Leading When It’s Hard: EQ in High-Stress Moments

Pressure doesn’t wait for a free afternoon. It shows up in the middle of a deadline, a hard conversation, or a messy team moment—and that’s where leadership is proven. We go straight at the heart of it: emotional labor, stress, and the emotional intelligence skills that help you regulate instead of react.

We start by naming emotional labor—the often invisible work leaders do to manage their own feelings while holding space for everyone else’s. From there, we dig into co-regulation and why one person’s panic or calm can shift a whole room. We connect Daniel Goleman’s four EQ domains to practical moves you can use in real time: notice your signals, ground your body, read the room, and protect trust through tone, timing, and clarity.

If you’re ready to turn stressful moments into proof points of your culture, this conversation will give you language, tools, and confidence to lead with steadiness. Subscribe, share this with a manager who’s carrying a lot right now, and leave a review to tell us which calm-down cue you’ll try next. 

And for deeper practice, use code EI20 for 20% off our emotional intelligence course.

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Focus

Katie 1:05

Hello everyone, welcome back. We are season six of the Tackle Tuesday podcast, and this is episode two on this season where we are excited to explore emotional intelligence in leadership, how it looks, why it matters, and what it means for you. Today's episode, we plan to focus on stress, resilience, and emotional regulation. This messy human side of leadership is real. We all deal with stress every day. So, uh, how can EQ help us to manage that a bit more effectively? We're gonna dive into it. Uh, and I think we won't hold back, we'll get to it all. I'll get Joanna to sort of ease us into what we're gonna get into.

Why EQ Matters Under Stress

Johanna 1:44

So today we're gonna talk about emotional labor and what does that mean? So, what do we mean by emotional labor? I mean, this is a concept that you introduced to me, Katie, a while back when uh through the Woman Up Ignite the Leader and New program. And it was a new concept that I hadn't heard before. Um, and I think there's definitely value in knowing what that means and how it may be manifesting in your own life. Okay, so it's basically the effort leaders put into managing not just tasks and strategy, but also emotions, yours and everyone else's as well. And I'm not sure if a lot of people who say who make the decision to move into a formal leadership position understand that because they're so focused on the tasks and the the the to-do list, but not necessarily people. So think about it. Leaders are expected to stay calm under pressure, motivate their teams while they're also experiencing a lot of pressure and stress, deliver bad news with empathy and patience, navigate conflict without losing trust, and that constant balancing act takes emotional energy, hence the labor part of it. So stress is really baked into leadership. It's not about if it happens, it's how you respond respond when it does. And this is where emotional intelligence becomes essential because it gives leaders self-awareness to recognize their stress signals, self-management to regulate those emotions in the moment, social awareness to sense how others are being affected or affected, and relationship management to keep trust strong on under pressure. And so without emotional intelligence, stress hijacks decision making and relationships. And with emotional intelligence, stress becomes an opportunity to model resilience and presence for your team. So if you missed the first episode, I highly recommend you go back because Katie and I talked a lot about self-regulation or self-management, which is that second domain of emotional intelligence and how we experience it and how it gets manifested. We talked about a great book called The Anxious Achiever. And I'll find out who the I forgot the author's name, so I'll I'll make that I'll find out who that is and share it with our listeners. But listen to that first episode because we also start to introduce some tips and tricks to deal with stress as well as a leader. Okay, I think it's time for a self-reflection, Kate.

Guided Self‑Reflection On Reactions

Katie 4:08

Mm-hmm. Yeah, great little intro here. And this is where it gets kind of exciting. We've in episode one laid the foundation of what emotional intelligence is, but now we can really consider how do we then use it, strengthen it, and really have it be a way to help us. So in this case, to sort of manage stress, it can be so useful. So let's start to think about that. Think of a time you reacted under stress, maybe you snapped at someone, maybe you froze, or did you fire off that email too quickly? I think we can probably each Joanna and I relate to all of those little scenarios. And how did that impact the situation, the way that you reacted under stress or your relationships? How did it impact the people in the relationships? Now let's consider a time when someone else's calm presence helps settle you down. How did that change things? Can you think of someone who helps bring a calm or an ease or groundedness? And what did that do for you? So I want us to consider kind of different extremes here in terms of emotions and how they can be helpful to ground us and how they can also sort of push us into a certain reaction. So hopefully you've had a chance to reflect on that. I thought I could open it up briefly and see, John, what comes to mind for maybe you first, whether it's an example of a stressful situation, uh, either the presence or lack of emotional intelligence that you experienced or you observed. Anything come to mind?

Johanna 5:44

Yeah, my first experience was someone who was not able to regulate their emotions, which really impacted mine. You feed off of other co-regulation, right? Yeah. And um, the way I reacted under the stress that I experienced was based on the the behavior of someone else who really had zero ability to self-regulate. It was a mistake that someone on his team had made, which impacted a service that I was providing to a client. And they made the mistake, you know, one time it's like, yeah, okay, no, not a problem. I can explain that to a client, but they made it twice, back to back, the same mistake that's hard to explain to a client with a really tight deadline. And when I reached out to the team to ask them to correct it, he intervened, which I thought was to fix it. No, he intervened to blame me and and was very cruel, really mean, attacked my character, and he was yelling and screaming at me. Um they actually created um an anti-harassment and bullying policy to address his behavior rather than fire him. I think maybe I've mentioned this in another podcast, but the way I reacted, I I just started crying. I guess you could say I froze in many ways because I I just I didn't know what to say in response to the anger that was emanating from him, but and also just kind of brought me to tears, right? So that was an early, early experience that I had in my early 20s when I was just starting to start in the workforce and calm presence, yeah. I mean, there have been times later in my career where stress has gotten the best of me. And I've had a supervisor who really listened and didn't judge. And because I was obviously judging myself through the experience, like even judging my own stress reaction to it and saying I shouldn't feel like this, and I shouldn't act like this, and I shouldn't say these things. And she just listened and said, it's okay. Just let the emotions flow and come out. And that made made a lot of uh made a whole world of difference to me. And it was a good role model for me.

Katie 7:53

Well, that's a good example. I think that's a nice one to share kind of both sides of that. Um, what the presence did in terms of sort of listening and giving you that space, but also kind of getting like pulled into that situation. I think that's a good example.

Johanna 8:06

I did get the name for the anxious achiever.

Katie 8:08

Oh, yes, I was gonna look it up. What is it?

Johanna 8:10

Mora Aaron's Mel. I assume that's how you pronounce it. So Maura with two R's, Aaron's A-A-R-O-N-S-M-E-L E. She also has a podcast called the Anxious Achiever Podcast. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So if if self-management is the thing that you're working on, I highly recommend this book. And I haven't listened to the podcast, but if it's anything like the book, I would probably recommend it. It's it's actually one of the top 10 management podcasts. Yeah.

A Story Of Dysregulation And Harm

Katie 8:40

I didn't know that. Cool. I'm gonna have to give it a listen. New podcast recommendation. Cool. I might share jump in just as you were talking, I was thinking of actually not a work-related, but like a uh kind of personal situation where I think the stress of the situation made emotional intelligence really hard for everyone and then um brought up some challenges. So I might share that briefly. I think it ties in nicely, and then uh I'll turn it to you to go through a bit more on some of like the research behind uh all of this stuff and how stress impacts the brain. But I was just reflecting on, and you know, this summer I flew out of province. I went to go visit some family. I have uh an aunt who's not doing so well, so a number of us were there to provide some care for her, and I'm just reflecting on like the stress of the situation of providing like minute-to-minute care for someone, uh, and a lot of the unknowns with some health things going on, just made it so that I don't think any of us were really aware of the emotions that were at play. And I think everyone was exhausted and burnt out. Of course, my aunt who wasn't feeling well or doing well, was dealing with her own stuff. So just like all the emotions, all the exhaustion meant that we were all totally unaware, I think, of like what was going on and how we were showing up. So there was not really a lot of awareness or regulation of emotions while we were all sort of in this space trying to help in terms of then how we were like affecting other people or like managing the situation in the relationships. There was just so many miscommunications, so many kind of like outbursts. You could tell some of us were internally processing and managing others, were outbursts in terms of like what was causing some frustration or emotion. Um, so just like the lack, and I think each person has the capacity to be very emotionally intelligent in other spaces, but just given the stress, the heightened stress of that very situation, meant we were not at our best, and everything we were bringing unbeknownsts to the table was like exacerbating um the overall stress situation. So I just think that's a very different kind of example from what you shared. And I'm sure we can all think of situations where just like the reality of the stress at hand makes it really hard to do some of this stuff. But I'm considering even afterwards, I think leaving the situation and coming back home, being able to then reflect a little on a lot of the components of emotional intelligence and then connect with family members on kind of even just like debriefing that experience and what that was like and what we need moving forward was then a space where we could have more clarity because we would be able to like put our head above water a bit. But just wanted to yeah, throw that out there. That was kind of top of mind. I don't know what you think of that, Joanna, but yeah.

Johanna 11:09

No, it's a great example. Just makes me understand like how the brain and the body are very much linked, and that yeah, if you're physically exhausted, it's really hard to be emotionally intelligent and self-regulated and manage, right? Yeah, yeah. And the and the stress can also then lead to so many other things. And we're only and we have to have self-compassion and realize that we we the more emotionally intelligent we are, it can prevent some of these things, but at the end of the day, they will happen at times, and uh we won't always react the best way that we would like to. Yeah, and we do feed off of each other, and so if there's a few people together experiencing a stressful moment, it it may be harder to self-regulate together through it. So that taking a moment to step back and look internally and then come back and have these debriefs, I think, are important because you're like, there's always a way forward to do better.

Katie 11:54

Yeah, yeah.

Johanna 11:55

That's I think a great example.

Katie 11:56

Yeah, I think it kind of segues nice to what you're gonna talk about next, but just like what happens physiologically in these moments. So why don't you take it from there?

Naming The Anxious Achiever

Caregiving Stress And Group Dynamics

Johanna 12:04

Yeah, and one of the things that we do to refer back to that other program that we teach Women Up, Ignite the Leader in You, we have a uh a workshop that's just devoted to self-management called Managing Stress and Burnout in Self, always first in self and then others. And we invite Terry and Scott Jones from Twisted Oak Yoga to walk our participants through various exercises, breath work, mindfulness activities to help them be able to deal with the stress that they may experience. Because sometimes it's hard to talk yourself through a stressful moment. And there's so much research that shows how mindfulness may better help you situate you in the present moment to help deal with uh any kind of stress that you're working through. So, what happens when stress impacts the brain? And so, I mean, we could spend hours just talking about the physiological response and systems associated with this, but we're gonna keep it short and sweet. And so we're gonna talk a little bit about cortisol, right? And when cortisol levels spike, um, and the amygdala, which is the brain's alarm system, basically takes over. And Daniel Goleman, who did write the book Emotional Intelligence, um, and Daniel Goleman is someone uh I we talked about in the last episode as well, and really like his research and the research that he's done with some two other folks, Richard Boyatsis and Annie McKee. They wrote the book called Primal Leadership, which is uh and the subtitles Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. And so they talk a lot about the stress response as well. But what he called it, he called it the amygdala hijack. So it's that moment when you can't think straight, your emotions run the show, and empathy shuts down. And that's and I'm laughing just because yeah, I mean I've I've I I could think of a time that was really embarrassing. I don't think I'll actually share it in public, but I've called it now, I want to know. I just I lost my mind. I was it was over something so dumb, but I was experiencing so much stress in other areas of my life that this was kind of like the the last thing that really kind of just broke me. And I how did I act? So I I screamed, I yelled. I think I was all by myself and no one could hear me, but let me tell you, I terrified my cat at the time. It was just staring at me, like, what's wrong with her? Because he was terrified, he wanted to hide, right? So under stress, we may blurt something out, we can send a sharp email, you can freeze in the middle of a hard conversation, and just know that it really is biology. It's the fight, flight, and we've also introduced you know things like freeze uh into this uh amygdala hijack um reaction. So here's the good news emotional intelligence doesn't erase stress, it doesn't get rid of anxiety, but it gives you the tools to notice it sooner, hopefully figure out a way to work through it while the stress or the anxious moment passes so that you can regain control faster, right? So here's an example of how to work through something like that, considering the four domains of emotional intelligence. So self-awareness will help you recognize I'm getting hijacked right now. Self-management gives you the strategies to pause, breathe, and shift your state before reacting. In the book, The Anxious Achiever, and I know Terry and Scott talk about this, and I've had a therapist tell me this ground yourself, anchor yourself. We talked about in the last episode the leadership compass, and part of your anchor is knowing your purpose. So it could be focusing on why am I here, why is it I'm doing what I'm doing. The other thing is to like touch something, like maybe ground your feet into the ground, uh, tap yourself, rub your fingers together, notice five things in the room, to remember I'm actually safe, I'm okay, and it could help that emotional response pass sooner, right? These things can really make a world of difference. So here's a real world example. Leaders who build these skills are able to make clear decisions, intense moments. And just as importantly, they maintain the trust of their team because they see them, their team sees them lead with steadiness instead of reactivity. The key takeaway is self-regulation isn't about always being calm every day, 24-7, but it's about being in charge of your state. So stress doesn't decide for you how you show up. One of the last things that I want to say is what we share with our participants. When you tell participants, when you tell someone, take emotions out of it, I think it's really you're asking them to accomplish an impossible feat. It's like asking someone not to breathe. Emotions are part of our operating system that impact our mood. It's not about getting rid of them. That's impossible, but it's about being more aware of them and like and how it may run interference in the way that you make decisions. But also giving yourself forgiveness when you do lose your cool and going back to admit mistakes and and share what you've learned and how you'll go forward. These are the important things.

Physiology 101: Amygdala Hijack

Katie 16:59

Oh, I it's good that you said that, like the idea of take emotions out of it, or if we just like stuff them down or ignore them, like they don't really go away. And then that's, I think, where then it bubbles up in some weird way and you scare your cat or whatever example you were giving. But like literally explode. Like it will come out at some point, and that will look different for all of us. But yeah, so I'm I'm glad you mentioned that because I think that's like a common sort of myth or like an outdated way of thinking that we need to to be a good leader, kind of take emotions out of it and be very logical. Um, but like there's space for emotions as part of that for sure. And so maybe that's good to ease into the next uh space for reflection here. So a few questions just for you to consider. How do you currently come down from stress? Maybe even first it's reflecting, and we do this in some of our courses. Like, what does stress look like for you? How does stress kind of manifest in your body? What do the thoughts look like? What do you feel like? It's worth taking a second to really understand our stress response. And some of this stuff, and I am guilty of this too, just so basic, like, yeah, yeah, I know when I'm stressed, but like what does that actually really look like and feel like for me? Uh, and taking time to even share that with the team. I think I mentioned this in an earlier episode, maybe last episode. Um, we've done some stuff with our team of really understanding our preferences, the way we like to do things at work, but also what do we look like and what do we need in stressful or busy times? And that can be really, really insightful. So uh back to reflection. So, yes, how do you currently come down from stress? Do you push through? Do you have rituals or cues that help you reset? And what would it look like to intentionally build a bit of a calm down cue, uh, if you want to call it that, in your leadership toolkit? Kind of some strategies or some go-tos. And so I'm thinking even for me, like you mentioned, Scott and Terry have been a part of our Woman Up program. And I love every time they come because it just they they don't tell us about practices that are useful. They have us do some breathing, some grounding. And it's always the stuff that I know I should do more of, but I don't. And I think that's like my greatest lesson or thing to work on is like just getting a bit more comfortable doing some of those sort of mindfulness practices or a bit more of like the embodied approach. So even little things for me, like even right now, just paying attention to like the tension in like my jaw, like relax my jaw, drop my shoulders. Like I so often in a work day, even if I'm not like stress stressed, but just like the way I'm approaching my work or like at my desk, um, my body is tense. So some of those little cues, I'm finding I'm better at that and some like simple breath work as I find I even just move through the day, or as I find myself getting a bit more stressed. I think you're good, Joanna, like even little walk breaks or like just stepping away. Uh, like what are some things that you have added to your toolkit over?

Johanna 19:44

Yeah, it's making the time for myself to do even a 10-minute walk. It's so easy for me to make the excuse I'm too busy, I got so much work. I know. But you know what? Work will always be there. Yeah. And what if why don't I? This is what I'm looking at, experiment. Go for the walk, yeah, come back to work, and then see the impact of that in the media, but the future impact in terms of like did the client still get the deliverable on time? And so far, yes, always. I've never taken a walk that impeded me from delivering something, completing a task at the due date. So I'm like, why am I not investing in myself? Because that will make me a better performer overall. Yeah. So these are the things I'm trying to do. But honestly, there are some times where I just get caught up in the day, and it's like before I know it's the end of the day, and I haven't done anything for myself. And that, and then I can see the rest of the week is overwhelming for me. Right.

Katie 20:42

Yeah. No, I hear you. I feel like it's easy for me to fall into like the walk will be the reward. Like once I get through the list, then I'll do it. I still do this. And we have created and you've like, you know, set up the company to be one where we have the flexibility, like that let's do this. Yet it's still hard. And there's lots of things probably wrapped up in that in terms of like expectations and that I'm putting on myself and just like what I'm used to, kind of like having to grind out. So there's a lot of like getting rid of that, but yeah, less of the reward. But like you said, it's gonna only help us. And in fact, the last few weeks, it's it's summer, you were away, our calendar was a bit lighter in terms of meetings. So I was actually doing more walks, and we're writing a book, and we were kind of on pause. And as I'm on these beautiful summer walks, I was having all these creative ideas coming to me. And like, I know that's a thing that they talk about, like another benefit in terms of yeah, manage stress, but you can get a lot of creative juices flowing. But like it was crazy what was flowing in. So just reminders that yes, we can always fit that in and still get our work done. And there's many benefits aside from just like calming my body down, but yes, creatively, it really is necessary.

Johanna 21:49

Mora talks about perfectionists, perfectionism and perfectionists. And I never considered myself a perfectionist, but she did talk about overwork, working a lot, and perfectionism and overwork can go hand in hand. And basically, if we don't dive deep into the underlying belief that's causing us to continually push through and work all of these hours and not take the breaks, which impedes our ability to be creative, right? Is linked to this underlying belief of some sort. And so she has to do an exercise to get down to what the belief is. And for me, the belief is if I don't work all of these hours, if I take a break, it means uh I will fail as a businesswoman. My business will collapse, I'm useless and I'm lazy. Yep. So if I if I don't, if I don't push through and I take a break, I'm being irresponsible. Yeah. Because linked to this is the ability for the company to succeed.

Katie 22:46

Yeah.

Johanna 22:46

And I'm like, that's gonna say that's fucked up.

Four EQ Domains In Action

Note: This marker removed to keep within 1603 seconds

Katie 22:50

That is fucked up, but I say I feel like I have very similar things there. And I also feel like I've rejected this label perfectionism because I see other examples where I'm like, well, they're like raging perfectionism is an issue. I'm not like that, but there probably are different ways that's. Puffing up, and I think we both have a bit of what you just said. Ooh, that's interesting. All right. Great. Well, the reflections do working for us. I hope you've also, uh listener, been able to therapy. This is great. Okay, well, why don't I uh let us sort of ponder that? I'll move us to uh our final segment, the new segment called From the Course. Uh, we wanted to integrate some real insights from leaders who've taken our emotional intelligence course uh to just to kind of bring this to life a little. So, real leaders who've taken the course, what they've told us about stress. We I went through some of the qualitative data as I'm preparing to put together some new materials for the course, and I found some good stuff. So one participant said, I, and this is the term we just talked about, I get hijacked by emotion and regret how I handled things later. Yes, I I uh can relate to that. Uh, someone else said, I avoid hard conversations until it's too late. And I think that idea of maybe not being self-aware of the discomfort or or managing the whatever feelings associated with maybe a hard conversation and then avoiding, I think that's so common. And then it's too late, then you have to manage another situation uh, anyways, right? You're kind of just delaying. So that's really common. Another one I put in here, how do I give feedback that's honest but doesn't shut people down? A participant was reflecting on that. And again, I think emotional intelligence in these situations that bring up stress or can be stressful are very real. We all experience versions of these things. So these sorts of things came up again and again. Uh, leaders want tools to respond, not react. And taking the course gave them a little bit more information to enhance their self-awareness. And so I guess what I'll say in terms of a plug is if if this is starting to pique your interest, the course is gonna, like I said, give information to enhance your awareness of like what emotional intelligence is. But we explore self-management, which is one of those domains which has involved the ability to exert self-control in challenging or high stress situations, whether that's the feedback conversation uh or the tough conversation we don't want to have. So, again, we wanted to highlight aspects of the course and really draw your attention to our discount code. So, as we mentioned in episode one, we have EI20, is a 20% discount code just for our Tackle Tuesday listeners. Uh, we'd love to be able to share this program with others. And uh there you have it, a little discount code to get you going.

Johanna 25:31

Thank you, Katie, and I'll wrap things up. So, key takeaways: stress is inevitable in leadership, but reactivity does not have to be. Emotional intelligence equips you to notice, pause, and choose your response. And that's not just resilience, that's it, that is leadership in action. So, thank you for joining us today. We look forward to our next episode. Our next episode, episode three for season six, is the feedback trap. Why EQ or emotional intelligence is a secret to better conversations. And with that, we wish you a wonderful day and we look forward to tackling the next issue with you.