Emotions Aren’t Noise — They’re a Leadership Skill

I Thought I Was Rational

For much of my life, I had trouble identifying how I felt. I wasn’t emotionally shut down, exactly—but I also wasn’t fluent. I could tell you when I was stressed, or frustrated, or “fine,” but I didn’t have much language beyond that. And without language, I didn’t have much awareness.

That worked for a while. In fact, it often looked like I was calm and logical under pressure. But with time (and a lot of honest reflection), I started to realize that I wasn’t as rational as I thought. I was just being moved by emotions I didn’t know how to name.

This became especially clear in leadership. When you lead others, your internal state tends to leak out. If you’re afraid and don’t know it, that fear will shape your decisions. If you’re angry and don’t name it, it will show up in how you talk to your team. If you’re deeply hopeful or energized or discouraged—but unaware—you’ll end up communicating confusion without knowing why.

What I’ve Learned

I’m not alone in this. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio famously studied patients with damage to the parts of the brain that process emotion. These people could still think logically, but they struggled to make even basic decisions. Emotion, it turns out, isn’t separate from reason—it’s foundational to it.

Daniel Kahneman, in Thinking, Fast and Slow, describes how most decisions are made by our intuitive, emotional brain (what he calls System 1), with the rational part of our mind (System 2) often arriving afterward to justify the decision. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s research adds to this. She’s shown that people who can differentiate between emotions like irritation, embarrassment, or sadness—what she calls “emotional granularity”—are better able to regulate their responses, connect with others, and navigate complexity. In other words, precision with emotion leads to better choices.

This resonated deeply with me. As I’ve done more personal work over the years—through therapy, reflection, close relationships, tools like the feelings wheel—I’ve started to build a vocabulary for my own interior life. It hasn’t made me less analytical. It’s made me more honest. I can see my own motives more clearly. I can pause before reacting. I can better understand the emotional currents in a room and respond with steadiness instead of reactivity.

It’s not that I ever believed emotion didn’t belong in leadership. I just didn’t know how to work with it—not in a way that made things clearer, not foggier. Learning to name how I feel has helped me lead with more integrity. It’s helped me become someone others can trust, not because I always know the answer, but because I’m more in touch with what’s shaping my judgment.

A Quiet Invitation

You don’t need to be a therapist or turn every meeting into a feelings circle. But if you’re leading people, you are already dealing with emotion—yours and theirs. The question is whether you know it. Whether you can name it. Whether it’s running the show from behind the curtain, or whether you’re willing to bring it into the light, gently and with courage.

This is still a work in progress for me. But it’s been one of the most transformative leadership tools I’ve learned: not just to ask what should I do?—but what am I feeling right now?

As part of this work, I also started a small personal project called Current Mood—a tool to help track emotions over time. I ran two early experiments, learned a lot, and plan to return to it with a clearer sense of purpose. It's one more way I'm trying to practice what I’m learning and turn emotional awareness into something practical and enduring.