Level Up Your Leadership

As a leader, you're frequently expected to exhibit emotional intelligence and skillfully navigate challenging situations. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is through self-coaching, which can greatly enhance your emotional regulation abilities. In this article, we'll delve into three research-backed techniques that are easy to use and can boost your emotional regulation skills and also make you a more effective leader. These techniques are Temporal Distancing, Depersonalisation and Social Distancing.

First and foremost, let's clarify what emotional regulation means: it's our capacity to amplify or dampen our emotions without completely suppressing them. The objective is not to become devoid of emotions, but rather to maintain perspective and balance during trying circumstances.

Think of emotional regulation as a volume knob. We can turn it up or down to adjust the intensity of music (or our emotions), but we don't want to turn it all the way down because then we wouldn't be able to hear (or feel when it comes to emotions) anything. And we certainly don't want to turn it all the way up, because then we would be overwhelmed by the music (or our emotions). The goal is to find a balance so that we can experience and enjoy the music (and our emotions). Note that each of us has a preferred music volume, which may not be the same. Same applies to emotional regulation. It is very personal to you.

The key to mastering emotional regulation is developing psychological distance. This involves creating a mental buffer between your thoughts, feelings, and actions. This distance not only promotes emotional regulation but also improves problem-solving and perspective-taking abilities.

Think of the psychological distance as your distance to a painting on the well. If you are too close, you will see the brush strokes, the colours, and the textures but not the entire picture, at least not in perspective. Take a step back, and you can see the whole picture, understand its context, and appreciate its complexity.

With a better understanding of the factors influencing psychological distance, we can develop strategies to leverage it.

Have you ever wondered why it's often easier for us to help friends or colleagues solve their problems than it is to address our own. The answer is psychological distance. When we're not emotionally entangled in a situation, we can think more objectively and clearly. This is one of the main reasons people turn to professional coaches; we can offer them psychological distance.

Before we dive into strategies for gaining psychological distance, let's examine the factors that affect it:

1. Time: Events in the distant past or future tend to have less emotional impact on us. Remember those heart-wrenching breakups from your teenage years? They seemed unbearable at the time, but now the pain is just a distant memory.
2. Space: Events happening far away feel less impactful than those occurring closer to us. Disasters in distant lands often have a lower emotional impact than similar events happening on our doorstep.
3. Social Distance: We're less affected by events involving people who are different from us than by those involving people similar to us. Consider how differently you would feel if your child were being bullied compared to someone else's child.
4. Hypotheticality: Imagined events often seem more distant than real ones. Before 2019, a modern global pandemic was a hypothetical risk that didn't feel particularly threatening.

Having examined some of the factors influencing psychological distance, we can develop strategies to leverage it. Start by setting a regulatory goal, such as "I don't want to make an emotional decision" or "I'll remain calm during my presentation." This primes you to be receptive to the following techniques:

1. Temporal Distancing: To gain perspective on an upcoming stressful event, like a presentation or a difficult conversation, imagine how you'll feel about it in a year or two. This can help you see the situation in a more objective light. An extreme example of temporal distancing is imagining how important something will feel to you when you're on your deathbed.
2. Depersonalization: Use third-person self-talk. So, if your name is Sue you may ask yourself "Why is Sue feeling anxious?" or "Sue is going to give a great presentation". The important thing is to avoid using "I". Research¹ indicates that this technique can improve performance in anxiety-inducing tasks and reduce rumination afterward.
3. Social Distance: Pretend the situation is happening to someone else. For instance, if you're feeling overwhelmed by a business decision like restructuring or strategising for the future, imagine that you're a consultant for a similar company in another country. Analyse their situation rationally and generate recommendations. This can help you approach your own situation more objectively and with a sense of liberation.

Negative emotions and anxiety can cause us to lose perspective and stifle our creative thinking. Self-coaching or collaborating with a professional coach can help you zoom out and regain valuable insights.

If you're curious about learning more about self-coaching or interested in working with a coach, get in touch.

References:

1. Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-04047-3