If you’re a leader in today’s workplace, you’re being asked to manage more than strategy, budgets, and performance—you’re being asked to manage emotions, too. The rise of virtual work, the impact of AI, and the constant disruptions in how we connect mean that leaders are carrying heavier emotional loads than ever before. But how do you handle those demands without burning out?
In this conversation, I sit down with Dina Denham Smith, co-author of Emotionally Charged: How to Lead in the New World of Work with Penn State professor Alicia Grandy. Dina introduces the idea of emotional labor—the often unseen effort leaders put into showing up with the “right” emotions, even when it means suppressing or faking what they really feel. She shares practical ways to reframe those moments, practice self-compassion, and build the skills leaders need not just to survive, but to thrive in this new era.
Whether you’re leading a small team or steering a global organization, Dina’s insights offer a timely reminder: your emotional well-being isn’t separate from your leadership—it’s at the heart of it. Enjoy our conversation and be sure to pick up the book, too.
Read Dina’s Harvard Business Review articles and more here.
Transcript: Emotionally Charged
(AI generated, lightly edited for readability)
Darcy Eikenberg: Hello, hello, Red Cape Revolution. It’s Darcy here, and I am really happy to bring you another one of my friends who has written this awesome book. The book is called, Emotionally Charged, How to Lead in the New World of Work. This is Dina Denham Smith. Dina, thank you so much for being here with me today. Thank you for having me. It is great to see you and Dina and I have known each other for a few years, worked together in a mastermind and I think I remember the day when you said, Hmm, I’m want to work on this book with my friend, with a colleague who’s also a good friend, and we have this offer from, I think it’s Oxford Press to do it. Do it or not. And some of us were like, oh, you know, that’ll take so long, that’ll be a process. And our mentor Dorie, is like, right? Write the book. Write the book. Do you remember that moment?
Dina Denham Smith: I remember that moment! Yes, I do.
Darcy: And now here we are with a great book that really is resonating with a lot of people. So Dina, I would love for you to share rirst of all, why write a book about emotions in the workplace, and especially emotions with leaders, because we’ve been told for years, there’s no room for emotion at work, right? So why? Why dive into this?
Dina: I think we all know we’ve had a bit of a perfect storm of disruption over the last five years, it’s resulted in a variety of different shifts in the workplace, and what I noticed in my coaching of leaders and teams is that those shifts in the workplace have dramatically increased the emotional demands that they were facing in their roles, and that to do the job of being a leader, well, simply required a lot more emotional skill.
And so, you know, just by way of example, you know, we do so much work now through virtual technologies, even though we’ve returned broadly to the office. You know, since the pandemic, however, you know, the ability to like, read and convey emotions and build trust and motivate teams and build culture. It’s much more sophisticated over virtual technologies versus in-person.
We’ve had the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence and leaders are faced with championing it into the workplace while overriding their own fears of obsolescence, right? We have these paradoxical expectations that have developed over time for leaders where we ask them to be confident yet humble, that they are authentic, but just human enough. You know that they drive results, but are sensitive and compassionate and caring.
You know, one thing that also shifted, really during the pandemic, but has continued is employees now expect their leaders to help them with what are more personal problems. It didn’t used to be that case, but research now shows that leaders are helping their team members with personal-related issues as much as they help with the task-related issues.
So anyhow, there were all these shifts in the workplace that dramatically increased the emotional demands that leaders were facing in their role, but they were not really equipped in any way, through training or resources to handle those and so to me, it was like no wonder that we’re facing epic levels of stress and burnout in the leader population. And so what my co-author and I set out to do was write a book to really solve for that gap.
And she we were both in the same graduate program for Organizational Psychology. I went the applied route. She went academic. She leads up org psych at Penn State. She’s an expert in stress and emotional labor. And so what we really, you know, aspired to do was marry the science with the practice and give leaders, you know, techniques and strategies and tools that were not just evidence based, but also, you know, practical things that they could apply, you know, readily in their everyday lives, which are already busy enough.
Darcy: It’s so interesting when you like, reflect back on that and how much like the heaviness of all these emotional aspects, and then the resistance to the why should we have to be dealing with this or and but then the change cultural mores around, especially that came out in the pandemic, but I think that have always been there to some degree, maybe even more pressure on women around taking care of people in the workplace.
And I’m glad to hear you call out what screens are doing for us. I’ll often say screen, screen out emotion. And I get really worried that people perceive that what they see on a screen is actually what’s happening. But most of us not have a lot of media training to understand how to, you know, communicate through a screen right in the same way that we might naturally do as people. Yeah.
Dina: A lot of the nuance gets lost.
Darcy: And so bundling it all under this aspect of emotion, I’m curious. A lot of people watching this will have heard or read or even studied emotional intelligence, which we’ve been talking about for years. But you make a distinction that there’s more than just emotional intelligence. Tell us about that.
Dina: One of the, one of the key concepts in the book, and let me talk about that first, and then I’ll kind of come back to how it, how it’s different from emotional intelligence, is the notion of emotional labor.
All workplaces have unwritten rules about what emotions are okay to show sort of in what dosages and by whom. Right emotional labor is the work that we do to display the right emotions at work. And sometimes it means we suppress how we really feel, and sometimes it means we evoke things that we do not feel right. We fake it right. And for leaders, emotional labor is they they end up doing a, really, an obscene amount of it now, due to the emotional demands that they face in the world, due to toggling between so many different stakeholder groups and having to show up differently with their team than with their boss, than with the board, than with the clients, and, you know, doing the sort of the emotional gymnastics to manage these paradoxical expectations.
You know, there’s emotional labor involved with managing. We have an increasingly diverse and polarized workforce, right? They have more styles to adapt to. There’s more conflict to manage. Emotional labor comes up when leaders need to make very sort of need to make decisions about real people’s lives. You know, like letting an underperformer go, or restructuring a change fatigue team, or conducting a layoff. That’s emotional labor. So leaders do a ton of emotional labor and but, it’s nowhere on their job description. We don’t ever talk about it. It’s barely acknowledged, and when it goes unacknowledged and unaddressed, it can really lead to some steep costs for leaders, individually, and then more broadly, for the organization, when they’ve had, like a fleet of depleted leaders running around due to all of the unmanaged emotional labor in their roles, right?
So there so emotional labor something that leaders need to do to perform well in their jobs often, but there’s ways to perform it. And what typically happens is facing a mountain of demands and non-stop pressure for results and the devaluation of emotions in organizations, sort of broadly, most leaders in the moment will default to suppressing or faking their emotions, and that is a natural response given all those forces I just mentioned.
The problem is that over time there can, there can be some steep cost to their performance, to their relationships, to their home life, to their health. The book dives into that concept in a lot of detail and shares different ways that leaders can manage all of the emotions that they need to handle in an organization on their own, as well as those of followers and colleagues in ways that will help them perform, but also maintain their well-being. So that’s a lot about emotional labor.
Darcy: Well, and what I love about, about just even recognizing that that’s a thing, you know, it’s the aim, it to claim it piece, right? That I’ve been talking to a lot of my clients lately who have maybe made. More senior level hires, and have high expectations for those hires, and then those hires aren’t working out to expectations. And when you peel back the onion, one of the thing is not hiring for some of the traits that you might call emotional labor, like not even having on the radar screen of some capability to navigate, to flex, to take care of themselves, to, you know, be able to express or process and because what you’re just describing is that habit, which I think has made a lot of people opt out of the workforce lately, of like tamping it down into the point where it’s making you sick, it’s affecting your family and women, especially, the data is showing, as you know, it, just like opting out, it’s like no in between, it’s like, I’m just gone. And that, you know, that worries me for long-term success of leadership. So, so for, you know, emotional labor, you have some strategies and elements that you talk about in the book. What is, you know, what is one thing that somebody who’s just dipping their toe into this realizing, hey, the thing that’s really stressing me out. The thing that is really consuming me and making me think that I’m not leading at my level, or I’m not a good leader anymore, is it is learning how to manage the emotional labor. What? Yeah, what tools can they use?
Dina: What 300 pages of tools? Exactly, they go get the book and write a review. No, but, but I also, I also get that. You know, especially leaders are like, I don’t have time to read a book. Like, are you joking right now? Who has time to read? Who has time? Yeah. So I guess where I would, I would start answering that question as a couple things.
One, emotional like the ability to perform emotional labor in a skilled way. It is. It’s a skill. You can learn it right. It’s not like some people are born knowing how to perform this right? And some people are not in that way. It’s similar to emotional intelligence. This is a skill that one can develop. And I think what’s important for leaders to understand is that you know, continually suppressing your emotions or faking things that you do not feel and eventually it there. There is a cost. And so, you know, what is it that you can do instead of those things, right? And there’s, there’s a few different strategies that can be really, really helpful. And I actually summarize these two in a much shorter, more readily consumable HBR article that I think is called, like, when your emotions conflict with your role.
Darcy: We’ll find in the in the show notes too. Oh, okay,
Dina : And so first is to just to zoom out and really refocus your attention on, like, what is the larger purpose of my role? I mean, because sometimes leaders are tasked with doing things that are really difficult, right? Like letting somebody go, or restructuring a team, when they’re like, so tired of all these organizational changes. Or, you know, I mean, there’s a variety of different elements to to a leader’s job that one might call necessary evils, right? And so and that can, that can just be emotionally overwhelming, right? Like to have to do those things and reconcile them with your sense of self and all of that. And zooming up to think about, what is the larger purpose of my role can sometimes contextualize some of the work that you need to do and the emotions that go with it, and that can, like, reduce the load.
The other strategy that can be really powerful is reframing. And there’s two two ways to go about that. One is reframing the situation, and that’s just shifting your perspective to find new meaning or new possibilities in in a situation, right? So, for example, if you need to let somebody go from your team, right, that’s always hard, right? Like that’s that’s never going to be easy, but thinking about like, you need to do it for the greater good of your team, right, for the collective morale and momentum, is a way to, like, think about it, that can help you feel better for having done something that is going to hurt another individual. In the short term, right? The other way to think about reframing is not just the lens that we choose for different situations, but the lens that we choose to see ourselves through. And you know, many of us, especially high performers, have a very strong critical voice,
Darcy: Rreally, where, where? Where are those people?
Dina: Where would that be? Where would that be? No one I know. No one can relate. No one can relate. Choosing to see ourselves amid struggles and challenges with self-compassion. You know, many high performers, they shun it because they feel like somehow it’s lowering the bar or they could lose their edge. Meanwhile, you know, research shows exactly the opposite. Self-compassion boosts performance, resilience, and composure. Under pressure, we learn faster, we recover faster. I mean, the benefits are are undeniable. Um, and so choosing, choosing that self-compassionate lens, can also somewhat lessen the load of this emotional labor and so.
And then book dives into, like, what can you do before you go into an emotionally loaded situation? And there are specific strategies for that. What can you do when you get triggered in the moment, like, such that you’re not having to like, suppress and fake your emotions, but you’re regulating them such that you can show up composed. And then there are strategies that are best used after the fact for really recovering efficiently from situations that are emotionally demanding. So it’s hard to answer that question efficiently, because there are a variety of different things that leaders can do to take care of themselves better and to perform better in all of the emotional labor that is part of their roles.
Darcy: I think the recognition of that just it is there, and something just like anything else that I need to I want to learn, I want to manage, and also recognizing that it isn’t going to be perfect. And you mentioned the recovery I had a client recently where they weren’t regulated in the moment, and then, you know, they’re reprocessing it in their head on their own. Like, have you said that to him, like, Hey, I don’t like how that came out. Can we do a retake? You know, it just to be human and think we’re overusing the word authentic, but it is just to recognize that sometimes situations suck, right? It’s like they do and and you were talking about the inherent tensions in a lot of the leadership roles today, which think is both like fascinating and awful, right? Because it’s your damn you and damned if you don’t. But there’s a role and some things you need to align to, and we don’t have a control group of if I make choice A, then know what happens, versus if I make choice B, that’s not how life works. And so having that confidence, but then knowing that that’s part of managing, you know, the emotional part of it, not just the fact part of it, right? That is almost the lesser part,
Dina: Yes, right, right. No. I mean, there’s, I want. One of the things that I love to share when I’m talking with leaders about emotions is, you know, so many of us grew up with messages like, Big Girls Don’t Cry or man up, or don’t be so sensitive. Or, you know, we just didn’t talk about emotions and our houses growing up, right? It was about productivity and worth and blah, blah, blah, um, and so anyhow, all of this taken together, it, it has led to kind of a situation where I think certain emotions are seen as weaknesses to be pushed aside.
But emotions are not good or bad. Like all emotions are, are information data points that give us really important clues to our needs, our values, our boundaries, um, and when we tune into those, you know, we have even more like rich information to bring to bear on a situation that can help us make better decisions, help us have healthier relationships, help us be more successful in our careers. And so for these leaders who are highly cognitive, you know what I try to help them see is like I get your. A thinker, but like, there’s all this other information, right? Like that, could be so much to your benefit. But you need to stop thinking about these emotions as good or bad, because that’s not, that’s not what they are. They’re just data points. They’re information. And often times, that reframing of what they are is helpful.
Darcy: It’s a great perspective, because if you were trying to make, you know, a business decision, and there were five reports in front of you, and you decided not to look at one of them, you know, why would you ignore that other source of data, you know? Why wouldn’t you look at all the available data and think of it as a source of data, and trusting with that data is, you know, is telling you and and learning from that data
Dina: Absolutely and you know, thinking is great for logic, but ultimately, like emotion is what drives action and motivation. So whether you acknowledge the emotions or not yours or others, you know, they’re they’re still, they’re still, like driving decision making. And if you make a decision and you need to implement it, you know, and it, you call it an organizational change, or whatever, like not acknowledging some of the emotions that might evolve through that, right? It’s just you’re going to have less successful implementation,
Darcy: Well, you called the book emotionally charged. There’s a story behind this. So why emotionally charged?
Dina: Thank you for asking that question. The title actually has dual meaning and so emotionally charged. Right? Leaders are charged with managing emotions in in their organizations, right? It is. It is part of their role, whether it is written down in their job description or not, like they’re charged with that. But workplaces today are also more emotionally charged, right for many of the reasons that we’ve already talked about, we have a more diverse and polarized workforce. We have people who are coming into work, you know, more strained and stressed than ever, just due to some of the larger world demands and stressors that that are really like the emotional backdrop for all of our days, like information overload a relentless pace, like broader conditions of political turmoil and social unrest and climate disasters and wars and pandemics and market volatility and blah, blah, blah, like, you’ve just got people coming in, right, who are a little bit more, like, loaded up and and so they’re, they’re, you know, organizations are a bit more emotionally charged too. So, yeah, it has a dual has a dual meaning.
Darcy: I run a senior level women’s coaching group for major international manufacturer. And one of the women participating this lives in Ukraine and and it is interesting, the emotional charge, if you will, of everybody hearing that, you know, and, and, but then also her man managing at, you know, the time of this recording, the, you know, a war, being like, right or zone, and still doing your work right, selling snack foods, right, you know, so it’s, it’s So there is a lot of layers, and yes, charged and charged and tasked with doing it. And you’re right. I’ve never seen that on an executive job description or recruiting sheet to say, you know, must manage emotions of team and self, right? I like to see that. I might recommend hat someone do that sometime. So, yeah. Anyway, great. Well, Dina, where can people find out? Where can they find the book? Find out more about you? What’s the best place?
Dina: Thank you. Well, I am on LinkedIn. My name is Dina Denham Smith. You might find more Dina Smiths out there, but I, I think there may only be one. Dina Denham Smith, yeah, my website is DinaDSmith.com, and those are, those are the best places to find me. I don’t really hang out on any other social media platforms. I just can’t handle it. Those two places, and then, you’ll find my book, obviously, on Amazon and other booksellers and so forth.
Darcy:. Pick up the book, read through it, offer it to your team, to a friend, write reviews. Reviews and book purchases are always a good vote for the author. Dina, thank you so much for spending time here with me today. Is there one thing you want to leave anyone listening with? One thought, one idea from this conversation to help them better manage their emotional charge?
Dina: I think I would just sign off with like a word of encouragement, right, which is just the, the world has changed and really, so must we to not just survive, but to actually thrive. I feel like we’ve been talking about digital upskilling for like, two decades now, so maybe three. But what we really need to do to sustain not just our performance, but also our well-being in in this new world is emotional upscaling and emotional skill. It’s all something that can be learned. So no matter where you are on the learning curve, it’s a great place to start. So I would just encourage people to think about it like any other form of development like that. This is just a place where you know increasing your capacity and your skill will not just benefit you but benefit others in your life as well. So
Darcy: Terrific. Well, Dina Denham Smith, my friend, the author, thank you again for being here. Everybody, go check out the book and check out Dina on LinkedIn, on her website and in her Harvard Business Review articles too, and we’ll post a few of those there. Thanks Dina!
Dina: Thank you for having me!