A632.9.3.RB_MaceRoyce
In this video, Prof. Baba Shiv of Stanford University talks about the importance of emotion in decision making. After watching this video, reflect on two situations; one, in which you were extremely confident of the outcome and what your attitude was towards the subject; and second, a situation in which you were less confident or not so confident and how you felt about the situation. Based on this module's readings and this video write a reflection blog detailing the situations above and describing the role emotion plays in decision making. Identify three emotional reactions for each scenario.
Scenario one: As a young supervisor, I was once faced with an uncomfortable scenario in which a you lady assigned to my crew of air traffic controllers approached me about an event. She wanted to talk in private and told me that a male co-worker (also on my crew) had made an inappropriate comment towards her. This comment was of a sexual nature. In addition to this inappropriate comment, it was brought to my attention that this wasn't the first time that something inappropriate had been said to her or others.
Armed with this information, I felt pretty confident in how to approach said inappropriate male. Emotionally, I was able to separate my feelings (anger, angst, and disappointment towards the male) from the scenario at hand. I wanted to see his side of the story and avoid accusation before letting emotions and misplaced anger get the best of me. Just a few short hours after meeting with the accusing female, I asked to sit down with the male. I unemotionally told him that a female from the crew was concerned over some comments that were made.
I believe that my ability to show zero emotion led to what happened next. Without hesitation, he admitted to making inappropriate comments and told me that he understood that they were wrong. This wasn't too surprising to me because of the fact that I had taken emotion out of the scenario. The male was not forced to be on the defensive and my confidence likely led him to believe that I knew what I was doing. He also knew that I would come up with the most fair albeit unfortunate outcome for him should he lie about the scenario or get defensive. The scenario was handled at the lowest possible level in the chain of command and no further incident occurred. My confidence as a supervisor had skyrocketed.
Scenario two: In scenario two, confidence was not so apparent. I was a more seasoned supervisor than I was in scenario one, but the whole situation was much different. I was new to my unit and didn't know everyone in my section that well. This immediately led to discomfort in the idea of having to discipline someone in the unit that I barely knew. As luck would have it, we had a young non-commissioned officer who had not shown up to our second day of drill. At first, myself and the team chalked it up to just a normal case of being late. We made a call to his cell phone a few times to no avail. When a few hours had passed, myself and the team began to worry.
Again, because I was new, there were feelings of nervousness, uncertainty, and a bit of anger that I had been put in this situation as a supervisor. Further, being new was unfamiliar territory. I knew how a supervisor should react and how things had been dealt with on active duty (where I had spent 10 years prior), but this was the Air National Guard where most members of the unit were like family. As far as my observations could tell, members were reluctant to hold each other accountable for fear of repercussion in some way, shape, or form via a higher ranking supervisor or worse: an older and higher ranking brother (as it was in my case). This increased nervousness, uncertainty, and anger as the individual in question had an older brother who was an officer and had a reputation of protecting his younger brother from being disciplined or punished.
As the scenario unfolded, we were finally able to get a hold of said individual, but not until midday. At long last, he showed up after a member when to pick him up (he was still drunk from the night before). When he showed up, I tried to keep my emotions of nervousness, uncertainty, and anger over the situation remain hidden. I approached it much like scenario one where I removed emotion from the scenario and tried to handle the situation free of emotion or blame. After I got the story from the member, I made sure to tell them that I was disappointed, but also relieved that they were ok. Because I was new to the unit, I confided with members of the unit who were the same rank. My goal was to not make any waves and handle it at the lowest possible level.
Since our team was slotted for a trip to Hawaii in the coming weeks, I felt that this was an opportunity to discipline by taking away a desired trip. Rather than issue paperwork for something this serious, I considered taking away something positive as a punishment. Adding to this decision was the fact that other members had told me that this wasn't the first time that this particular individual had shown up to drill hungover and late. Considering this information from multiple trustworthy sources allowed me to feel somewhat more confident about my decision to punish him by taking away his trip. No sooner then I had made the decision, an individual of higher rank came into the room for a private conversation about the incident. He immediately rescinded my punishment and decided not to pursue a punishment of any kind.
In conclusion, both scenarios showed my ability to control my emotions. Showing emotions in a negative manner or letting them control you at the beginning of a difficult decision-making scenario can be detrimental to obtaining a positive outcome. According to Bradbury (2014) Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is powerful way to focus energy in one direction with a tremendous result and found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs. That being said, I believe that these two scenarios could have gone much worse if a certain level of EQ was not properly exercised. Subsequently, my job as a leader in the military has become easier as a result of exercising a higher level of EQ.
References
Bradberry, T. (2014). Emotional Intelligence - EQ. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2014/01/09/emotional-
intelligence/#4f58eb341ac0
Scenario one: As a young supervisor, I was once faced with an uncomfortable scenario in which a you lady assigned to my crew of air traffic controllers approached me about an event. She wanted to talk in private and told me that a male co-worker (also on my crew) had made an inappropriate comment towards her. This comment was of a sexual nature. In addition to this inappropriate comment, it was brought to my attention that this wasn't the first time that something inappropriate had been said to her or others.
Armed with this information, I felt pretty confident in how to approach said inappropriate male. Emotionally, I was able to separate my feelings (anger, angst, and disappointment towards the male) from the scenario at hand. I wanted to see his side of the story and avoid accusation before letting emotions and misplaced anger get the best of me. Just a few short hours after meeting with the accusing female, I asked to sit down with the male. I unemotionally told him that a female from the crew was concerned over some comments that were made.
I believe that my ability to show zero emotion led to what happened next. Without hesitation, he admitted to making inappropriate comments and told me that he understood that they were wrong. This wasn't too surprising to me because of the fact that I had taken emotion out of the scenario. The male was not forced to be on the defensive and my confidence likely led him to believe that I knew what I was doing. He also knew that I would come up with the most fair albeit unfortunate outcome for him should he lie about the scenario or get defensive. The scenario was handled at the lowest possible level in the chain of command and no further incident occurred. My confidence as a supervisor had skyrocketed.
Scenario two: In scenario two, confidence was not so apparent. I was a more seasoned supervisor than I was in scenario one, but the whole situation was much different. I was new to my unit and didn't know everyone in my section that well. This immediately led to discomfort in the idea of having to discipline someone in the unit that I barely knew. As luck would have it, we had a young non-commissioned officer who had not shown up to our second day of drill. At first, myself and the team chalked it up to just a normal case of being late. We made a call to his cell phone a few times to no avail. When a few hours had passed, myself and the team began to worry.
Again, because I was new, there were feelings of nervousness, uncertainty, and a bit of anger that I had been put in this situation as a supervisor. Further, being new was unfamiliar territory. I knew how a supervisor should react and how things had been dealt with on active duty (where I had spent 10 years prior), but this was the Air National Guard where most members of the unit were like family. As far as my observations could tell, members were reluctant to hold each other accountable for fear of repercussion in some way, shape, or form via a higher ranking supervisor or worse: an older and higher ranking brother (as it was in my case). This increased nervousness, uncertainty, and anger as the individual in question had an older brother who was an officer and had a reputation of protecting his younger brother from being disciplined or punished.
As the scenario unfolded, we were finally able to get a hold of said individual, but not until midday. At long last, he showed up after a member when to pick him up (he was still drunk from the night before). When he showed up, I tried to keep my emotions of nervousness, uncertainty, and anger over the situation remain hidden. I approached it much like scenario one where I removed emotion from the scenario and tried to handle the situation free of emotion or blame. After I got the story from the member, I made sure to tell them that I was disappointed, but also relieved that they were ok. Because I was new to the unit, I confided with members of the unit who were the same rank. My goal was to not make any waves and handle it at the lowest possible level.
Since our team was slotted for a trip to Hawaii in the coming weeks, I felt that this was an opportunity to discipline by taking away a desired trip. Rather than issue paperwork for something this serious, I considered taking away something positive as a punishment. Adding to this decision was the fact that other members had told me that this wasn't the first time that this particular individual had shown up to drill hungover and late. Considering this information from multiple trustworthy sources allowed me to feel somewhat more confident about my decision to punish him by taking away his trip. No sooner then I had made the decision, an individual of higher rank came into the room for a private conversation about the incident. He immediately rescinded my punishment and decided not to pursue a punishment of any kind.
In conclusion, both scenarios showed my ability to control my emotions. Showing emotions in a negative manner or letting them control you at the beginning of a difficult decision-making scenario can be detrimental to obtaining a positive outcome. According to Bradbury (2014) Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is powerful way to focus energy in one direction with a tremendous result and found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs. That being said, I believe that these two scenarios could have gone much worse if a certain level of EQ was not properly exercised. Subsequently, my job as a leader in the military has become easier as a result of exercising a higher level of EQ.
References
Bradberry, T. (2014). Emotional Intelligence - EQ. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2014/01/09/emotional-
intelligence/#4f58eb341ac0
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