The failure to manage emotions appropriately is the downfall of many a manager. Such a failure can make life tough, but when these problems are played out in supervisory relationships, they are greatly magnified and become nearly impossible to ignore. We would like to share the case of Henry, an attorney—a case about the failure of emotion management in the context of a supervisory relationship.
The Story: Henry
Attorneys tend to be smart. At least they usually have a great deal of analytical intelligence. Henry was no exception. His educational pedigree and his occupational choice indicated a high level of cognitive ability. He spoke with erudition, was extremely well read, and had a good deal of knowledge about many subjects.
Apparently, he had befriended Cheryl, his administrative assistant, some months back. They occasionally had lunch together and often shared anecdotes about their respective weekends, their favorite sports teams, and other innocuous topics. For someone else, this may not have been dangerous ground to tread. But it was for Henry. Displaying incredibly poor judgment, Henry started to hang out with his assistant. He claimed that they were buddies and that there were no sexual overtones. Although Henry was not romantically involved with anyone at the time, Cheryl had a steady, live-in boyfriend who also happened to be an attorney.
His desire for companionship, coupled with his comfort in routine, meant that Henry preferred Cheryl’s company to going out socially. A creature of habit, he wanted to meet his social needs in an easy way that didn’t force him into new situations. The trouble began when Henry didn’t control his needs for socializing and instead let his impulsive nature get the best of him. He made a series of really bad decisions. Treating Cheryl like an old college drinking buddy, he began to behave in ways not considered appropriate to a manager-employee relationship. In addition to hanging out with Cheryl on some weekends, he started to act even more inappropriately, sending her sexually explicit e-mail messages. Lack of judgment? Absolutely! Could it get worse? It did. One weekend, Henry not only e-mailed pornographic material to Cheryl but he used his corporate e-mail account to send the messages to Cheryl’s corporate e-mail account. Monday morning came; Cheryl chatted with colleagues around her desk as she fired up her computer. She opened a few e-mail messages from her boss and was greeted by gasps and screams from her colleagues as they watched pictures of men, women, and animals in various compromising positions appear on her computer screen.
The Emotionally Intelligent Manager Analysis
Henry seemed to have a lot going for him, but somewhere along the line, he made a series of very bad decisions. Henry was mildly anxious and a bit depressed but well able to handle stress. He was very open to emotions and ideas but somewhat set in his ways. Henry was outgoing and pleasant, but not overbearing. He enjoyed a number of activities and seemed well suited to the practice of law in general.
Henry was remarkably good at identifying emotions in others. He was terrific at generating emotions on demand and using his emotions to help his thinking. He had a rich emotional vocabulary and a good emotional understanding of people. But these high scores on the first three abilities of emotional intelligence were not reflected in his score on the fourth ability: managing emotions.
Henry seemed to have no clue as to how to manage his own and others’ emotions. He made dumb mistakes and bad decisions that resulted in outcomes that he neither expected nor wanted.
A Plan for the Emotionally Intelligent Manager
We met Henry some years ago, and yet each time we tell his story, we cannot help shaking our heads in disbelief and saying to ourselves, “I can’t believe he did that!” At the same time, as a very smart guy there was hope for Henry. He could learn the process of the Emotional Blueprint and enhance his emotion management ability to avoid the traps he routinely set for himself.
Henry had the data available to him. It was only a matter of helping him recognize the validity of these emotional and seemingly nonrational bits of data to turn him around. By learning to leverage his emotional what-if skills, Henry could run emotional simulations to see what the likely outcome of various behaviors might be.
By role playing and practicing likely scenarios, we could provide Henry with an emotional inoculation against such problems. Henry might never become a master of emotion management, but he could certainly end up engaging in emotionally smarter behavior.
The Outcome and Lessons Learned
Alas, we never got the chance to help Henry develop and implement such a plan. The fact is, Henry was an outplacement client— he had been fired from his job.
Henry claimed that he was set up, but Cheryl’s complaint against him, bolstered by copies of e-mails and the observations of many people in the office, eventually led to Henry’s dismissal. Talking about the events that led to his being fired, Henry still wasn’t sure what happened or why he got caught. He expressed naïve astonishment and said that he wished that he could have made smarter decisions.
Henry’s lack of emotional decision-making ability led to his downfall. If he could have put two and two together, stayed open to the data of emotions, and incorporated the data into his decisions and actions, the outcome may have been quite different.