One question keeps coming up in my conversations with leaders — how do you compartmentalize emotions at work without shutting down or burning out?
It’s something I’ve navigated my entire career. Layoffs, tough calls, absorbing the energy of a team in crisis. I won’t claim to have mastered it, but I’ve built a toolkit that works. Here’s the foundation.
Feel it first — then move through it
There is nothing wrong with having strong feelings at work. The problem isn’t the emotion. It’s the unexpressed, unprocessed version that surfaces at the wrong moment.
When a big emotion hits — frustration, disappointment, the kind of anger that wants an audience — give yourself space before you respond. In the moment:
- Breathe deliberately. A deep inhale, a brief pause, a longer exhale. This isn’t soft advice — it’s neurological. That breath signals your brain that you’re safe, which keeps you out of survival mode
- Know what survival mode costs you. When your brain perceives threat, you default to one of four responses: fight, flight, freeze, or appease. None of them serve you in a leadership moment
Process it — don’t just suppress it
When you have a few minutes, actually explore the feeling rather than pushing past it:
- Journal it, or just sit with it.
- What does the feeling hold? Where do you notice it in your body?
- Keep breathing. Breathing signals to your brain that you are safe. This is basic neuroscience, use it to your advantage.
- Ask yourself: is this even mine? Empathetic leaders often absorb the emotions of their teams without realizing it. Separating what belongs to you versus what you’ve picked up from others is a skill worth developing
This is what psychologists call processing. It doesn’t take long once you’ve practiced it — and the payoff is real: a neurochemical shift that moves you back into executive function, where your best thinking lives.
Then engage the logic
Once you’ve processed, you can look at the situation clearly.
Most difficult decisions at work — layoffs, project cuts, rejected proposals — share one thing in common: they are made by humans, with imperfect information, filtered through the values and constraints of the moment. They follow a logic, even when you disagree with the outcome.
Understanding that logic doesn’t mean accepting it uncritically. It means:
- You can engage with the decision rather than react to it
- You create room for nuance and influence rather than shutting down
- You model the kind of emotional steadiness your team is watching for
When you can make sense of something, the emotional charge tends to soften. That’s not weakness — that’s the high road working.
Build the practice before you need it
All of this depends on one thing: keeping yourself out of survival mode when it counts. That requires regular practice, not just in-the-moment willpower.
- Build a breathing habit before the pressure hits — not during
- Keep a physical anchor nearby: a pen, a piece of jewelry, something that cues you to pause and breathe
- Treat emotional regulation like any other leadership capability — and practice
The bottom line
Leaders who can move through emotion cleanly — without suppressing or being derailed by it — lead with a consistency their teams can feel. That steadiness isn’t innate. It’s built.
