The Pitfalls of Being Too Emotional at Work
Submitted by Lori Grant on October 21, 2009 – 12:27 pmNo Comment
Emotional people at work are toxic.
If you’re an emotional worker, what are your actions communicating? You’re an unhappy person. You lack control and discipline over your emotions, and that may cause you to do dumb things.
I don’t like people who do dumb things.
It also signals that your emotions affect your judgment.
An episode from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (”Random Acts of Violence”) provides a good example of being too emotional at work, as Warrick Brown’s emotional state clouds his judgment.
(See this in action in the video above, or here).
The Episode in a Nutshell
- Warrick investigates the drive by murder of a young girl in his old neighborhood.
- The girl’s father is a friend and mentor of Warrick’s from his youth.
- Warrick gets personally involved to the point where Grissom pulls him off of the case.
- Warrick abuses his power in order to get confidential information on the suspect.
- Warrick’s shares too much information with his mentor who retaliates against the suspect.
- The initial suspect is innocent, his mentor is arrested, and another suspect is found guilty.
- Warrick’s actions cause his mentor to take revenge and become a criminal.
What can you learn from this?
Being overly emotional at work…
- Isolates you from others: coworkers will walk on eggshells around you or avoid you all together, which isn’t a good move if you want to be promoted (or just keep your job).
- Clouds your decision making: anger influences your objectivity and how you take action. (If you prefer making reactive and dysfunctional decisions, then disregard this tip.)
- Affects your health: chronic stress disrupts nearly every system in your body. It can raise blood pressure, suppress the immune system, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, contribute to infertility, and speed up the aging process. (But feel free to continue doing this if you believe the world is going to hell in a hand basket, so who cares about life expectancy.)
One more tip: channel your inner Gil Grissom at work, and look at each situation objectively, “regardless of sex, creed, color, or bubblegum flavor.”
