What role do emotions play in workplace dynamics?

In the latest episode of the Happier at Work podcast, I had an enlightening conversation with Kinga Mnich, a social psychologist specialising in emotions and identity within organisational settings. Kinga, who holds a PhD in this field, shared her profound insights into how emotions shape identities and influence decision-making in the workplace.

Kinga delved into the historical perspective of emotions being seen as distractions in professional settings and highlighted the importance of emotional intelligence. She emphasised that understanding the cultural and organisational impact on emotions can lead to better communication and a more integrated work environment. Kinga also discussed the role of hormones in decision-making and the gender differences in handling emotions at work.

The main points:

• The importance of creating an inclusive and supportive environment for emotional expression at work.
• The unique emotional cultures and rules in different organisations.
• Personal background influences on emotional expression and understanding.
• The importance of recognising emotional diversity to reduce miscommunications.
• Factors influencing emotional expression such as cultural background, family dynamics, and personality.

Tune in to deepen your understanding of emotions' critical role in enhancing workplace dynamics and fostering a thriving organisational culture.

Do you have any feedback or thoughts on this discussion? If so, please connect with Aoife via the links below and let her know. Aoife would love to hear from you!

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Connect with Happier at Work host Aoife O’Brien:

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Previous Episodes:

Episode 174: The Role of Emotions in Workplace Dynamics with Dr. Lola Gershfeld

Episode 141: Take Radical Responsibility of your Career with Carla Miller

Mentioned in this episode:

Imposter Identity

Imposter Identity

Kinga, you're so welcome to the Happier at Work podcast. I'm delighted to have you as my guest today. Do you want to let listeners know a little bit about what you do and how you got into doing what you're doing today?

Sure. Yeah. Hi. Thanks so much for having me here. Well, I am I'm a social psychologist, trained social psychologist. I have my PhD, in particular, actually, focused on emotions and how we create identity through emotions and use it in order to build systems. So in a practical way, how does it look like when we do organizational development, culture building? How do we navigate between people, form interactions? How do we see each other, one another and an individual, you know, as a person based on how we now created that culture? So with that, I do a lot of consulting in companies and executive leadership coaching, which right now, like, I'm really very much, you know, in tune into the leadership coaching development, space because I just started again another, training. So, yeah, that's kind of like where I am right now.

Brilliant. And I love that that it's it's you never arrive at the destination. There's always more to learn, I think, and being really open to taking on new challenges and learning new things. I'm curious to dive in a little bit to this idea of emotions and identity and how that shapes culture and the kinds of challenges that organizations have when it comes to that?

Yeah. You know, it's, especially in a in an organization, right, we, for many years, believed that, emotions are a distraction and they make us soft. They make us irrational. They don't help us to create better decisions. Now, of course, you know, through emotional intelligence, that has shifted a little bit the perspective on all of it. But it when we look specifically into emotional intelligence, we look more at how do we manage emotions and how do we manage them within ourselves and how do we manage them and others. Now in my research and everything that I've been working on for really over 15 years now, I've been looking more so on those underlying aspects of emotions. Meaning, I will be showcasing specific emotions in order to make someone else believe who I am.

So, you know, like, for example, you know, for men that can be quite often specific anger. Right? Like, that makes you seem more masculine or, not not expressing happiness in the moment even though you're excited about a project. For women, it will be, you know, very slight kind happiness, you know, that that politeness. And you don't wanna over exert yourself because then you could be labeled as hysterical. And when you go into organizations, different different organizations have their own cultures. And in those within that culture, there's also a rule set of emotions. Meaning on how do you express them, how do you use them, and how do you use them also within interactions. And so that really depends on, you know, company to company.

I worked within the merchant acquisition sector for a while, and it was very interesting to kind of, like, see the the bonus and brotherhood, you know, and, like, there was almost like an initiation, emotional ritual, you know, when, like, every year when new people came in. And then you go into other corporations, you know, where you have to support potentially more female leadership and everything is just a little bit more softer. You have more open communication. So it's interesting because we come into organizations with our own set of understanding of emotions, right? And that set is determined by the family that we have grown up with, the language that we have grown up with, the society, and the culture. And that is not the same for everyone. And we always assume that, you know, like, if I feel love, you feel love, and we both will have the same understanding of love. And I feel like almost love is always the best example of it because how often people say, you know, I don't feel loved by you. Because you have a different understanding of what love is and that other person has a different understanding.

So you don't communicate about it. It's very easy to get to that, miscommunication. And it's the same when we are in bigger aggregates, so in bigger organizations where we have to take into account actually the emotional diversity. So it's not just the culture, but the aspect of how do you perceive and use emotions. I grew up in Germany, and Germany is very, you know, straightforward. You're very controlled. You manage your emotions very well. My husband is Mexican.

Yes. He is an engineer, but, nevertheless, he's Mexican. And it's the funniest thing. Sometimes, you know, we will have conversations, and I will be like, yeah. This is funny. And he's like, I don't see you at all being amused by this. You know? Like, I'm like, I'm like, yeah, it's funny. And he's like, yeah, but can I see, like, you know, physically the expression of it? And that is you know, it's it's so interesting because, like, once we start getting into these nuances and we understand that people just work differently and have a different way of communicating emotions and understanding them, I think that we can become a lot kinder with one another because it's not a reflection of us in that interaction, but it is just a reflection of who that person is, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Totally. And is that so if I'm kind of reading between the lines here, it's from our own cultural background and how we grew up layered upon the family interactions that we woulda had when we were growing up. And maybe there's a role to play of personality and a unique communication style that people have. Not everyone communicates necessarily in the same way. Some people are a little bit more direct or they want to get straight to the point. Other people prefer to build relationships before their they get to the point. Some people love all of the detail and and things like that.

So it's a kind of a few different layers altogether. Yeah. Detail and and things like that. So it's kind of a few different layers altogether

Yes.

To Yes. Make this thing ultimately, it's how we relate to each other at work. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. And it's really, you know, it's like, did you grow up in a family that spoke about emotions, right? Did you grow up in a family that allowed it? Or did you grow up in a family that the moment you started crying, you know, someone said, you know, boys don't cry or girls don't cry or someone that is strong doesn't cry or don't be so weak or, you know, whatever labels come with it. You know, it's like one thing that I always like to tell people, when they start working with me, I say disconnect to reconnect. Right? Disconnect from everything that you think that you know and you believe is yours, explore it from the outside and then start connecting to it in a way it, A, benefits you and B, is more so an expression of who you want to be. You know? And that is like especially in this whole, we have this big momentum right now going on, especially here in the US with authenticity. Right? Be an authentic leader.

Be an authentic person. And sometimes it seem it seems as people are trying to make someone else understand authenticity is like this core thing of you that is not changeable, but that's not true. We always evolve. We always change. We are always on the path of moving forward even if we are not aware of it. So why not take the moment take take a moment and take the time to disconnect from what you believe is who you are to then actually pick, oh, this is what I wanna be because this is what brings me joy. This is what makes it easy for me. This is how I wanna perceive life.

And so when with emotions, you know, we believe or we are being made made to believe that emotions happen and we react to them almost automatically. But we can also take a step back and instead of reacting to it, base our actions on them. And so I refer to emotions more so kind of like a 6th sense, you know. Like the emotions bring all your senses together and they give you an understanding of where you stand on. Like what is your opinion on something? How do you feel about the situation? How do you feel about a person? And so if you use emotions more so as an internal compass, as a direction, then you have the ability to choose how you're going to be acting towards them or based on them.

I love that as an approach just simply because I think we're, I won't even say that we're brought up with this idea, but but certainly it's ingrained in us somewhere along the line that emotions, we feel them and then we react based on them. And I have heard this a while ago that it's about catching yourself and responding rather than reacting. But I think you've explained it in in a slightly different way. And I love this idea then that authenticity is it's being true to yourself, but also with the knowledge that we are constantly evolving. So just because you are a a certain way at a certain point in time doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to stay that way. What came to mind was Maya Angelou saying, when you know better, do better. You know? So as you change and evolve, maybe as you grow in self awareness, you choose and this is what I'm hearing from what you're saying. So you can choose who you want to be.

You can use your emotions as a guide, and maybe we can talk about how how to trust what you're feeling as well. Yeah. But you can use your emotions as a guide to steer you in the direction that you want to go based on how you're feeling internally. So kinda using it as a compass, but then you get to choose how you want that to play out. Mhmm.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, and I think I think it's actually as simple as that. Yeah. The the magic in it.

Yeah.

It's, yeah, it's you know, they have some, I read the other day, an African Nigerian philosopher, it's a book, on on some Nigerian traditions and philosophies. I don't wanna go deeper into this. It's not necessary for it. But what I loved is they have a concept, and I forgot the name on it. But the concept basically said that as a human being, we have two aspects of one another. It's the emotional and the, the the rational. And so if we make a decision that is based on either or, it is an incomplete decision. A complete decision that can just so a decision that can guide you to the success and to the outcome that you want has to be always a decision that takes both into account.

And when I read that, you know, I really I really, I loved it because I've been consistently saying in my workshops, there is no such thing as a non or an emotional decision. Emotions are always based on it. So either you are aware of them or you're trying to suppress them, which can be really dangerous. Yeah. But they are always there, especially when we are interacting with other people and because it's such a core point of how we are interacting with one another.

Brilliant. And my understanding of how we make decisions is that there were this is what I understood it to be, that they're always emotional, but actually, we look back upon a decision and try and rationalize it and say, I did this because but actually, the basis, the foundation of the decision is largely based on how we feel. Probably going back to your point that we're suppressing those feelings that were they're not in our conscious awareness, but that is actually how we're making our decisions.

Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that people that are really aware are capable of doing the 5050. Right? They're very aware of what what the intuition, what the sensations are telling them, and they are capable of really bringing up the knowledge. But especially when we are making decisions about circumstances or things that have unknown outcomes, or we are trying to create something that has never been created before, how can we rationalize that? You know, it's like it, we're always tapping in it. It's so it's more so about understanding that you're not holding yourself back based on fear. And instead of that, you're using it in order to move forward.

But that is the closest that you will get to to logical well, to rational thinking. I think that logic is, you know, a little bit of a different component, but yeah.

Brilliant. And I suppose I'd love to understand a little bit more about how this plays out in the workplace. And is it the case that from maybe from very early career, certainly when I was starting out in work, you basically check yourself at the door. You come in and not that you're supposed to behave like a robot, but you're not supposed to be expressing emotions explicitly at work. You're you're not taught how to navigate how you're feeling in order to make better decisions. So is that, like, one of the driving factors behind us not really talking about emotions at work, not understanding how they play out in the workplace.

Yeah. I think it's, it stems also partially from, you know, the bias or the label that emotions make you weak. Mhmm. You know, that emotions are irrational. And so if you're irrational, you cannot make good decisions. That emotions are the problem with emotions is they are so complex that people I think people are afraid of the inability to really describe them. You know, when you have numbers in front of you, it's very easy. Right? I mean, there are some numbers and we put them together.

How often are these numbers put together by emotions? It's just so funny. I mean, you know, like business, business evaluations, I love that, you know, company hits the stock markets. Yeah. If anyone has ever seen this process, you know exactly like, okay, you know, this is like kind of made up map that is based on the intuition of a lot of people. So I yeah. I think it's especially, you know, I think that there's also a little bit of a gender difference. Right? I think that men in general, like, they come into the door and, they are less emotional is the wrong word. I haven't found the right word for it, but they are more composed in the way that they hold their emotions easier back.

And for women, it is potentially visually like, you're more aware of it in a sense of that you're more aware of it and it's part of you, that it's not just something that happens within you, but it is actually part of your identity. And for men, it's like it's part of your identity not to not to have them.

Yeah. But that was the the next question I was gonna ask actually was like driving into gender. And is that one of the kind of forces behind not really talking about emotions at work? And the fact that there are growing numbers of women in those more senior leadership positions that we're seeing more talk of emotional intelligence and understanding more about the role emotions play at work in order to have a more successful career?

Yeah. You know, that's a very that's a that's a excellent question. From where I stand right now, there's not a lot of research on this particular, you know, movement on why is this happening. It's more so, right, that we have all this talk about mental health. And so emotions, you know, are part of mental health. We have the talk of, job satisfaction and life satisfaction. You know, there's a movement, away from, the work life balance to more the ability of being able to flourish as a holistic human being within the interaction of your workspace and your private space. So it's not either or.

Right? It's more so the question of how do we integrate it. And anything especially when when it comes to the word of integrating, bringing things together, I think emotions are part of it. And so it's funny, you know, a lot of people won't use that word in, even in workshops that they give or things that they describe. And you're sitting there and they're like, oh, you're talking about emotions, but they still feel like this hesitance of using it. Yeah. You know, like, for for for some time also, like, I think, like, some of my profiles, you could see that I was very particular saying, like, if you work with me, we will work with your emotions. Right? We are going to be using your emotions in order to to to to to help you to become a more effective leader. And the feedback that I've been receiving, you know, during that time was very much like, yeah, but I don't have a problem with my emotions.

Like, this is not what I need. You know? Like, I'm not saying that you have a problem with your emotions. Yeah. You know? And, and at the end of the day, right, when you start working with someone, you do go into how does it make you feel? How do you feel? What is happening? Right? Because that is the awareness that we are trying to create. So is so I don't know if it's necessary just because more women are moving into higher positions that we are bringing that topic up more or as a as a society, we are we are realizing that we've been just telling ourselves continuously a lie.

Yeah. Yeah. And if people are not using the word emotions, what are what kind of language are they using to describe what they're talking about?

Their it's a it's a drier they will particularly explain the problems and the obstacles that they are facing and use words such as stress and burnout and anxiety, inability to make decisions, not knowing how to set boundaries, which all of that goes back to the basis of understanding your emotions and then being able to use them to set boundaries, right, to prevent, burnout, to to create less stress, you know, to be able to be a more integrated person, if that makes sense. It's like, you know, I really I really like using actually the word integrated because it also allows you to understand when someone is criticizing you or attacking you. What they do is they attack one particular part of you that you believe that is part of who you are and is essential to who you are. And so it's almost like you feel dis disintegrated. Someone has been taking away something from you. And so when you be when you are able to pull all this together and understand who you are, you're you're sending in your integrity, and then you can start setting the right boundaries using the right language and sending the ability to, I guess, send in your power, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

No. I love I love that approach and of this idea of being a more integrated person because what that sounds like to me is that if someone does launch an attack on you for to use kind of the the language that you were talking about, if someone launches an attack, it's kind of, I hope, gonna slide off like water off a duck's back because you know who you are. And so if someone challenges who you think you are, you can be safe in the knowledge that that is not me. I know who I am. And also kind of building on that point that when someone is in that mode towards you, it's more about them rather than it is about you. Would that be fair to say?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. Great. Yeah. But I I love the idea of understanding emotions, and I don't think I've heard anyone say this before. Understanding emotions to deal with things like stress, burnout, and lack of boundaries, and inability to make decisions, which I think is like a state of overwhelm, which is again, it's a feeling that we have, that we create. And going back to your earlier point, would you choose to be like this? Is this who you choose to be? And sometimes we do. We we choose to be in victim mode, and I'm so overwhelmed all the time, and I'm too busy, and I have too much work. But taking that step back to understand who am I and who do I choose to become and how do I get there by understanding how I'm in touch with my emotions and what's going on for me.

Yeah. Yeah. The you know, you were just saying you were actually saying something into it's there are 2 things. It just reminded me of 2 things. Yeah. I I do believe that sometimes we choose to be a more complicated person, and I do believe that we sometimes make the choice to be someone that we don't necessarily want to be out of the purpose to feel something. And, I had that the other day. I called my best friend and I said, I think that I'm depressed.

And she said, you're not. You're just bored. You need problems. And Oh

gosh. That

was so funny, you know, because when she said it, I'm like I'm like, you're painfully right about this. Like, we are nice. I'm like, this is so true. And so I went to my husband and I repeated it and he just looks at me. He's like, like, mhmm. Yeah. Like, what are you telling? Like, I know of this. You know? Like, I will go and make something to be a problem, not because it's necessarily one, just because it's so much easier for us to feel difficult emotions, strong emotions, than light emotions that help us to expand.

So we you know, like, generally people refer to emotions as positive and negative. But, in positive psychology and the work that I've been doing, like, we really try to move away from, from those labels because an emotion is an emotion. At the end of the day, it's a chemical reaction and it goes, you know, like, it either lifts you up and brings you up or, you know, like, it makes you contract and just, like, kind of, like, try to move away from things. And, because of our negativity bias and the way most societies are structured, right, we do pay more attention to things that are unpleasant than pleasant. And so it's also a lot easier to recreate unpleasant emotions and memories and recreate it with that. And I I think that and that's something it's something, you know, that when she said it, I'm like, man, you're so right. I'm like, and in how many for how many other people is this actually the case? So, you know, we lived in South Africa for quite some time and she's like, yeah, you were consistently busy and you were part of something and you had really the feeling that you're contributing and you're getting back. Now you're living a little bit like in a la la scenario, you know, like, which is true.

You know what I mean? There's really there's nothing to complain about. As a German, that's also really hard to say. Right? Like, everything is fine. Right.

I can't complain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You can't complain. And so we create issues. And I I would really wanna challenge also some of the listeners, you know, like, to look at your own life and see where am I creating issues because I'm making myself feel specific things.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm trying to think how that might play out in the workplace. So if someone particularly likes drama, for example, maybe they'll engage in gossip or if someone you know, and I like how you referenced you like a big meaty problem to solve, but maybe that makes you feel important. And you're like, if I have a big problem to solve, then that makes me feel good. And we choose specific scenarios because of how they're gonna make us feel at the end of the day. Yeah. And that's really interesting about this negativity bias because subconsciously then, we could be choosing something that is not good for us, that is gonna harm us in some way or keep us small out of fear, out of whatever reason, but we choose those scenarios for ourselves rather than choosing to expand.

Mhmm. Yeah. And in the workplace, by the way, you know, with what you were saying, how often do people create stressful situations and situations that are actually not stressful?

Yeah. You know? Yeah. I'm sure I'm sure I've done that.

I have it faster. All of this needs to be done at the same time. It needs to, you know, the the inability to set, priorities and structure something.

Yeah.

You know, and also allow it to potentially give space to things, moving off the to do list just because they now became less relevant because you've now created new findings or whatever. You know? I mean, there are so many so many aspects, of that. So, yeah. And when it comes to that emotionality part and emotions, if I may, I just had a few clients, that had a similar scenario. So women that are in high middle management, you know, on the verge of stepping higher and trying to figure out how to do it and strategizing also for it. But then in feedback sessions receiving the feedback that they just don't have what it takes because they are too emotional.

Wow.

Or they experience or they feel too much or they're too expressive through their emotions. Just because they show excitement, you know, if a exciting project comes into the firm or because they show, excitement about a solution. And, one of my clients, she asked me, she's like, what's wrong with me being excited about this? This means that I care about this. And the feedback from her superior, you know, like, then having to know this is, you know, this you're too emotional, so you don't have what it takes to be to be a leader. And that's you know, it's really interesting because a good leader, right, a good CEO, a god a good manager creates a space in which the people around them can be their best version because they they are the ones that are specialized. They are the ones that bring in specific skills. And a good leader knows how to bring in the different pieces of a puzzle and then bring it all together in order to achieve a bigger goal. But to be able to do so, this has a lot to do with how we actually manage people's feelings because we wanna create trust.

And so so it's so interesting, you know, to hear how often still women are being criticized for being in tune with their emotions, for also expressing, curious. Yeah.

Yeah. Go on. Finish. No.

Go on. Sorry. Yeah.

I was gonna say, I'm curious where the oh, sorry. I'm curious who the leader was, where this feedback came from, and was that from a man or was that from a woman? Both. Okay. That's interesting. That's interesting.

Both. And that is, you know and so I think in that one particular scenario, I think it has to do a lot with organizational culture, and someone and and with the other one, it was specifically where it was the female leader, you know, to say the female superior. I think there are a little bit of different dynamics sometimes involved in it. You know? I don't know how much of it is, the woman that is, afraid to the one that is afraid to have to make space or share or is afraid that her, you know, her position is going to be taken away by someone else that is rising. Yeah. You know, like, I think that there are sometimes different dynamics involved in it.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's I think those kinds of dynamics are so interesting and and so pertinent. And something that we spoke about on the podcast before is this idea of the queen bee syndrome so that when a woman gets to a certain level in an organization, she protects her power essentially, that she doesn't want to give that power away. Maybe she had a struggle on the way up and so she doesn't want other people to have it easy. She's going to make it hard for others to get to where she has gotten to rather than, as we see so often, encouraged putting the hand down, mentoring, helping women to rise up and share that knowledge of, like, what worked well for you and what could potentially work well for me. What are some potential barriers that could get in the way? Any any thoughts around, like, that whole dynamic of of the queen bee syndrome?

I mean, it's it's a difficult one, you know, because you have to build trust in order to be able to perhaps acknowledge it or speak about that. Right? I mean, it's not it's it's really difficult to You

can't just come out and challenge us and say, I think you're too

do you think that you might be making this way too difficult for me? But I think that the person that is under someone with a queen bee syndrome, right, I think that person has to build up really, emotional resilience, unfortunately. Mhmm. And then try to communicate more directly and, challenge certain things. So for example, if the person is, hovering over them and wants to you know, it's it's micromanaging everything. Perhaps to say, hey. You know what? I think that I could deliver much better results if I get a little bit more space in this. Yeah. Or in the past, I've managed to achieve this goal and that, and this has been really successful, and we still see the positive, implications of it.

You know, I would like I would really appreciate it if I could get, you know, the chance again to prove myself in this regard. There are scenarios, where you just simply have to change the job. Yeah. Right? Or, you know, speak with HR or try to change the position, because sometimes, you know, some people just won't get the hint at it. So yeah. So I think for me, it's, like, really clear communication and speaking from a perspective of I. Right? And, like, and highlighting what you have achieved. And I think that that's something that's quite difficult for women also to say what they have achieved because women are always afraid that they will be seen as bragging.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Why why do you think that's different for men and women?

There is actually really interesting research research on that, and it has to do a lot with how we are being raised and how often boys are being made to play team sports and girls not.

Interesting.

And, you know, boys are being placed into situations where they learn to cope with failure and losing, but at the same time being consistently also pushed towards winning. And so when they win, they talk about it, right, because now they achieved something. And girls quite often, unfortunately, are not being placed into a team sports and competitive sports still. And it's really it's it's still the case. So it's really about the, the communication and how we raise girls. There is also that interesting study, the the dream gap study. Oh, yeah. You know, like, you know, after the Barbie movie and all that, they put it together with NYU and, which shows, you know, that at the age of 5, girls stop believing that they can become anything that they want.

That's crazy.

Yeah. I I mean, that's just like I don't know. Like, it just breaks that just breaks my heart. It is.

It is. It is heartbreaking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And that is not just, you know, that's not just the immediate family. Right? That's TV. That's the people around you. That's school, the teachers. You know? Like, that's that's everyone. So yeah. So with that, being more aware of your emotions, I think, is really the key because you can also then understand what is happening within you, understanding the moments when you're perhaps creating fear and holding yourself back, you know, from speaking up for yourself, standing up for yourself. Yeah.

That's so interesting. Something that we touched on earlier in the conversation is this something I would love to explore a little bit more is this idea of emotions and how you how you tap into those emotions and how maybe you decide for between something that is an emotion and something that is another type of signal that we're feeling in our body, whether that is a physical sensation or what. And and something else that I think just adds maybe a complicated layer on top of that are hormones for women as well. So I don't know if you have any thoughts, if you know of any research in relation to that specifically for women.

Well, I mean, there's an interesting conversation in academia and research if we actually even meet the word emotion because of everything that you just said. Yeah. Because the question is, what is the particular difference between inner body sensation and an emotion? And so, usually, like, when we think about, emotions in psychology, you know, the first thing that pops up in my mind is this wheel, you know, that has, like, over 300 words for emotions listed. So I'm trying to make it as simple as possible. There's technically a difference between emotions and feelings. And depending on where on the side of research you're standing, you're using them, as as as equal or, you know, first comes the feeling, then comes the emotion, or first comes the emotion, then the feeling. Mhmm. So don't hold me on any of that.

But to make it simpler, I, in my research and everything that I do is the bodily sensation within your body is the emotion. The expression of it is the feeling. And the expression of it, the feeling is already something that is coupled with, past memories, experiences, the current situation thought through. So it's not a pure sensation. So an emotion is a pure sensation. While once we start verbalizing it, we are socializing it, and we're putting it into a cultural context.

Yeah. Everything comes back then.

Yes. So, like, there are societies when you say that you are in love, you're going to be pitied for it for it because it's not a positive, it's not being labelled in that form as a positive emotion.

Yeah.

So in your inner body, everything that you're experiencing that is making you move towards something or withdraw from something is then a feeling sorry, an emotion. And I wanna put out the claim. I don't think it's even necessary to label it as long as you know if this is helping you or preventing you from something.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's I think that's so interesting. And so I think there's been a huge focus on giving something a label, being able to name the specific emotion that you're feeling. And like you say, those 300 different words that stem from Yeah. Previously what would have been considered positive and negative. But now you're saying, okay.

And, again, something that we've talked about on the podcast before, and I love this idea. It's a a towards move or an away move from something they want. And dare I say and this could be the topic for a whole other podcast episode, but dare I say that sometimes we choose the away move because it's familiar to us, because it's something that we experienced when we were younger, and we want to feel Yeah. That kind of emotion again Yeah. Because it's familiar to us, not because it's helping us, but because it feels familiar and familiar feels good.

Yeah. And when it comes to, you know, getting older and having hormonal shifts or not not even getting older, I mean, we can't even go back into just, you know, when you have your regular cycle. Right? And, you know, like, there's the beginning, you know, just after your period, you start feeling super confident, very strong. You know, everything is fine. And then it starts to just kind of like make you withdraw more. So that's how we know that estrogen and progesterone plays a role in And, I mean, call me crazy, but when I work with my female clients, I quite often make them, tune their calendar according to their cycle. And I will also ask them where they are in the cycle. And and so and I I will do that as a reflection, you know? So when someone says it's more difficult for me to make a decision, so obviously, you shouldn't be making this decision now.

Push it off by a week because you are just in the withdrawal phase or, you know, with lawyers and judges, right? Like we know so much about what time of the day is going to be impacting a judgment and we know when you're going to be It's

5 to 5. I need to get out of here quickly. So yeah.

Yeah. You know? And so it's like, so, you know, like around noon, people get hungry. Yeah. They get hangry. And it's not a like we yeah. And so for women, it's just I think the general awareness of understanding there are days, you know, when you when I have a sense of fear of heights, which is weird, like, I climb and I jump out of planes and all of that. But then there are few moments sometimes, you know, throughout the month where I'm afraid of heights. And that is obviously something because something, you know, changed.

I mean, there's all these hormones are chemic, you know, chemicals within our brain. Of course, they're impacting us. But here's the thing. This is my last thing, I promise. Same thing for men. So we always say women are the ones that are more emotional and are the ones that have difficulties to make rational decisions. The more testosterone you have in your brain, the less you can think rationally and logically. Interesting.

So under stressful situations, it's very difficult for men to make clear decisions. That's the reason. That's also one of the reasons that study showed during the crisis in 2,008 and 2009, the companies that were better performing were the ones that were led by women because they were able to keep a cool head. You say? And, I mean and, like, knowing this is really interesting because we need a little bit of testosterone. Right? Like, to feel a little bit more confident. So you have all these hero postures and like you hold the arms up for 5 minutes or you put the arms into, you know, you straighten up and like what it does, it literally induces testosterone into your brain. So I do that before public speaking. I've done that always before any kind of big exams.

But men have already that testosterone. So depending on their age, depending on their levels, depending on what they are, when they get under stress, they get the reverse effect of it and no one talks about that.

Okay. That's interesting.

You know, so I appreciate what you were asking. Yes. You know, I mean we are aware of it, but no one talks about the other ad Yeah. You know, the other side of the story. Like men have hormones, you know, like Yeah. Yeah. Lots of them.

Yeah. But I think that's that's I think that's super interesting for well, for a few different reasons. You know, you mentioned the 2008, 2009 financial crisis where the top companies or the the ones, I suppose, that that performed better were run by women. But what I suppose what we don't see when when we talk about emotions, I think we think of them as touchy feely, fluffy, happy type of experiences. And what we forget is that some emotions are things like anger, frustration, and maybe that's what was going on for those senior men in those senior positions when something terrible was going on around them. And they were clutching at straws and living in fear and trying to fix fix everything for their company, but they weren't making sound decisions because they were relying on their emotions, which were guiding them off track.

And not being aware of it.

Or not being even aware of it.

No. So, you know, so doing it, but not being aware of it. I think that's where, you know, I think I don't think that emotions in any form are dangerous if you are aware.

Yeah.

I think that they become dangerous if you are not aware.

Yeah.

And, so it's like, you know, like, I'm I'm putting right now this this article together, and I came also across this whole thing of, decision making and risk taking. Right? We say that women take less risks. It that's true depending on the sin the scenario. So it's actually a really complex, complex topic. But women take longer times in order to make a decision. Testosterone cuts down the time of making that decision. So therefore, men do take faster risks than women, but that is not a good thing that we have seen in data. That longer period of time and really weighing out all the different scenarios, especially when it comes to business, I'm talking really now just business, it is much better for companies to the extent that, one of the studies has shown that from the moment a female CEO is being installed in a company to within the 1st 24 months, the stock prices go up by up to 20%.

Wow. You know? So I think it's a like, I think we is it need we need that risk sometimes. Right? Sometimes when you do it when we are working on you're trying to create a solution within the company in tech, especially in tech. Right? We are trying to create solutions for partially problems that don't even really exist. You know? It's something that has never been been done before. So you have to risk it. Right? You have to go out because you're going to be learning based on those problems. So taking the faster risks is great because you are in the process of learning.

Now you have established everything and you have to just be a little bit more cautious with it. You have to we need both, like we need both in order to really create something that is viable and makes really sense.

Yeah. So on the one hand, you don't want to be operating too slowly because you might miss opportunities, but on the other hand, you can't be making fast decisions all the time because that's too risky.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brilliant. Love it. Now I think that brings us to a nice conclusion on everything that we were talking about, and we could probably stay here talking for another few hours on all of these different topics. And I'd love to dive into, like, well, how do we get more women into those senior positions if the companies perform better? Maybe that's a conversation for another day. But the question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, what does being happier at work mean to you?

For me, it's to be able to flow, to be able to have freedom and the space to move around, meaning have your own ideas, explore less rules, more flexibility. I think the more flexibility part, is really important. I know that's not for everyone, but that's kind of like who I am. I need to be able to decide. Like, today, I'm going to be working 16 hours, tomorrow just 4th. Yeah. You know? It's yeah. Oh, gosh.

And if people want to reach out, if they want to connect, if they want to find out more about what you do and your work, what's the best place they can do that?

Honestly, the best place is, I think, actually my website because they can also go from my website anywhere. So that's just simply kinggammonich.com is the website, and you can, from there, go on LinkedIn or any other, platforms. But I post, on regular basis, blog posts, you know, where I try to put in as much data and research into it and tools. So, honestly, that's the best place.

Brilliant. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. So thank you so much for your time today. Really, really enjoyed this conversation. Like I said, we could have gone on chatting for another few hours, I think, but, trying to solve the world's problems. But I really, really appreciate you taking the time to chat to me today. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for having me on. Appreciate that.