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2. RECOGNISE AND APPRECIATE THE


EMOTIONAL STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
OF OTHERS
2.1 Respond to the emotional states of co-workers and
assess emotional cues
Recognising and appreciating the emotional strengths and
weaknesses of others
You have identified and evaluated your own personal emotional strengths in
relation to the workplace and you now need to develop your understanding
of those of the people with whom you work and manage. As a manager you
are expected to be able to deal effectively with others and develop and refine
your emotional intelligence in order to do so. This is not necessarily the case
with all of your co-workers who may not have responsibility for the behaviour
and actions of anyone but themselves. This is not to say that some of your co-
workers might possess highly advanced emotional intelligence or that others
have very little, or none at all. You will probably find that there are mixed levels
of emotional intelligence amongst your colleagues and this in itself can cause
issues and conflicts because they do not manage their emotions in the same
way as one another. You need to recognise where on the scale of emotional
intelligence each of those people under your management lies and respond to
their emotional states accordingly.

Emotional states
In the first element you looked at different emotional responses, particularly
your own, which might occur in the workplace. Your emotional responses will
differ to those of your colleagues because we all have different personalities
and emotional strengths and weaknesses. Something that motivates you,
a production deadline for example, may not evoke the same drive from an
employee on the production line that is paid minimum wage and performs the
same repetitive tasks on a daily basis. Likewise, something that concerns the
same production line employee, such as needing to request time off for a childs
medical appointment, will not concern you at all. That employee may be worried
about having to go to your office and ask for time off and this may affect her
behaviour towards others on the production line (she might snap at them or
ignore them because she is pre-occupied with the trip to your office), or it might
affect her performance and ability to do her job properly because she is nervous.
The emotions she is experiencing are potential causes of conflict which you may
very well have to resolve before she has even made it into your office to ask the
question that has caused all the problems.
As a manager, you need to be able to recognise the emotional strengths and
weaknesses of others within your team and the emotional states that they
produce. An emotional state is actually two separate concepts. The state we are
in determines how we perceive something that is happening to us or around us
which results in the emotion we feel towards it. The emotion we feel to the same
stimulus may be completely different depending on the state we are in.
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For example, a colleague plays a practical joke on you by hiding your lunch box.
After a productive and lucrative meeting with a new client that has ensured you
treble your sales targets half way through the month, you probably wont care
about the hidden lunch box and may be amused when you find it later in the day
in your filing cabinet when you are looking for something else. However, after a
tough meeting with your manager about falling sales figures when you need to
attend another meeting on the other side of town for which you are running late?
A different emotion altogether.

You will often find that the subsequent response is determined by the emotional
state of the individual and will also vary according to the state. With the lunch
box example, the response in the happy emotional state might be that the
individual who has had his lunch box hidden goes out and buys the whole office
lunch as a celebration of the trebled sales. The response from the stressed
individual is most probably going to be one of anger or aggression.

Emotional states
There are more emotional states than you might have imagined. This selection is
not exhaustive.

Affection Agitation Alienation Ambivalence

Anxiety Apathy Apprehension Bitterness

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Boredom Calm Confidence Depression

Disappointment Desire Doubt Embarrassment

Enthusiasm Euphoria Frustration Gratitude

Grief Guilt Hate Helplessness

Hope Humility Joy Jealousy

Loneliness Mania Nostalgia Optimism

Patience Pride Rage Remorse

Shame Shock Shyness Suspicion

Sympathy Terror Vulnerability Worry

Recognising different emotional states may be quite difficult because some


of the physical features and behaviours, or emotional cues, that individuals
demonstrate are common to a number of different states.

Emotional cues
An emotional cue is basically a sign that gives an indication as to the emotional
state of an individual. It is generally a non-verbal movement of a part of the body,
usually involuntary, unintentional and unconscious.
Generic emotional cues include:
f Facial expressions
f Body movement
f Tone of voice.
Facial expressions include:
f Smile joy, happiness, amusement, affection, confidence, enthusiasm, to
embarrassment, euphoria, gratitude, mania, nostalgia, optimism, pride,
shyness
f Frown agitation, anxiety, bitterness, frustration, hate, rag, suspicion, worry,
confusion
f Blink agitation, anxiety, apprehension, guilt, vulnerability, mania, rage
f Raise eyebrows doubt, hope, shock, suspicion
f Widen eyes apprehension, helplessness, hope, mania, optimism, shock,
terror, vulnerability
f Facial flushing agitation, embarrassment, guilt, rage, shame, shyness
f Down turned mouth depression, disappointment, grief, loneliness,
remorse, vulnerability
f No expression ambivalence, apathy, boredom, calm, patience.
Body movements include:
f Fist pump enthusiasm, euphoria, joy
f Throat-clear uncertainty, apprehension
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f Jaw drop shock


f Both hands to mouth apprehension, shock, terror
f Both hands to head frustration, disappointment
f Dropping the head protection, apprehension, agitation, humility, shame,
remorse, shyness, vulnerability
f Freeze helplessness, shock, terror
f Slumped shoulders depression, disappointment, helplessness
f Gesticulating agitation, enthusiasm, desire, joy, mania, rage
f Jumping shock
f Shaking agitation, apprehension, enthusiasm, euphoria, frustration, rage,
terror
f Pacing agitation, anxiety, mania, rage, worry.
Tone of voice includes:
f Falling pitch calm, ambivalence, apathy, depression, disappointment,
helplessness, nostalgia, vulnerability
f Rising pitch agitation, anxiety, desire, euphoria, joy, mania, rage, terror,
worry
f Sarcasm bitterness, doubt, suspicion
f Raised agitation, confidence, hate, mania, rage.
You can see just from these examples that emotional cues can be quite
confusing, especially if you dont know the person. For example, agitation and
anxiety share a number of common emotional cues that, if misread, could
cause more conflict or a more heightened emotional state than you first started
with. Whats more, emotional cues can be unique to an individual such as
repeatedly tapping the side of the leg when agitated or whistling when nervous.
Understanding generic emotional cues can help you to assess the emotional
states of your co-workers, but taking the time to get to know their personalities
is instrumental in predicting how they might respond to specific pressures or
situations.

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Activity 2.1

1. Identify the possible emotional states that you might encounter in your co-
workers.

2. For each of the emotional states you identified, suggest possible associated
emotional cues.

3. Describe a situation in which you have encountered one of your co-workers


in a specific emotional state. What was the emotional state, what emotional
cues led you to this conclusion, and how did you respond?

4. How did your response help or hinder the situation?

5. What did you learn from the situation?

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2.2 Identify the varying cultural expressions of emotions


are utilise to respond to emotional cues in a diverse
workforce
Cultural differences
Diversity in Australia
Australia is a hugely multi-cultural nation. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples are the original inhabitants of Australia and have been living there
for between 40,000 and 60,000 years. Since Great Britain established the first
European settlement in 1788, people from over 200 countries have migrated to
Australia and they and their descendants make up the rest of the population.
Different cultures have varying ways of expressing emotions and it is important
that you understand these emotional cues in order to respond appropriately and
sensitively.
Similarities in expressions of emotions
Extensive psychological research over time and across many different cultures
all over the world has established that human beings experience and react with
universal facial expressions to six basic emotions.
The six basic emotions are:
f Happiness
f Sadness
f Anger
f Fear
f Surprise
f Disgust.
However, research has also shown that the extent to which these emotions are
shown using facial expressions varies according to different cultures. The display
rules of each culture determine how much emotion individuals are allowed to
convey in a given situation.
Collectivist cultures feel the need to fit in with all around them without drawing
attention to themselves. They tend to mask negative emotions by controlling their
facial expressions when in the presence of others, particularly authority figures.
Collectivist cultures include:

Canada Nepal Argentina Brazil


Bulgaria China Egypt Greece
India Indonesia Japan Korea
Lebanon Portugal Romania Russia
Ukraine Saudi Arabia Serbia Singapore
Turkey Vietnam Malaysia African countries
Palestine Poland Pakistan Philippines

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Individualist cultures encourage the importance of power and autonomy and are
much more overt with their emotions and facial expressions.
Individualist cultures include:

United States Germany Austria


United Kingdom Italy France
Czech Republic Finland Estonia
Belgium Luxembourg South Africa
Australia Switzerland Ireland
Poland (post-communist
The Netherlands Hungary
generation
Language and priority of emotions
It is also important to be aware that the names of some emotions do not have an
equivalent across all languages so when dealing with co-workers from a culture
different to your own that appear to be in an emotional state it is important not
to confuse matters with words being lost in translation.
Some cultures also have different priorities of emotions, for example,
generically speaking, honour and shame in the Far East would have more
meaning to individuals and society than they perhaps would in the United States
of America.
It is important to familiarise yourself with the emotional differences of the
varying cultures within your organisation and the emotional cues and responses
you are likely to encounter in order to respond fairly to all co-workers you
encounter in emotional states, regardless of their culture.
Other influences on emotional responses
It is also worth noting that there are other cultural influences that may affect the
way individuals respond in emotional situations.
These differences might include:
f Age younger, more inexperienced co-workers might react with heightened
emotion to older, more experienced employees
f Gender studies suggest that men are more likely to hide feelings of fear
and surprise than women, whereas women are more likely to control
feelings of disgust, contempt and anger
f Socio-economic class boundaries of what is deemed acceptable behaviour
and emotional response may differ according to socio-economic class
f Language barriers in language can make it difficult to understand and
resolve problems, particularly when vocabulary to describe emotions cannot
be translated from one language to another
f Mental ability an individual with learning difficulties will quite probably
respond much differently to someone without them. Equally, the mental
health of an individual could also have a bearing on their emotional
responses
f Past experiences personal and professional past experiences can change
the way individuals respond emotionally to certain situations and stimulus.
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For example, a co-worker who has past experience of nursing in a hospital


emergency department is less likely to faint at the sight of blood than an
employee who has never witnessed physical trauma. It is also worth bearing
in mind that past experience of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) or
repeated exposure to witnessing and dealing with horrendous events can
desensitise individuals emotional responses to any number of situations.

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Activity 2.2

1. What are the six basic emotions that studies have proven are universal in
all cultures?

2. Identify all of the different cultures within your workforce and state
whether each could be considered collectivist or individualist.

3. Identify one of the cultures within your workforce to research and


document the following information:
Display rules
Language used to describe emotions
Gender differences
Any priorities of emotions
Generational differences.

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