Does Being Professional Mean Being Emotionless?
In this episode of Bilinçli İş İnsanları, we talked about a topic I have thought and written about a lot: Does being professional mean being emotionless?
Who comes to mind when we say “professional”?
A single suit; someone who is unaffected by anything, who can easily cut ties with people, who says “this is professional life” and uses their work like armor. A little robotic, like the agents in The Matrix. What's more, this state is often marketed as a strength: someone who never takes anything personally and decides on logic alone.
Yet this prototype is impossible. We can't sort our emotions as if choosing from a catalog. We can't put work life, private life and family life into separate boxes and manage each one on its own; we are not playing The Sims. And even behind saying “let's be professional” there is often an emotion: a fear or a hesitation.
Emotions have a hierarchy, too
When someone cries, we say they are “very emotional”; when someone gets angry, we say they are “very angry”. Because emotions have a hierarchy, too, and society accepts some more easily than others. In our business world, anger is an accepted emotion: the person shouting in a meeting can still be called “very professional”, while the one whose eyes well up is “emotional”.
This is also something often seen in counseling sessions: because women's anger is not easily accepted in society, sadness sometimes takes its place. So it's worth asking ourselves: Am I really feeling this, or was this emotion assigned to me?
Feeling is one thing; choosing what to do with it is another
Emotional resilience is not about putting on armor so that nothing affects you. There is a big difference between feeling an emotion and what we do with it. Instead of saying “I wasn't upset, it didn't hurt”, being able to say “I was upset”, and then choosing what to do with that sadness: grabbing a coffee after the meeting and gazing into the distance for a while, or giving the team a five-minute break and taking a breath.
We don't have to shout because we are angry; but claiming we are not angry is not the answer either. The power to choose is always ours. As Brené Brown has been saying for years, what really matters is being able to express yourself in a healthy, clean way in the space where you open your heart, despite your fear and your anger.
What being professional really means
To me, real professionalism is being able to stay even inside the emotion you fear most. As you discover what that emotion is telling you and what it is trying to protect you from, the pain eases and the emotion becomes more manageable.
A professional who knows themselves can anticipate this: “If I leave home without breakfast and get stuck in traffic, I'll get irritated; let me take half an hour to pull myself together.” A leader who understands their own emotions can make room for other people's emotions and build connection. And building relationships is only possible through emotions.
Looking at emotions democratically
Perhaps the takeaway of the episode was this: looking at our emotions democratically. Instead of sorting them into good and bad, accepting that some of them are simply more challenging. As in the film Inside Out, even disgust exists to protect us.
As we make room for challenging emotions, we mature, we grow and we serve others better. Because what has kept us going is neither being the strongest nor the smartest, but our ability to connect with one another.
A note: If we are talking about anxiety, sadness or a depressive state at a level that disrupts daily life, that calls for working with a professional. What we discuss here is not those extreme cases.
You can watch the full conversation (in Turkish) in the video below.
Would you like to talk about emotional resilience for your team or your own development journey?
AUTHOR
Azer Karabıyık
Career Transition Coach PCC, ACPC, ORSC
All articles →
