Is there someone in your work life who just knows how to goad you? Within in minutes of any given exchange, you find yourself perhaps frustrated or shut down? In our leadership development world, we call these folks “Emotional Button Pushers”. We may promise ourselves that the next exchange with this particular profile, it’s going to be different and yet inevitably we end up in the same place. Sometimes in these situations, our emotions can get the better of us and we end up saying something we regret later. In the Emotional Intelligence (EI) world, experts call those moments an “Emotional Highjack”. Interestingly enough, our bodies physically warn us of those moments before we hit the point of no return: there’s a change of voice tone or volume, faces feel flushed, palms sweaty, etc., it’s literally our physical selves warning: Danger! Danger! Turn around before it’s too late!
During my presentation at this year’s PIE Show and Exhibition on March 13th we’ll review different behavioral profiles and articulate to ourselves which ones push our personal emotional buttons and which ones swim easily in our same lane. More importantly, we discuss ways to manage ourselves through any situation so we handle these emotional highjacks better and avoid agenda derailments like having to apologize for popping off!
Colleen Niese
