Emotions and Leadership

In this episode, I dive into the hidden emotional labor of leadership, sharing stories from my own life—both at home and in professional settings—to explore how leaders, especially women, navigate the delicate balance of awareness, empathy, and action. 

I reflect on moments when stress and frustration threatened to derail me, and I show how cultivating self-coaching and grounding practices can help turn emotional turmoil into clarity and calm. 

If you’ve ever felt the weight of others’ emotions in your work or questioned how to stay centered while guiding a team, this episode offers both validation and practical insight into leading with presence, perspective, and poise.

Managing Emotional Labor as a Leader

Leadership isn’t just about making decisions or managing projects—it’s also about dealing with emotions, both yours and the people you work with. I’ve learned that things like timing announcements, navigating team dynamics, and being mindful of history all take a lot of subtle attention. Over time, I’ve also realized that while I can be aware of others’ feelings and respond thoughtfully, I’m not—and can’t be—responsible for controlling how anyone else feels. Accepting that boundary has been huge for preserving my energy and staying effective as a leader.

Finding Groundedness in Stressful Situations

I recently ran into a situation that reminded me just how tricky this emotional work can be. I had to practice a skill I talk about a lot: self-coaching. By intentionally focusing on positive, forward-looking thoughts, I was able to shift my perspective and see the stress not as a burden, but as an investment in long-term growth—for my family and for my sense of agency as a leader. Learning to reframe tough moments like this is something I keep coming back to in my work.

Leading with Awareness and Resilience

I’ve found that emotional awareness is a leadership skill in its own right. Managing your own emotions through reflection, perspective, and grounding techniques helps you stay calm, even when everyone else is reacting strongly. Challenges—whether from work or personal life—present opportunities to build resilience, make informed decisions, and grow as a leader. The more we practice self-awareness, the better we can lead with clarity, presence, and poise, even when big emotions are in the mix.

“What you need to do is as a leader, you need to think about how much of your energy and time is going to be spent worrying about other people’s emotional reactions, worrying about managing other people‘s emotions in the teams that you work on and with your interactions with people who you manage.”

“What I wanted to do is open up this idea, validate, and normalize the idea that there is emotional work here inside of leadership. If you are feeling like it is emotional, then that is because you are a human and you get to. When you are put in these positions of managing big emotions inside of groups, the positive spin on it is that you get to learn how to manage your emotions. You get to find a calm, grounded place and you get to come back to it.”

We’re receiving applications for our next cohort of Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap®. Check out the program details and start your application process here.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION:

1. Our 12-week Navigate: Your Writing Roadmap® program helps tenure-track womxn and nonbinary professors to publish their backlog of papers so that their voice can have the impact they know is possible. Apply here!
2. Cathy’s book, Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing is available in print! Learn how to build your career around your writing practice while shattering the myths of writing every day, accountability, and motivation, doing mindset work that’s going to reshape your writing,and changing academic culture one womxn and nonbinary professor at a time. Get your print copy today or order it for a friend here!
3. If you would like to hear more from Cathy for free, please subscribe to the weekly newsletter, In the Pipeline, at scholarsvoice.org. It’s a newsletter that she personally writes that goes out once a week with writing and publication tips, strategies, inspiration, book reviews and more.

CONNECT WITH ME: 

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• YouTube