It is not always possible to suppress emotions like anger or sadness during a crisis. When corporate image is at stake, it is rather that conventional wisdom be rethought. For the sake of the public image, to motivate the workforce, and for so many other seemingly positive reasons, demonstrating negative emotions was perceived as against the corporate good. Does it mean that all negative emotions are bad? When angry employees voice their opinions are they rebels who should be shoved out the door? Positive management leads to positive leadership.
Sometimes, the prevailing attitudes do not reflect desired positive outcomes (pdf). Sometimes, the status quo could be wrong although there are exceptions to every rule.
Bereavement could build social connections. Source: Wikimedia Commons
When, could expressions of negative emotions at the corporate arena be a force for positive results or positive changes? Management should evaluate these facts when making a decision.
Every situation is unique:
Sometimes, workers should be encouraged to express negative emotions. Managers should ensure that such negative demonstrations are constructive and for the “common good. Even positive emotions like compassion, a positive emotion, when taken to extremes, can lead to what is termed “compassion fatigue,” which has been shown to induce stress in perfectionists and overly conscientious individuals. No two situations can be the same.
Political nature of the situation:
When workers perceive injustice or unfairness, they usually have channels for lodging complaints. When these channels become unfair or inefficient, employees organize themselves. The consequences for doing so could be grave or positive; the outcomes depend on the individuals involved, their corporate political ambitions, the genesis of the negative emotion as well as other factors.
Organizational leadership style:
When management is ineffective, would it be wrong for workers to voice their complaints with a view of eliciting change? A company whose personnel department is inefficient could be recruiting workers who are unfit for the roles employed. It has been found that when followers in the organization highly agree with the top management leadership style, staff response to negative emotions turn out most times to be more positive than negative.
How the emotion is directed:
Some emotions like sadness motivates the positive behavior of building social connections when motivated by social loss rather than status loss. Corporate workers want to appear in control of their emotions so they’d rather do away with negative emotions. Yet, when a loss is shared with others, whether positive or negative, it offers an opportunity for openness and intimacy, for expanding personal corporate social circles.
Status associated with the job function:
Some workers like teachers and helpline workers are looked down upon in the society. These are negative emotions directed maybe to them as individuals and/or to their job functions. People do not want to be associated with those “kinds of jobs”. Helpline workers who deal with isolated, upset, abusive or suicidal individuals are perceived as carrying social “dirt” and they’d rather not be tainted with it.
How the emotion is perceived:
Just as every situation is unique, the individuals to which the emotion is directed to are also unique. Everybody reacts differently to anger and happiness. Some show a strong sense of affection for emotions that are directed towards them while others tend to interpret extreme and moderate meanings to emotional situations, depending on their ilk.
Positive corporate leadership desires outcomes to positive and negative emotions that reflect the expected bottom line: motivated employees, agreeable follower-ship, emotionally healthy workforce and profits. It would be conventionally wise then for management to recognize the existence of negative emotions and their place in corporate life.
Life is so full of pain and suffering. Sometimes, you wonder why we care to endure life? No wonder so many persons crave the cold comfort of a peaceful, comfortable free-from-care life in heaven. That thought, of heaven, brings smiles to my face. Why? Because I’d rather think of what is observable and possible than what is unobservable, beyond the imagination and not of my control.
Although science has achieved so much, everyone knows there are things science cannot explain. Like unobservable things in the universe. Do you believe there are living beings on other universe? Is it because your eyes cannot see beings on planet Mars, Jupiter, Venus etcetera that you believe there are no beings on these planets? I shudder to think that is impossible, because it would go against the grain of a designer for the universe. Why should an all wise creator create this vast universe and want planet Earth to be the only universe with living beings in the Milky Way galaxy? It is quite inconceivable. But if life was to be found on any other planet and we make contact with them, then what is heaven and where is heaven? Can you imagine heaven without going there? If you had to go, wouldn’t have to die?
Just some foolish rambling of mine. I think Nigerians are deeply religious, so I do not want to disturb their brains with thoughts like these.
First Shot at the moon, after sunset
The picture above was shot with a Kodak camera, 4.0 megapixels. If you look very carefully, center right, top, you will see a very small whitish dot. That is the moon while I am standing on ground level. I thought I could catch a sharper glimpse of it. I really tried.
Second Shot at the moon, after sunset
Fifteen minutes later, I took another shot. You can see that the sky is getting darker. I had to move closer to the moon. You can see the balcony of an upper floor on the background.
The moon, sun, earth – my, all these works are lovely. If they are all created by a designer, what would the anti-designer have done? Destroy them?
When I reflect on the Devil, the Devil whom we all abhor, I think he is not a creature to be abhorred. I think he should be recognized as a designer in his own class and right, because only a designer can destroy another’s design. Imagine a non-programmer hacking at and introducing bugs into a software program? That is not possible.
If you don’t respect the Devil, I do. I think he is as intelligent as Jesus Christ! I am not talking about the Hebrew Devil, or the Bible Devil, but the Devil in general, a being or force that works against creative design. That is how I see him. Sometimes I wonder why, during the heavenly ceremony before Job’s trials, he had to appear in heaven? Why? Why? Because although he was out of favor, he still has INTERESTS or FUNCTIONS to perform which no other being up there can. You cannot trifle with interests and functions. If you ask me, I’d place him as the second ranking angel in heaven, if you are Christian and believe the Christian bible, directly after Jesus, that is why only Jesus had the power to throw him down. You do not trifle with that! Only Jesus had the power to throw him down? You don’t trifle with an anti-designer, rather you learn lessons of survival and subterfuge from him.
Because Nature abhors a vacuum, he wouldn’t have been thrown out of the heavenly places if Jesus didn’t learn the power, skills and function he serves, replace them and make his welcome distasteful. I think that is why it took him so many years before he could accomplish that feat.
Third Shot at the moon, after sunset
The picture above is the third shot of the moon. You can see that the view now is darker. It’s getting close to seven p.m. I really had to strain to get this shot before dark. I wish I had a better camera.
Just in the mood for some religious ramble and deep meditations about religious beliefs. You don’t have to agree with me. Would love dissenting views and comments.
