How HR can help employees regulate their emotions at work

Now more than ever, employees are often encouraged to share their emotions in the workplace.But how, as a leader, can you help them manage those emotions?

That's where Scott Mautz, founder of coaching company Profound Performance, comes in. In his forthcoming book, The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors, to be released on May 7, Mautz offers habits and tools to promote emotion regulation at work.

He shared with HR Brew the role people pros can play in emotion regulation.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What should HR pros know about your book?

We all know that regulating your emotions and your thoughts…we have to do that to succeed…But that doesn’t mean it’s easy…We’re human beings subjected to a barrage of emotions and unproductive thoughts...So, the thought of trying to become stronger in the face of all of this, and for an HR executive, help their staff and their organization become stronger in the face of all this, it can feel pretty daunting and overwhelming.

With this book, HR professionals can help create for themselves, or for their organization…a customized mental strength training program that helps employees level up…in the six areas of mental strength as needed, which I’ve identified as fortitude, confidence, boldness, decision making, goal focus…and even messaging.

What is a specific example from your book?

One of the tools I talked about in the book is how to bravely conduct difficult conversations…If you want to bravely conduct a difficult conversation, you break it down into two parts: preparing…and conducting.

In preparing for a difficult conversation, you have to remember that the source of tension you’re expecting in that conversation impacts how you actually prepare for the conversation…One of the sources of tension that I talked about in the book in preparing for a difficult conversation is the power structure, meaning you will enter a difficult conversation in one of the three formats. You are going to have more power than the person that you’re going to have that discussion with, less power, or the same amount of power.

When it comes time to actually conducting that difficult conversation…First, you have to acknowledge your responsibility in the mess and acknowledge your discomfort. You could open a difficult conversation with the following sentence[s], “I need to have a difficult conversation with you about blank. I want to acknowledge that I’ve contributed to the situation by blank, and I want you to know that having this discussion doesn’t come easy to me because blank.” You’ve acknowledged your responsibility and your discomfort and you’ve honored the other person by demonstrating that this isn’t an easy discussion for you either.

How does your book help virtual versus in-person employees?

Some companies are now starting to bring their organizations back in, full-time. There’s still a huge chunk that are holding on to their three days in the office, two days remote. Some are saying we’re always going to stay remote forever. It’s become more complex to develop face-to-face relationships…more exhausting, more unstable, and uncertain with more and more fear, self-doubt, debilitating distraction…So, the ability to self-regulate your emotions, your thoughts, and even your behaviors, especially for achievement…It’s never been more important, because so much else is out of our control in this world right now, the more that we can do to add a sense of control, the better, which is why now is really the time for people to build the habits to be able to productively regulate their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.