Overview
Managing others’ emotions requires calm awareness, empathy, and practical strategies. Emotional reactions often reflect violated values and hidden meanings. By noticing behaviour, staying calm, reflecting feelings, asking questions, and creating space, you can defuse defensiveness, uncover values, and restore rational dialogue—strengthening personal and professional relationships through understanding and trust.
Introduction
It is not uncommon for individuals to become emotional or defensive when interacting with others. When this occurs, you must remember that their reaction says more about them than it does about you. Why? Because they created their feelings or reactions. An individual’s emotional response originates in the negative interpretation or judgment they assign to whatever you say or do. It’s not your job to manage the emotions of others, but having some strategies to do so can be helpful.
For example, have you ever become frustrated with someone who has promised to provide you with something you need by a specific deadline, only to fail to deliver frequently? It is almost as if your frustration rubs off on them, and they become defensive the moment you check the status of your request. Such situations are everyday in both our professional and personal lives.
When this occurs, it is essential to remember two key principles for managing others’ emotions. First, negative or “hot” emotion symbolises a violated value. Second, emotion is the mask of meaning.
Emotion Is The Symbol Of A Violated Value
When we discuss emotion as a symbol of a violated value, we refer to what is essential to the person in question. We experience an individual’s emotional reaction as an outward expression of their negative interpretation of the situation. Unfortunately, the person’s negative emotion obscures the thinking that gave rise to their feelings. You may think you know why a person is upset, but you must admit that you only see or experience their emotional expression and have no idea or understanding of the thinking that created it. That is why it is so difficult to manage the emotions of others.
Here are some tips to effectively manage the emotions of others and defuse their defensiveness in the moment.
1. Notice Behaviour
Often, we become so engrossed in the conversation’s content that we overlook what is happening around us. Take notice of what is happening with an individual at the moment. You might ask yourself: “What are they doing with their hands? Is their voice increasing in volume? Are they beginning to turn red? What’s happening with their eyes? Could their glare melt plate steel? Are they becoming more forceful or direct?” Pay attention to signals like this to manage the dynamics before the conversation goes awry. Be both a participant and an observer in conversation.
2. Remain Calm
If you begin to match the other person’s emotional intensity during the conversation, you will only escalate the other person’s feelings or emotional state. It would help if you remained calm when the heat gets turned up. This will enable you to think and reason when the other person’s rationality has left through the back door. Control your emotional response.
3. Use a Reflecting Statement
A reflecting statement allows the other person to see themselves through your eyes. It also signals to their brain that you are attempting to understand them. A reflecting statement has the effect of decreasing the emotional reaction of the other person. You may choose to reflect not only feelings but also words and actions. A few examples are, ‘I can see you’re upset (emotion); I heard you say, ‘Oh, great!’ Now what?’ (words); or I noticed you didn’t say anything in our meeting (actions).” Validate them with reflections.
4. Follow With a Question
Asking a question after making a reflective statement invites consideration of the meaning hidden behind their emotion. For example, you might say, “I can see you’re upset. What is going on?” Whether you are reflecting on emotion, words, or actions, try to discover the meaning behind your reaction by asking questions. Search for deeper meaning.
5. Ask Questions
If an emotional person has enough presence of mind to answer your questions, the thinking required to answer your questions physiologically moves them out of the emotional centre of the brain and into the logical-rational functioning regions of the brain. The more questions you ask and the more questions they answer, the greater the likelihood that their emotional intensity will diminish. Ask questions to restore rationality.
6. Do Something Physical
If a person’s defensiveness is not diminishing, try climbing a few flights of stairs or going for a walk to find a quiet place to talk. Engaging in physical activity or movement alters the brain’s circuitry, shifting from supporting the person’s emotional state to meeting the physiological demands placed on the brain by the person’s physical activity. Increase physical movement.
7. Get The Person To Tell Their Story
If the person feels comfortable enough to answer some questions about what is happening, they may be willing to share their story with you. Listen to what they tell you and try to identify what they wanted or expected and didn’t get. Everything they tell you represents something they wanted and didn’t get, or they would mention it in their story. Ask them if you doubt what they wanted or what violated their expectations.
8. Identify What They Value
Ask the individual what they wanted and why. Their response to the “why” question will tell you what is important to them. Once you think you have understood, summarise what you think you now understand. This will demonstrate your willingness to clarify your understanding of what is behind their expression of emotion.
9. Excuse Yourself
They may be too emotional to talk rationally if the above doesn’t work. When people become upset, their brains are flooded with various chemicals that prepare them for fight or flight. When this happens, it may take up to 48 hours for the effects of these drugs to wear off. Please don’t make your inability to converse rationally about them about you; make it about them. Inform them that you have another commitment to attend to, and then excuse yourself. You could even make it about yourself by stating that you must consider the issues before continuing the conversation. Excuse yourself and leave.
10. Apologise
If you find out that you said or did something the other person took negatively, apologising doesn’t matter if you didn’t intend to create offence. We know that an offence is often committed where no intention is intended. Take responsibility for your actions and apologise for your behaviour.
Having feelings and expressing them is part of being human. Sometimes, others’ feelings get the best of them, making it impossible to continue the conversation rationally. Learning a bit about human nature and the steps you can take to defuse defensiveness and manage the emotions of others will go a long way to improving the quality of your conversations.
