Improving your Emotional Control Can Make You a Better Leader. Here's How to Do It

The most respected leaders are cool, calm and unflappable. They know how to communicate with different types of people and get the maximum results from all of them. They know their strengths and their weaknesses, how to fail without feeling like a failure, and how to express gratitude where it is due.

In short, they have high emotional intelligence.

Famous leaders like Richard Branson, Satya Nadella and Steve Jobs have exhibited these qualities, and they have become role models for aspiring leaders.

What is Emotional Control?

When we talk about emotional intelligence, we’re not just talking about a single skill or trait. It's more like a bucket holding five different factors of EQ. These are:

• Self-awareness: This means being in tune with your emotions and able to identify why you feel the way you do.
• Social awareness: This is recognizing how others feel and responding appropriately—it's "reading the room."
• Emotional control: Also known as self-regulation, this is the ability to manage and control your emotions in different situations.
• Empathy: The ability to understand and feel what others are experiencing.
• Emotional wellbeing: This is a measure of how emotionally healthy you are and satisfied with life.

While all of these factors are important, our research shows that two of them—emotional control and social awareness—are most strongly linked to career success.

Emotional control is an essential skill for leaders because it allows them to respond instead of react. After surveying more than 28,000 people who took our Emotional Intelligence Test, we found that high earners and leaders tend to excel in the area of emotional control.

Men score a bit higher on this factor than women, but this is only in general. In truth, all leaders and aspiring leaders, both male and female, could boost their impact substantially by improving their emotional control. Here are some strategies for how to do it.

9 Ways to Improve Your Emotional Control

#1. Identify your emotions by name in the moment

When you feel a rush of emotion, stop immediately and say to yourself,  “this is frustration” or “this is anger.” Pausing to name your emotions will help break the cycle of reacting spontaneously, which is what happens when you allow your emotions to run wild.

#2. Don’t judge yourself for what you’re feeling

Self-condemnation is counterproductive. There’s no reason to feel bad about the strength and suddenness of your reactions, you just need to work on responding in ways that are more  productive. Judging yourself will only damage your self-confidence and make it harder for you to find the motivation to change.

#3. Work on impulse control in general

Whether you’re at the office or outside it living your life, make an effort to reflect before you act. Think about how you’d like to react instead of simply reacting in the moment. You know how you always find the perfect words to say or the perfect way to respond after a situation is over? Get in the habit of doing that during the situation.

#4. Step away from heated situations

If a situation or person is triggering an intense emotional reaction, excuse yourself to a quiet place and work on regaining your composure. Whatever coping mechanisms you adopt, they will be more effective outside the environment that triggered you.

#5. Chart your progress

Charting your progress is good advice in any situation—in the hustle and bustle of life, it can be hard to see what’s changed unless you’ve been recording it. Take stock of where you are now and write down some examples of times you exhibited poor emotional control. Pledge to do better. Then, in a month or so, reevaluate your progress by looking back over those examples and recording any improvements.

#6: Be a conscientious observer

You can only evaluate your present level of emotional control if you don’t sugarcoat anything. You must be 100-percent honest about your thoughts, actions and responses, even if it doesn’t always paint a pretty picture. To emphasize the earlier point, there should be no judgments involved in any of this. This is information, pure and simple. You can't change what you don't know, and when you’re on an important fact-finding mission like this you can’t let guilt or disappointment distract you.

#7. Practice emotional control at home

You can recreate scenarios that have gotten you upset or caused you to lose your composure in the workplace in a safe space at home, using family members or friends as your sounding board. This will give you the opportunity to practice your responses and see what works and what doesn’t, without any professional risks.

#8. Change the dynamics of difficult interactions

If you discover that the same people or events are constantly testing your emotional control, it’s time to change the dynamics. For example, if you’re always getting into heated arguments with a coworker about a particular topic, don't engage. Find ways to change the subject. Even minor changes like meeting in a different room or reducing the number of participants can have a big impact on how you respond. Don't be afraid to try new strategies.

#9. Talk it out with someone

Sometimes all you need is an outside perspective to help you gain clarity and control over your emotions—mentors exist for a reason! Even if you don’t implement all their suggestions, it will be enormously helpful to have someone to confide in.

Improve Your Emotional Control To Be a Great Leader

None of these recommendations is difficult to implement once you’ve made the decision to work on your emotional control and truly believe that change is possible (which it absolutely is).

Taken as a whole, the above strategies can restructure your relationship with your emotions permanently. You’ll no longer be a passive observer who gets swept away by powerful emotional responses. Instead, you’ll become a more active participant in your own life, able to control not just your emotions but the outcomes that those emotions produce.

Leaders with advanced emotional control thrive because they stay calm under pressure, are resilient in the face of setbacks, and more adept at building trusting with the people they direct, manage, or supervise. These skills get results for the business and the people in it time and time again.