13. Implement Structured Hiring Processes
To reduce bias and ensure fair decision-making, do not rely solely on gut feelings when hiring. Instead, clearly outline required skills, design objective tests, use blind evaluations, and conduct structured interviews with immediate scoring.
14. Manage Crying at Work
If you cry at work, excuse yourself to a private space to regain composure, then reflect on the underlying reason (e.g., overwhelm, frustration) to communicate the need. If you are a manager, follow up with empathy and curiosity, asking what happened and how you can support, avoiding assumptions about sadness.
15. Be Aware of Cultural Differences
Recognize that emotional expression varies significantly across cultures (e.g., more expressive in Greece/Italy, less in Korea/Japan). When working with cross-cultural teams, educate yourself on these generalities and consider proactively stating your own cultural communication style to prevent misunderstandings.
16. Listen to Early Burnout Signals
Pay attention to subtle ‘feather taps’ of burnout, such as finding normally pleasant people irritating, cutting out self-care activities, longing for sick days, or engaging in ‘revenge bedtime procrastination.’ Do not ignore these signals, as powering through actively harms your long-term well-being and career.
17. Reschedule Work for Autonomy
Build more autonomy into your job by rescheduling your work to consolidate meetings on certain days, allowing for dedicated ‘heads down’ time on others. This increases motivation by giving you more control over your schedule.
18. Managers: Define Outcomes, Not Processes
To increase team motivation, managers should focus on defining desired outcomes rather than dictating processes. This empowers team members to create their own methods, fostering a sense of control and engagement.
19. Reconnect with Work Meaning
Actively seek and reconnect with the meaning in your work, whether it’s the deeper purpose, finding interesting and fun aspects, or even just the practical meaning of paying bills and showing up for a coworker. This helps combat disengagement and burnout.
20. Shift Task Mindset to Pride
When faced with a task, shift your mindset from ‘how can I get this done quickly?’ to ‘what would make me really proud to send this?’ This reframes the work as a creative opportunity, increasing enjoyment and motivation even within time constraints.
21. Do ‘Shit Work’ Collectively
To make dreaded or avoided tasks more enjoyable, get together with colleagues or friends (in person or virtually) to complete them collectively. Chat, play music, or share stories while doing tasks like expense reports or taxes to foster bonding and make the work less isolating.
22. Communicate Emotional State Proactively
If you’re experiencing a strong emotion (e.g., frustration from traffic), communicate it briefly to colleagues or direct reports to prevent misinterpretation. State that your mood is unrelated to them (e.g., ‘It’s been a morning; I need five minutes to be present’) to avoid creating unintentional anxiety.
23. Don’t Go to Bed Angry
Ignore the advice to ’never go to bed angry’ and instead, go to bed angry if you are tired, as sometimes anger is exacerbated by exhaustion. Prioritize getting a good night’s sleep, as things often seem clearer and better after rest.
24. Verbalize Thoughts as Under-Emoter
If you identify as an ‘under-emoter’ (people find it hard to know what you’re thinking), make a conscious effort to verbalize your thoughts and emotions more explicitly, especially as a manager. This helps your team understand your state and prevents misinterpretations.
25. Adapt Email Communication Culturally
When communicating with individuals from different cultural backgrounds, adapt your communication style to their norms, especially in written correspondence. For example, in the U.S., include social pleasantries and a warmer tone in emails, even if your native culture is more direct.
8 Key Quotes
If you are not caring about yourself and your health, you're not able to do your job.
Mollie West Duffy
If you're completely overinvested in work, that's just not a good portfolio. You should always have balance.
Liz Fosslien
Your well-being and resting and recharging is the foundation for everything else that you do.
Mollie West Duffy
If you're not acknowledging the feeling, the feeling can take over and that's going to lead to a lot of worse outcomes than if you would actually just stop to think about what's going on within you.
Liz Fosslien
The emotion of envy, of comparison, has so much data in it. And it tells us what we value if we're honest with ourselves.
Mollie West Duffy
When you're having conflict within your team, validation preserves psychological safety. You could reconceptualize all conflict as a struggle for validation. Disagreement causes hurt feelings only when mutual respect hasn't been established. One of the most disrespectful things you can do is make someone feel invisible and validation helps people feel visible.
Liz Fosslien
We hate the advice, never go to bed angry. Go to bed angry. Sometimes you're tired. Sometimes that's why you're mad. And you just need to, like, get a good night's sleep and wake up and things will seem a little better.
Liz Fosslien
Burnout taps you on the shoulder with a feather over and over and over again, until finally it hits you with a bus. And your job is to listen to the feather taps.
Liz Fosslien
6 Protocols
Creating Psychological Safety (Manager Actions)
Mollie West Duffy- Dedicate time on the calendar to check in about difficult things, asking, 'What would you like to share that you haven't had a chance to share yet?'
- Lead with your own vulnerability by sharing personal failures, embarrassments, or learnings to create space for others.
Creating Psychological Safety (Micro Actions)
Liz Fosslien- Pronounce someone's name correctly and spell names correctly.
- Explicitly thank people for participating or sharing feedback.
- Provide context to newcomers in conversations or organizations (e.g., explaining acronyms, project history, or relevant information).
Navigating Task Conflict in Collaboration
Mollie West Duffy and Liz Fosslien- Schedule regular time to discuss potential issues before they escalate into problems.
- Clearly communicate individual preferences and working styles (e.g., Google Drive organization).
- Understand and value each other's complementary strengths and establish a handoff process that leverages them.
Making Emotional Norms Explicit (It's Okay To List)
Liz Fosslien- Gather everyone in the group (team, family, friends) to co-create a list of what is explicitly 'okay to do' within that setting.
- Include items such as 'It's okay to have a bad day,' 'It's okay to have your camera off when the news feels heavy,' 'It's okay to ask questions,' 'It's okay to take a break,' or 'It's okay to run around the block over lunch.'
- Codify and regularly refer to this list to ensure accountability and reinforce the desired emotional culture.
Responding to Crying at Work (If you are the person crying)
Liz Fosslien- In the moment, create space for yourself by excusing yourself and going to a private area like the bathroom.
- Give yourself time to process and become less emotional, aiming to be able to discuss your emotions without getting emotional.
- Figure out the underlying reason why you cried (e.g., feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, angry) and communicate that need to your manager.
Responding to Crying at Work (If you are the manager)
Liz Fosslien- Do not make assumptions about why someone is crying (e.g., don't assume sadness when it might be anger or frustration).
- Approach the situation with curiosity.
- Later, say something like, 'I noticed you had a strong reaction yesterday. I really want to support you. Can you help me understand what's happening so that I can step in where I need to?'