The 3 Leadership Lies of Tough Emotions

We've all been there—that moment when every fiber of your being screams "stop." Maybe it's before a difficult conversation, during a challenging project, or when facing something that feels overwhelming. The question isn't whether you experience these moments; it's what you do when they arrive.

We’ve all been taught to address them in different ways. I’ve heard leaders declare the following lies as axiomatic truth:

1. Push through, no matter how it feels.

2. If it feels wrong, don't do it

3. Don’t trust your feelings.

Each of these might be true sometimes. None of them are true all the time. Learning to understand our emotional responses is a powerful leadership skill to development.

I wanted to share with you some of my top lessons in emotional resilience.

Your Brain's Safety Protocol

First, let's acknowledge what's happening when emotions flood in. Your brain's primary job is keeping you alive, and it's remarkably good at it. Your brain doesn’t always do well to distinguish between a difficult conversation and a meeting with a Coliseum lion.

The trick is recognizing when your brain is optimizing for felt safety rather than actual danger. Sometimes "stop" means "this is genuinely harmful," and sometimes it means "this is unfamiliar and therefore scary." Learning to distinguish the two is critical.

The Connection Factor

Here's something we often miss: many of our strongest emotional reactions stem from feeling disconnected or isolated. Humans are fundamentally wired for connection, and when that need isn't met, our emotions spiral in ways that seem disproportionate to the situation at hand.

That overwhelming feeling might not be about the task itself—it could be your system's way of saying "you're trying to do this alone, and you need support."

The Logic of Emotion

Perhaps the most counterintuitive truth is that emotions are inherently logical—we just need to understand their language. Anger often signals a boundary has been crossed. Anxiety might be highlighting something that needs attention. Sadness can indicate a loss that needs to be grieved.

When we stop treating emotions as irrational intrusions and start seeing them as data, we can work with them rather than against them.

Making Friends with the Message

When strong emotions arise, our first instinct is often to either obey them blindly or override them completely. But what if we tried something different? What if we got curious instead?

Rather than immediately deciding whether to stop or push through, we can pause and explore what's really happening. This isn't about analyzing ourselves to death—it's about developing a kind of emotional literacy that serves us.

Sometimes that feeling of "stop" is protecting us from genuine harm. Our intuition picks up on subtle cues our conscious mind might miss. Other times, it's our comfort zone putting up its usual resistance to growth. And often, it's somewhere in between—a real concern wrapped in layers of amplified fear.

The practice isn't about becoming fearless or emotionally detached. It's about building a relationship with our emotional responses where we neither dismiss them nor let them run the show unchecked. We learn to sit with discomfort long enough to understand its message without getting lost in its intensity.

This takes time. It takes practice. And yes, it takes courage—not the courage to always push through, but the courage to be present with whatever arises and make choices from a place of understanding rather than reaction.

Because sometimes the wisest thing really is to stop. And sometimes the most loving thing we can do for ourselves is to take one small step forward despite the fear. The key is learning to tell the difference.

What lessons have you learned as you’ve become more emotionally resilient?