Feeling within Business Management
In this article I briefly present the reasons why being aware of our feelings is adaptive and facilitates the management function in managers.
Emotional management and relational skills are areas in which I frequently work as an executive coach with Executives and Managers in the business environment Coaching for Executives is a tool that facilitates emotional management within Business Management.
Common misconceptions about human emotions and mental functioning
- It is often believed that a manager must discard his or her emotions and feelings, becoming rational in the exercise of his or her role if he or she wants to be competent and make qualified decisions.
- So too, from a purely cognitive psychology where the functioning of the human brain is assimilated to a computer, we are instigated to train the mind and thoughts at will, abstracting ourselves from the emotional.
There is no duality of Mind and Body
In relation to the previous point, the belief in the duality of mind and body as separate parts can be heard and read everywhere. However, this mind-body duality is an error that has been around since Descartes and that the renowned neurologist Antonio Damasio has been responsible for clarifying (see his book “Descrates’ Error: emotion, reason, and the human brain”, 1994).
The mind functions within the rest of our body, within the biopsychosocial organism in which we and our brain are immersed.
Defining Emotion and Feeling
- Emotion: impulse leading to action
- Feeling: perceiving by the senses
In these definitions we find the components of emotions and feelings: the associated physiological/body states, known as emotions (fear, anxiety, joy, sadness, disgust, anger, surprise, etc.) and the conscious subjective sensations, called feelings. So the emotion would be the bodily state (body) and the feeling the conscious experience (mind) that produces each emotion. We only have feelings when we become aware of the emotion in our body. If we do not spend time reflecting and thinking about what we feel, we cannot understand what that feeling means for the whole person or for the environment in which it occurs, for example, the company. Therefore, there is a high adaptive value, because to the extent that we pay attention to what we experience, inside and outside ourselves, we become aware of what is really happening and our responses can be adjusted to that reality. Only a manager who is aware of his/her emotions and feelings, as well as thinking rationally, is efficiently using the psychic resources with which he/she came into the world as a human being and will be able to adjust adaptively to the business context in which he/she is immersed. Emotions cannot be suppressed, if they are avoided or denied, they lead to symptoms (nerves, headaches, panic, lack of concentration, low mood and energy, insomnia, allergies, sexuality, etc.) of all kinds, affecting our mental health and cognitive abilities.
Emotional Intelligence Capabilities
According to Goleman (1995), emotional competence consists of:
- Knowing one’s own emotions
- Managing one’s own emotions and feelings
- Self-motivation
- Recognising the emotions of others
- Establishing relationships
Conclusion
To be a competent manager, the ability to think, reflect and feel must be as developed as possible.
By Susana Lugo Ruiz
Certified Executive Coach Collegiate Economist (no. 29.501)
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