Image courtesy of sicoactiva

Have you ever noticed how discussions on improving business operations or possible solutions to today’s economic challenges rarely consider what the emotional impact will be on employees? In some ways, it’s not too surprising given how many of us have had leaders who taught us to not take things personally at work given that “it’s just business”. However, the findings from a recent report should get many of these leaders to reconsider the role human emotions play in how they lead their teams.

The UK business magazine “Management Today”, along with the Institute of Leadership and Management, carried out a survey of 2,405 managers and 2,595 non-managers to determine how much trust employees have in the CEOs who run their organizations. In what should certainly be an encouraging sign for both leaders and their organizations, 47% of those surveyed felt that leaders had done a good to very good job managing their companies through the current global recession. Where things get interesting, though, is when they compared the trust levels attained by male and female CEOs.

For the second year in a row, female CEOs rated higher trust levels than male CEOs. What’s more, in this year’s survey, they also found that male employees have a greater level of trust in female CEOs than those who work for male CEOs. In fact, the level of trust for female CEOs was especially high among men who work in non-managerial roles within their organization.

So what’s behind this growing divergence in trust levels employees have for female CEOs over male CEOs? After reviewing their data, the report’s authors found it comes down to one word. Click here to continue reading »”A Revealing Look at One of The Dirty Words in Business”

Photo courtesy of Bright lights from giantwheel

Have you ever wondered why humans are the only animals that cry? Of course, by crying I’m not referring to the physiological response that occurs when you actually have something in your eye. Instead, I’m talking about what researchers call “emotional tears”, or crying that is associated with an emotional reaction like sadness or frustration. A recent study by researchers at the University of Maryland has certainly helped to shed some light into this uniquely human behaviour.

Dr. Robert Provine and his team created an experiment where they showed 80 students a series of images showing the faces of people with tears in their eyes or running down their cheeks. The research team also included in this series of images copies of these same pictures after the tears were digitally removed, along with photos of people with other types of facial expression. As the study subjects viewed the images, they were asked to rate them on a scale of 1 to 7 as to how sad the person in the picture appeared, not knowing that some pictures were digitally altered to remove any signs that there were tears on the face.

While the study subjects overwhelmingly identified faces with tears as being the saddest, the research team discovered that those same faces with the tears removed were viewed as demonstrating “awe, concern, contemplation or puzzlement, not simply of less sadness”. These results lead Provine and his team to conclude that emotional tears helped to remove any ambiguity about a person’s emotional state and serve as “a visual signal of sadness”.

The study’s findings are certainly intriguing and hopefully, it will spur more research in order to better understand this emotionally-related physiological response. In the meantime, there are some important insights that should cause us to reconsider what role emotions should play in the workplace. Click here to continue reading »”What Does Crying Have To Do With Business?”

Over the holiday break, my wife and I went to see the latest George Clooney film “Up in the Air”.  While the film does a wonderful job exploring how the level of connection and intimacy we have with those around us affects our sense of happiness, it also puts a stark face to those layoff numbers we’ve been hearing about all too often in these troubling economic times.

The movie centers on corporate downsizing expert Ryan Bingham (featuring a great performance by George Clooney) whose hired by various companies to do their dirty work in firing their employees.  At one point in the film, when Bingham brings along his company’s new efficiency expert Natalie Keener to show her the process of firing someone, Keener makes the comment to one of the people she just fired that “it’s nothing personal.  It’s just business”.  Although it’s a statement that’s regularly spoken regarding business and the workplace, watching this scene brought to light how misguided this notion really is.

I’m sure many of us have been told at one point in our careers how it’s important to Click here to continue reading »”It’s Time to Make Work Personal Again”

Yesterday, I read the sad news report about the mother in Chile who in a fit of rage killed her daughter because she refused to do homework her teachers assigned her for the summer break. And while my reaction was probably pretty similar to everyone else’s upon reading this news, this story also got me thinking about an unrelated issue that we as a society continue to tolerate or at least see no harm in. As the title of this entry implies, I’m referring here to the face slap.

It’s a scene most of us have witnessed numerous times in both films and TV shows, and probably for some even in real life. A man and woman are talking about something and then we see the woman’s face contort into a look of anger, hurt or a combination of both. This is soon followed by the woman giving the man a hard slap across the face, often causing the man’s head to turn off to one side that demonstrates the power behind the hit. In dramatic works, it’s certainly an effective visual tool for the audience to appreciate the depth of anger and/or hurt the woman feels as a result of the man’s revelation. However, this physical move is not just limited to the dramatic realm as some vehicles even use this as a comedic device. After all, there’s nothing funnier that seeing a man getting walloped by a woman, especially an old lady, right?

And yet, I have to admit that thinking more about this subject, I can’t help but wonder why we accept women being able to express their emotions with physical violence, if not also why we find it funny in some cases when they do. As a society, we would never feel the same about men hitting women. Sure, the point can be made that Click here to continue reading »”The Face Slap – Our Unspoken Tolerance Of Violence and Sexism”