Managing Invisible Performance: Emotional Labor

Your success depends on it and yet you’ll likely never see it on an annual performance review.  If you’ve ever:

• Provided “service with a smile” when the smile wasn’t all the way authentic
• Displayed stability and calm while feeling volatility and anxiousness, or
• Held on to strong opinions and reactions instead of expressing them

…you have done the invisible labor of managing the emotional side of your job. Psychologists refer to this work as emotional labor and define it as the work you do behind the scenes every day to regulate your emotions, project a sense of calm, and reckon with the feelings of those around you. The concept was born in the service industry, where customer demands can be dealt with effectively or ineffectively depending on someone’s skill and ability with managing their own emotions as well as the emotions of others. People quickly caught on to its relevance for professionals across job settings.

Emotional labor shares a lot in common with physical labor. A key similarity is that we have limits in terms of how much of it we can do before we start to wear out or break down. You know you’ve reached that limit when you start saying things you wish you hadn’t said, show up to interactions as detached and unable to connect, or experience your emotions “getting the best of you.”

The goal is to not let it get to that point. Here are some helpful practices for cultivating efficient and effective emotional labor:

Be Aware – Answering some quick questions can draw your attention to where you are expending emotional labor. Who or what drains you emotionally? What interactions require “performance” from you while you regulate internal reactions (e.g., listening, reassuring, conflict resolution)?

Protect Your Resources – One of the most important reminders we receive from emotional labor research is that our resources are, in fact, limited. Do you unconsciously end up being the “therapist,” the “peacemaker,” or the “shock absorber” across multiple settings? If so, ask yourself, “is this my responsibility?” and if it isn’t, look to set healthy boundaries.

Pace Yourself (Emotionally) – A common mistake people make is treating the emotional marathon of their day like a sprint, only to be spent after 1-2 hours. There’s a good chance you’re emotionally laboring more than you need to in some interactions. Consider people and groups where you can let down your guard or lean on others more to share the emotional lift.

Build Recovery Rituals – Emotional Labor is unavoidable and if we do not approach recovery with intention, we can struggle to regulate emotions or experience conditions like burnout. Experiment with practices like silent walks, switching your environment, listening to music, and exercising to identify rituals that work for you.

Being you is hard work and your emotions are keeping the score. Consider this your invitation to know what the score is and to build your emotional wholeness playbook.

Ernest currently serves as a Personnel Research Psychologist within the Chief Human Capital Office of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He earned his Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from the University of Akron in 2016. Over the last 20 years, he has worked in for-profit, non-profit, and government settings while holding a variety of individual contributor and leadership roles. His areas of expertise and experience include assessment for hire and development, leadership development, employee engagement, performance management, and organizational change and transformation. 

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