Groups are emotional systems.
When anxiety, anger, or excitement spikes too high, decision-making suffers. When emotional energy is too low, team members disengage or allow distractions to creep in.
A strong leader reads the room and says or does things to adjust the group’s temperature.
If the group is complacent, they add urgency. When the group becomes heated over an issue, they create calm stability.
Discussions that border on the chaotic receive structure. When thinking is too rigid, they inject imagination and possibility. As team members struggle in dispute, they insert reason.
The ability to raise or lower the emotional intensity and focus of a group is a skill good leaders must work hard to master.
Because a leader’s emotions are largely contagious, learning how to adjust and regulate their own behavior is the key.
Leaders have numerous behaviors and actions at their disposal to elevate emotion or tamp it down. Some are commonsense. Others are less obvious.
Clearly, a leader can increase urgency and energy by calling for action, proposing a challenge, and insisting on next steps.
Raising their volume and speaking more excitedly also elevates the energy in a room. Similarly, slowing the pace of the discussion, injecting humor or perspective, speaking more slowly, and shifting the discussion away from heated opinions can lower the emotional climate.
But the best leaders know a secret.
It is their language, even more than their content and nonverbal posturing, that subtly raises or quickly reduces emotion.
Language choices, or the words and phrases leaders use, differ in the emotion they carry.
For instance, the word “happy” carries modest emotion. Pleased or satisfied conveys less emotion, while thrilled or ecstatic carries more.
Just about every expression, word, or phrase has alternatives that are more or less intense.
Leaders who purposely use more intense, vivid, and emotionally laden language raise the temperature in the room. When they become animated in their use of this intense language, the energy in the room rises quickly.
Bringing the emotion and energy down a notch involves using less intense words and expressions, along with a more passive use of body language.
It is not uncommon for crafty leaders to exaggerate their language choice to have an immediate influence on the group climate.
For example, a leader who is seldom profane can light a fire when they choose to use such language, although for many leaders, this is not a tactic they are comfortable with.
In much the same way, a leader who asks questions with subdued language and interjects with lower intensity words, clichés, and phrases can swiftly impact the room in the opposite way.
Good leaders intentionally set the thermostat for the group when they need to.
By regulating their own emotions through the language they choose, they set the tone for the group and the discussion that follows.
Sometimes, good leaders move the room without lifting a finger.
A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.
