Welcome to Emotions Science Simplified! This month, we’re looking at how the timing of emotional expression from leaders influences team performance.

Research Spotlight: Timing Is Everything: An Imprinting Framework for the Implications of Leader Emotional Expressions for Team Member Social Worth and Performance by Jacob S. Levitt,a,* Constantinos G. V. Coutifaris,b Paul I. Green, Jr.,b Sigal G. Barsadea,†

The big idea: 

Early emotional expressions (especially positive ones) shape how respected, safe, and motivated people feel. 

Emotional Expression Timing

What if the emotions leaders express early in a team’s journey could shape performance outcomes months down the track? New research suggests that not only do leader emotions influence team members’ motivation and success, but the timing of those emotions plays a crucial role in shaping respect, status, and performance.

A new study by Levitt, Coutifaris, Green, and Barsade (2024) explores how leaders' emotional expressions creat...

Exploring Emotion Science. Numbers v Narratives. 

Most emotion research at work falls into two camps. One counts emotions. The other listens to stories. And according to Stephen Fineman, only one of these truly captures the messy, human reality of how we feel at work.

In his paper “Appreciating Emotion at Work: Paradigm Tensions,” Fineman critiques the over-simplification of emotion in organisational science. He makes a passionate case for moving beyond tidy surveys and into the rich, political, uncomfortable truth of workplace emotion.

Two Ways to Study Emotion at Work

Fineman defines a key tension:

• Essentialist approach: Emotions are seen as internal states inside individuals. Researchers try to measure them like any other variable through surveys, tests, and scores. This is where emotional intelligence and positive psychology usually sit.

• Interpretivist approach: Emotions are shaped by the world around us, our culture, relationships, language, and power dynamics. Resea

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A new study from Nigeria’s Benson Idahosa University shows that leaders who stay emotionally connected during crises build trust, ease anxiety, and help people move forward together.

The Big Idea: Emotion is Contagious

Emotions ripple through organisations. Leaders don’t just manage plans, they shape the emotional climate. Calm, care, and confidence spread just as easily as fear, frustration, or doubt.

“Leaders who stay emotionally connected are better equipped to manage their own feelings and influence the emotional tone of their teams and stakeholders.” — Achilike & Nwaoboli, 2024 

5 Key Emotional Insights for Connected Leadership

1. Stakeholders feel deeply during crises, and those emotions shape outcomes

In a crisis, people feel first and think second. Stakeholders often experience fear, uncertainty, or frustration. If these feelings are ignored, trust can break down. If they’re acknowledged, trust deepens.

“Unresolved emotions can lead to conflicts, complicating the o...

We Have Emotions but Can’t Show Them!

This article is based on the paper “We Have Emotions but Can’t Show Them! Authoritarian Leadership, Emotion Suppression Climate, and Team Performance” published in Human Relations (Chiang, Chen, Liu, Akutsu & Wang, 2021).

What happens to a team’s emotions when the boss rules with control, demands obedience, and leaves no room for challenge? The study, conducted across 227 work teams in three large Japanese organisations, shows that authoritarian leadership doesn’t just affect individuals it reshapes the emotional climate of the entire team.

The big idea

The more emotion suppression authoritarian leaders exercises, the stronger the team climate of emotion suppression, the higher the level of team emotional exhaustion, and the lower the team performance.

How authoritarian leadership works

Authoritarian leaders use authority to control, discipline, and make all decisions themselves. This style creates what researchers call an “emotion suppre...

Welcome back to Emotions Science Simplified, where we take emotion science research and demystify it, making it simple and easy to understand.

This time, we’re diving into a fascinating study by Michael Pinus, Yajun Cao, Eran Halperin, Alin Coman, James J. Gross, and Amit Goldenberg on how emotion regulation contagion can help reduce negative emotions in intergroup conflicts. The research explores how training some individuals to regulate their emotions can lead to emotional change in an entire group. Even among those who didn’t receive the training!

The Big Idea: What Is Emotion Regulation Contagion?

Emotion regulation contagion occurs when emotion regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal, spread from individuals who were trained to use the strategy to others who weren’t. Cognitive reappraisal involves reinterpreting negative situations to reduce emotional responses.

In this study, researchers tested how teaching reappraisal to 40% of group members in small groups coul...

Welcome back to Emotions Science Simplified! This time, we’re diving into a fascinating review by Deanna Geddes and Dirk Lindebaum that unpacks the why behind strategic emotion expression at work. While we know emotions shape workplace culture, this research explores how and why people use emotions strategically, and what that means for leadership.

The Big Idea: What Is Strategic Emotion Expression?

Strategic emotion expression is the deliberate use of emotions to achieve a goal in a workplace setting. It’s not just about what emotions we show, but why we choose to display them in a certain way. Whether it’s a leader expressing confidence to motivate a team, an employee showing frustration to highlight an issue, or a customer service rep smiling through a difficult interaction. These choices shape workplace relationships, performance, and culture.

Why This Matters

Most research on workplace emotions focuses on which emotions people express anger, joy, fear, etc. But the reason behi...

Welcome to Emotions Science Simplified! Let's explore how the intensity of leaders’ unpleasant affective displays shapes team performance.

Research Spotlight:

“Leadership in the Locker Room: How the Intensity of Leaders’ Unpleasant Affective Displays Shapes Team Performance” (2019) Staw, Barry M. DeCelles, Katherine A. de Goey, Peter

Leadership isn’t just about strategy and vision. It’s also about emotion. The way leaders express their emotions can shape team performance, motivation, and culture. But how much is too much? This fascinating study by Barry M. Staw, Katherine A. DeCelles, and Peter de Goey dives into this question, analysing 304 halftime locker room speeches from high school and college basketball coaches.

The Big Idea

The research found that leaders’ unpleasant emotional expressions—like frustration, anger, or disappointment can actually boost team performance, but only to a point. Beyond a certain intensity, these displays can backfire, demotivating teams instead.