Emotions in the Workplace
During the second year of my medical training, I decided to apply for the role of chief resident. It was a position given to three individuals who had completed their three years of training, and had demonstrated strong leadership, clinical excellence and dedication to education among their peers. In other words, it’s kind of a big deal. Part of the application process included interviews with the Internal Medicine Program Director, the Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine as well as the Designated Institutional Official, who oversees every Graduate Medical Education program in the hospital. In others words, they are kind of big deals too.
I was particularly excited (and nervous) for my upcoming meeting with the Designated Institutional Official. For one, he held one of the highest level positions in the hospital – his office was on the top story of the hospital with floor-to-ceiling window panes across an entire wall that revealed an impressive view of the city, and he had a secretary with a British accent whom you had to impress before you were granted an audience with him. He was intimidatingly smart and an absolutely brilliant physician and teacher, who also happened to be golfing buddies with the former president Barack Obama (what!?). And to top it all off, he was just one cool cat.
The interview started off really well. We were having a wonderful conversation, but then he wanted to get real. And what happens when things get real? I cry. I cry like a little baby. He first asked me what my husband would say he loved most about me – AKA his way of gathering what my strengths are. Then he followed by asking me what my husband would say he wanted to change about me – AKA his way of gathering what my weaknesses are. For both questions, even before I could articulate in words, I could feel the uncomfortable knot forming in my throat, and the heaviness of tears building up behind both of my eyes. And then what followed was the awkward choking back of emotions while I answered his questions and prayed that he didn’t notice what was happening to me all at the same time. It’s such an uncomfortable feeling, and it’s also frustratingly futile because, inevitably, the dam will break and the waterworks will come rushing out – which is exactly what happened during my big-deal chief-residency interview with this big-deal, insanely intelligent, Obama-befriending, over-six-foot-tall, older, black male executive of the whole dang hospital. I was mortified, and started to apologize, but then he stopped me and said “Don’t hold anything back. Tears are nothing to be ashamed of, and helps me connect with you better because I can see how much this means to you. It’s just another way to express yourself, like smiling or frowning.” An overwhelming wave of relief washed over me. His words changed everything. And it probably would not have had the same effect coming from anyone else, so I am forever grateful for that particular meeting.
Crying makes a lot of people uncomfortable. It’s often associated with being too weak or too emotional, and certainly has no place in a work environment. Up until that interview, I had always despised that emotional part of myself and have wondered more than once if something was pathologically wrong with me. I’ve been told before that if I wanted to succeed, I needed to “keep it together.” And they weren’t wrong to tell me that – there were a handful of opportunities that I’ve been denied because I had invested too much emotion into the outcome. So you can imagine my surprise when I was told during my chief residency interview not only that it was okay to cry, but also that it was a reflection of my strengths. And spoiler alert, I got the job. And I’m just gonna go ahead and say it – I thrived at it.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the thing that allowed me to excel as a Chief Resident and as a doctor was my emotional intelligence. I didn’t come from an affluent family of doctors. Hell, I didn’t even come from a family of college graduates. I definitely wasn’t the smartest or even the most outgoing and sociable trainee in our program. But I had an uncanny ability to be socially aware of others’ reactions which included the subtle nonverbal cues and passive half-truth responses that allowed me to build stronger rapport with my colleagues and my patients. My husband made a joke once that I have superhuman empathy, often feeling more joy or anger for another person than they may feel themselves – much like Mantis from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (okay so there are definitely cooler characters that I could be but I’ll take it for now until I learn how to impale ten men through the chest with nothing but my right arm, detach it from my body and then spontaneously sprout a new one). A person’s EQ (Emotional Quotient) is actually what separates the ordinary from the extraordinary, the bench players from the MVPs, and the soldiers from the Jon Snows. In fact, EQ has gained so much recognition as a desired quality that many industries and universities are rating Emotional Intelligence to be just as important as intellectual acumen and prior experience. Some are even utilizing EQ testing with their candidates before deciding to hire them. A leader with low emotional intelligence can devastate an organization, no matter what their other qualifications are.
One of the key players in achieving emotional intelligence is vulnerability. It’s impossible to be self-aware if you don’t acknowledge what your weaknesses are. Plus, it’s also harder to relate to someone who is always seemingly perfect and unfazed. It’s worth taking the time to distinguish between being vulnerable and being emotional. The two are different, and confusing them can lead to consequences that are far worse than ineffective leadership. Exhibit A: Your boss is angry because they were denied a recent promotion, and vents their frustration about the company to anyone who will listen. That’s being emotional, and is counterproductive because it creates an unsafe environment for other team members. Exhibit B: Your boss cries after telling you that you did not receive the promotion that you both knew you deserved. That’s being vulnerable, and forges strong relationships based on a foundation of trust. I highlight this distinction because too many times I have heard the phrase “don’t be emotional,” when in reality the receiver of the advice is actually just practicing vulnerability. Labeling their behavior incorrectly not only stifles relationship building and powerful leadership, but also contributes to the even bigger monster of unconscious biases against the female gender in the workplace.
While it is true that there are structurally many differences between the male and female brain, the generalization that females are more emotional than men is actually much more complicated than can be explained with neuroanatomy concepts alone. Nonetheless, let’s start there. The left side of the brain is responsible for analytical processing, the side that allows you to compute 1 scoop of ice cream + 1 scoop of ice cream = 2 scoops of ice cream. The right side of the brain is responsible for creative and emotional processing, the side that allows you to compute that 1 scoop of ice cream + 1 scoop of ice cream = a really fantastic way to consume the remainder of your calories for the day.
Studies have shown that in general, the male gender tends to rely more on the left side of the brain, and the female gender tends to rely on the interplay between both sides of the brain (Surprised? How many of you thought I was going to say they tend to use the right side of the brain?) This connection is thought to allow females to discern beyond what was obviously in front of them, which can facilitate channels for empathy and vulnerability. This can certainly account for some differences in the way that males and females process information and express emotion, but it can’t explain all of it. In fact, the largest contributing factor to differences between males and females has nothing to do with our biology at all. It actually has a whole lot to do with human-constructed gender roles, which is pervasive across a multitude of different cultures through a variety of platforms including social media, politics, religion and Hollywood film-making. There is nothing physiologically stopping males from expressing emotion, it’s just that they are told from a very young age that they shouldn’t. My life wasn’t easy as someone who lived on the more “expressive” end of the spectrum, but I know for a fact that what I went through was nothing compared to what it could have been if I had identified myself as male. From the schoolyard bullies, to my bosses, to even my own parents – I would have been beat up, fired or even disowned.
The challenge for me, now, is what to do with this information now that I have it, especially when it comes to raising my son to be an emotionally intelligent person. By challenging these misconceptions of the need to hide tears at all costs, my hope is that we can tear down the constructs that favor social oppression and unconscious biases and start to rebuild a world that embraces the expression of emotions, regardless of your age, your cultural background and your gender identity.
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