A leader’s core job description is pretty simple: to deliver people to the outcome they most desire. The execution of this description is where the challenges come in.

Once someone knows what to do, they acquire the skills necessary for success in a given role or opportunity, the leader’s real work begins.

What gets in the way of the vast majority of people achieving their dreams is not the skills to do a job, it’s the mental and emotional skills that don’t hold up to the challenges on the way toward the goals. Nothing of significance is gained without challenges. Challenges become insurmountable when our mental or emotional states can’t overcome the obstacle.

Dr. Marc Brackett, the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and a preeminent researcher on the role of emotional intelligence in learning, decision making, creativity, relationships, physical and mental health, and workplace performance. Dr. Brackett created a framework for working through emotions such that we can better use our emotions to aid our endeavors and details it in his book “Permission to Feel”.

The framework that Dr. Brackett teaches thousands of leaders from Fortune 50 companies to classrooms across the world is the RULER Method.

RULER stands for Recognize, Understand, Label, Express and Regulate. Here’s a snapshot of how to use this framework with your team and even beyond the walls of your business to get desired results.

Recognize

Recognizing emotional indicators in oneself and in others. Using cues such as facial expressions, tonality, language, body language, etc., you make a hypothesis around how someone is feeling.

Note, this is not a judgment or declaration. It’s simply us noticing and recognizing potential signs of someone’s emotional state.

It’s from this point that we investigate further.

Understand

Next, we want to understand the causes, reasons and potential consequences behind the emotions we and others are experiencing. We are investigating the why behind the emotions here.

When working with someone on the level of their emotions, why they are experiencing an emotion is as important as what emotion they are experiencing. Especially if you want to help them with the emotion, the “why” will ensure that you’re actually helping the problem.

I shared this story with our Xperiential MBA members at our Portland event. I received a text from my 8-year-old daughter while I was traveling that said she misses me and wants me to come home.  If I’m following RULER, I recognize that she might be feeling sad. Without understanding why she’s feeling that way, I might default to her just simply missing my presence and might respond with something like “miss you, too. I’ll be home in just 2 sleeps.”

However, my daughter went on to say that my wife is blaming her for everything and that she hit her sister because the little sister hit her first and that my 8-year-old wouldn’t apologize because she’s not sorry. (Yikes… the turmoil of the kids…)

Armed with WHY my daughter is upset, I can address the real issue of the sister and the hitting and not just her missing me.

Label

Label the emotions and the feels with more precise language.

Are you feeling bitter or furious? Are you irritated or outraged? Are you resentful or irate? These are all “anger” emotions, yet the feeling or expression of that emotion is different and requires different responses.

Labeling is a big part of the equation of working with emotions. Psychologists say “if you can name it, you can tame it.” That’s a pithy saying to explain that when you’re experiencing an emotion – specially a challenging one – the part of your brain responsible for the fight or flight response to stress is actively engaged. You’re acting through that emotion with no filter. You can yell, scream, hit, run, hide, etc. 

The moment that you label the emotion with what specifically you’re feeling, the part of your brain that works with reason is engaged. Now, you’re able to deal with what you’re feeling better because you are understanding and can bring in some rational thoughts.

Express

Express and use emotions in accordance with cultural norms and societal context. How you express your emotions is a big part of working with them.

In the workplace, someone screaming, shouting or making overly demonstrative negative reactions is not appropriate. That is very clear.

However, what I see more often in work environments is not overt. In fact, it’s highly covert. It’s the lack of expression. It’s avoiding hard things and going all-in. It’s procrastinating. It’s not putting yourself out there.

These are symptoms of an emotion based in fear. It’s quiet, so leaders can often miss it. As a leader, we need to provide the space and environment for our people to express what they are feeling and be able to support them.

Regulate

Regulate emotions with helpful strategies and tactics that lead to the actions that support your purpose and goals.

This is where we can help provide skills for regulating and using emotions. This doesn’t mean that we’re always trying to get people to be happy. In fact, sometimes uncomfortable emotions can get people into action especially if it’s rallying around a shared cause. Pregame speeches given by coaches aren’t meant for players to smile and reflect on a lovely day – it’s to use the emotions to galvanize the team to win the game.

Consider if a) the person you’re working with WANTS to shift emotions. Sometimes people just need to be heard and felt so they can work through things at their pace; and b) what emotion does a situation call for.

One of the best skills for regulating emotions is that of creating space. Breathing is a great way of doing that. Taking a beat – a short stop in what you’re doing – is effective. Also, asking them to think about times when they’ve gotten through this before and having them noting the skills they used.

We can help regulate and use emotions to get to their desired results.

When it comes to leadership, being a leader of people requires us to become emotionally intelligent and to use our emotions and help others use theirs. Follow the RULER framework from Dr. Brackett. You can learn more about this book and the methodology at https://marcbrackett.com/