How Can Healthcare Jobs Be Emotionally Demanding?

Conclusions: – Role ambiguity represents a psychosocial risk factor that influence workers’ wellbeing diminishing the level of motivation and this process leads to emotional exhaustion. However, professional commitment appears to be a resource that can protect professionals preventing a decrease in satisfaction.

• These findings suggest that human resource management should remove hindrance stressors and enhance the mission of Healthcare Professionals in order to increase employees’ work engagement and prevent exhaustion.
• Www.actabiomedica.it ) Keywords: healthcare professionals, role ambiguity, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction Burnout is a common phenomenon in healthcare organisations because health professionals are continually exposed to the physical and emotional needs of their patients ( 1, 2 ), are involved in complex relationships with patients’ families and have long working hours and are overloaded ( 3 ).

Burnout is defined as a negative response to chronic stress in the workplace ( 4, 5 ), and consists of three symptoms: emotional exhaustion – i.e. the feeling of not being able to give anything to others on an emotional level, depersonalisation – i.e., an excessively detached attitude towards patients and low personal accomplishment – i.e.

1. A negative work-related self-evaluation ( 6, 7 ).
2. Burnout has negative repercussions for the efficiency of patient care and for workers’ wellbeing ( 8, 9 ): it may lead to negative outcomes such as medical errors, depression and absenteeism ( 10 ).
3. Researchers have shown that organisational factors may be a cause of chronic stress in the workplace, leading to job burnout in healthcare professions.

Professional and career issues, workload and time pressure, team climate and leadership ( 11 ), lack of job control, role conflict and role ambiguity ( 3, 12, 13 ) have been identified as factors which affect burnout risk amongst employees. In this paper we focused on role ambiguity, i.e.

Situations when workers’ expectations about a role and the actual tasks required in that role are contradictory or when a worker does not have access to sufficiently clear information about the goals and responsibilities of his or her job ( 14, 15 ). This lack of clarity about goals and organisational role can produce incompatibilities in expectations, resulting in increased occupational stress, decreased professional performance and impaired organisational efficiency ( 8, 12, 16 ).

Chu, Lee and Hsu ( 17 ) found that role ambiguity was negatively associated with employees’ performance with negative consequences for the wellbeing of the organisation. Work Engagement When we talk about the burnout, we must consider another construct, namely engagement, which is opposite but related to it ( 7 ).

• Ahn ( 18 ) introduced the concept of engagement, conceptualising it as the “harnessing of organisation members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances” (p.694).
• Thus, engaged employees identify with their work activity and invest effort in it.

According to Kahn ( 18, 19 ) there is a dynamic, dialectical relationship between the person who puts physical, cognitive, emotional and mental energy into his or her work role and the nature of the work role that allows this person to express him or herself.

Research on burnout has stimulated a new theoretical approach that considers engagement as an independent, distinct concept that is negatively related to burnout ( 20 ). Engagement is a positive, persistent state of mind that is related to work and characterised by three dimensions ( 21 ): vigour, which allows one to invest energy and effort in one’s work and show mental resilience in the face of difficulties; dedication, which involves being involved in one’s work and perceiving it as exciting and challenging; absorption, which means concentrating fully on one’s work so that one has the feeling that time passes quickly ( 20 ).

Engagement is closely related to the motivational processes that lead workers to take satisfaction from job tasks whereas burnout is characterised by the opposite: lack of energy and detachment from work activities ( 22 ).

What jobs are emotionally demanding?

The two main categories of EDJ’s – 1. Emotionally Stimulating jobs- Those who need to regulate their own and others’ emotions. Nurses, Teachers, Customer Service, wait staff, and other service workers. This also includes middle Management roles. As an example, Sales and Customer Service roles require employees to induce positive emotions in customers, while simultaneously repressing negative emotions.

1. Managers are regulating the emotions of employees and are expected to act as the example of emotional stability and rational thinking.2.
2. Emotionally Controlling jobs – Several other jobs require emotional and social control such as Police Officers and other emergency response professionals.
3. These job descriptions often require workers to show dominance over others.

Note – Retail jobs with limited (transactional encounters with customers) may be classified as either emotionally stimulating jobs or non-emotionally demanding based upon the frequency and types of interpersonal contact workers have with customers.

What causes stress in healthcare workers?

Why are health workers more likely to experience mental health problems? – Working conditions have always been challenging for healthcare workers, even before the pandemic. Work in healthcare often involves:

Intensely stressful and emotional situations in caring for those who are sick Exposure to human suffering and death Unique pressures from relationships with the patient, family members, and employers Working conditions with ongoing risk for hazardous exposures such as to COVID-19, other infectious diseases, hazardous drugs, and more Demanding physical work and risk of injuries such as from patient handling Long and often unpredictably scheduled hours of work. This is often related to as-needed scheduling, unexpected double shifts, and unpredictable intensity of on-call work. For many health workers, unstable and unpredictable work lives, and financial strain

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced additional elements of fatigue, strain, stress, loss, and grief for healthcare workers. Many healthcare workers experienced increased workload in the face of short staffing and shortages in critical personal protective equipment.

This led to increasing anxiety and the risk of personal harm. Some healthcare workers report symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder related to the pandemic. Some also reported residual symptoms due to personal infection with COVID-19. Many healthcare workers place the well-being of others before self,

On the surface, this dedication to patients may seem admirable. However, it can ultimately be harmful if it delays or prevents workers from getting the help that they need for their own health and well-being. Stigma is another factor contributing to mental health concerns among healthcare workers.

How does stress affect healthcare professionals?

It can cause physical and mental health problems, job dissatisfaction and lead to poorer quality of care, professional errors, absenteeism, and leaving intentions. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental health condition caused by a traumatic experience.

What is emotional exhaustion due to high work demands?

Job burnout: How to spot it and take action – Feeling burned out at work? Find out what you can do when your job affects your health. By Mayo Clinic Staff Job burnout is a special type of work-related stress — a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.

• Burnout” isn’t a medical diagnosis.
• Some experts think that other conditions, such as depression, are behind burnout.
• Researchers point out that individual factors, such as personality traits and family life, influence who experiences job burnout.
• Whatever the cause, job burnout can affect your physical and mental health.

Consider how to know if you’ve got job burnout and what you can do about it.

What are the mental health issues among healthcare workers?

The National Institute for Health and Care’s Emergency, Preparedness and Response Health Protection Research Unit (EPR HPRU) is a partnership between King’s College London, Public Health England and the University of East Anglia. This piece is taken from an essay collection showcasing the unit’s critical role in the UK’s response to Covid-19.

A defining theme throughout the pandemic has been the expression of gratitude toward the country’s healthcare workers, recognising their incredible work during such trying times. However, the high pressure and novel circumstances of the crisis have placed a significant mental health burden on the healthcare workforce.

If those trained to look after us when we are sick are themselves demoralised and unwell due to mental illness, it means trouble for already strained health systems. For those who care about healthcare workers, and indeed our health system, protecting the mental wellbeing of our healthcare workforce during the pandemic and beyond is both an ethical duty and a practical necessity.

• During the pandemic, frontline healthcare workers have risked infection of themselves and their families, borne the trauma of witnessing excessive death and morbidity, and contended with significantly increased workloads.
• This has knock on effects for job performance and quality of patient care.
• The mental health burden is particularly high for those working in intensive care units (ICUs).

A recent study found that 45 per cent of ICU staff report symptoms of severe depression, severe anxiety, or problem drinking. Of this number, 40 per cent reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A further 13 per cent had reported frequent thoughts of being better off dead or hurting themselves within the previous two weeks.

• What these numbers show is that the risk of mental illness posed by chronic distress, trauma and excessive workloads, is indeed being realised.
• Even before the pandemic, women have reported higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to men, and women are also highlighted as being at greatest risk of pandemic-related mental health problems.

Given that women make up 78 per cent of the NHS workforce and 89 per cent of nurses and health visitors – who bear a higher mental health burden than doctors – it’s clear that Covid-19 has disproportionately affected female healthcare workers. Aside from mental illness, working in unprecedented circumstances poses a significant risk of moral injury.

1. This concept is derived from military settings, in which overwhelming demands for which one feels unprepared can lead to actions or inactions that challenge an ethical code.
2. The question of “did I do the right thing?” arises, often triggering negative thoughts and emotions, which in turn increase the risk of developing mental illnesses, such as depression and PTSD.

This huge burden, and even susceptibility to it, warrants an urgent need to protect the mental wellbeing of healthcare staff. Failure to do so will only put further strain on an already struggling healthcare system. In order to tackle this, evidence based treatment to protect staff is vital and remains a responsibility of both managerial staff and policymakers.

• Managers and supervisors play a pivotal role in implementing evidence-based interventions to tackle this mental health burden.
• Research shows that supportive managers foster better mental health of their staff.
• Within the complex and highly pressured context of the pandemic, the attitudes and behaviours of managers are crucial to identify and protect staff from the potential damage to their mental health.

Our research highlights the effectiveness of active listening skills training for healthcare managers in the UK. After this training, more than 80 per cent of healthcare managers enrolled felt confident in being able to identify, speak to, and support potentially distressed staff, compared to less than half beforehand.

Managers’ confidence in supporting staff is linked to improved productivity, emphasising that these skills should be imperative for those in supervisory roles. Managers can therefore play an important role in improving staff mental health, reducing sickness absence, and improving quality of care for patients.

While managers play a key role, evidence-based interventions must go further still. An all-encompassing recovery plan is needed to prevent and mitigate the pandemic-related mental health burden among healthcare workers. This can be achieved through a three-tiered approach.

1. Primary prevention – interventions to avert mental illness onset; secondary prevention – focusing on those with early signs of illness; and tertiary prevention – treatment of those with such problems.
2. Primary prevention should include provision of realistic information regarding the risks and challenges of working in the pandemic.

It should also make clear what support is available, from self-help techniques, to apps and online resources. Social support systems are also crucial. For example, “buddy” systems with other colleagues to encourage monitoring of wellbeing. Furthermore, the work environment should be optimised to support appropriate nutrition, rest and sleep periods.

Secondary prevention should be supported with welfare-focused staff trained to identify predisposing risk factors and follow up with individuals who may be facing difficulties. Following this, appropriate measures can be taken, such as signposting to wellbeing resources, assessment via a GP, or engagement with occupational health or mental health services.

Finally, the tertiary level should be characterised by assessment of the staff member’s current work schedule by available professionals. A useful tool for this is the PIES model – Proximity, Immediacy, Expectancy, and Simplicity – which is an evidence based occupational health approach.

It can help to support individuals in their work and build self-esteem so that they can cope with distress. T his can help encourage healthcare staff to get help before distress escalates into crisis. This reflects a positive, strengths-based approach that keeps interventions simple and “de-medicalised” during difficult times.

Without this proactive tiered approach, the psychological consequences of the pandemic on healthcare staff could be devastating and long-felt. The existing evidence of pandemic-related mental health issues among healthcare workers is concerning, even before knowing the full scope and clinical need of resultant psychological distress.

There is a clear requirement for evidence-based approaches as implemented and sustained by managerial and supervisor roles, both to address the damage already done and to prepare for future impact. A three-tiered approach is an effective way of providing targeted interventions for different groups among healthcare workers with different psychological needs, depending on how they have been affected.

Protecting our health workforce is a moral obligation. By developing these care plans and policy initiatives for mental health, we can ensure a better working environment and a more resilient workforce. Neil Greenberg is a Professor of Defence Mental Health at King’s College London.

Why do nurses have mental health issues?

Mental health and burnout in nursing – Mental health is also closely linked to suicidal tendencies among nurses. Many individual nurses believe in upholding a “professional face”, even while suffering from specific mental health issues. Previous studies suggest that nurses have higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to the general public.

These issues are often linked to occupational stress. Additionally, burnout has been reported in up to 50% of all nurses. This emotional response usually results from chronic job stress involving emotional exhaustion, demoralization, cynicism, and feelings of inefficacy. Burnout is not the same as depression, but it does seem to be a risk for many other psychiatric problems, such as depression, anxiety, substance use, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicidal ideation and suicide, and neurocognitive problems.

Before the pandemic, up to 21% of nurses report their intent to leave the profession due to burnout.

What are the causes of depression in health workers?

Table 1 – Proportion of depression and men according to profession (in decreased order of proportion of depression). Only professions with sample size ≥ 20 were presented.

	N	N with MDD	% MDD	Mean age (SD)	N men	% men
Pharmacy assistant	87	37	42.5%	37.10(8.81)	11	12.6%
Administrative	295	111	37.6%	43.05(9.72)	24	8.1%
Laboratory technician	138	49	35.5%	39.38(11.51)	27	19.6%
Ambulance driver	27	9	33.3%	42.63(7.53)	22	81.5%
Pharmacist	260	86	33.1%	44.15(9.96)	69	26.5%
Health executives	1768	572	32.3%	49.10(8.02)	275	15.5%
Physicians	1969	627	31.8%	41.29(11.84)	670	34.0%
Nursery assistant	93	29	31.2%	39.91(10.25)	2	2.2%
Nurse	2819	825	29.2%	39.79(10.05)	461	16.3%
Nurse assistant	847	246	29.0%	42.44(10.36)	103	12.2%
Speech therapist	38	11	28.9%	44.39(12.56)		0.0%
Psychologist	216	59	27.3%	39.21(9.72)	25	11.6%
Dietician	99	27	27.3%	37.77(11.74)	6	6.1%
Occupational therapist	306	83	27.1%	36.72(10.78)	40	13.1%
Midwife	332	90	27.1%	38.26(10.17)	14	4.2%
Specialized educator	86	23	26.7%	41.52(10.49)	18	20.9%
Physiotherapist	419	111	26.5%	41.12(11.29)	120	28.6%
Radiology manipulator	142	36	25.4%	39.58(10.68)	35	24.6%
Social worker	131	30	22.9%	39.64(9.73)	6	4.6%
Psychomotrician	93	21	22.6%	36.19(10.04)	10	10.8%
Hospital director	21	4	19.0%	51.95(6.66)	6	28.6%
Director of care	105	19	18.1%	54.91(6.18)	29	27.6%

The geographical coverage of the survey was satisfactory and presented in Fig.1, All regional territories were represented with effectives between 251 and 1573, consistently with the demographic repartition of the general population in France. Geographical distribution of the participants. When the 95% confidence intervals of the adjusted odds ratio are strictly superior to 1, the factor is considered to be significantly associated with an increased risk of depression (with no causal relationship, given the cross-sectional nature of our data). The following variables were included in the multivariate analysis ( Table 2 ): Age (years), Sex(man), Public sector vs. private sector, Full-time job, Random schedules, Working longer than expected at least once a week, High psychological demand, Low decision-making latitude, Poor superiors’ and colleagues’ professional and emotional support at work, Burnout, Absenteeism, Sustained bullying at the workplace, Sexual harassment exposure, Sexual orientation-based discrimination, Partner at home, Children at home, Family caregiver, History of recurrent major depression, Having a chronic illness, Overweight/obesity, Hard smoking, Hazardous drinking, Moderate to vigorous physical activity, Sleep reduction. In multivariate analyses, increased risk of depression was associated with professional factors (high complexity/intensity adjusted odds ratio, high fragmentation/ unpredictability, low decision-making latitude, low emotional support by colleagues, random schedules, working longer than expected at least once a week, sustained bullying at the workplace, burnout and absenteeism). No department and no professional category was significantly associated with depression in multivariate analyses (p > 0.05, data not shown). Demographic factors associated with increased risk of depression included older age, male sex, absence of a partner at home, being family caregiver and a history of recurrent major depression. Among health risk behaviors, increased risk of depression was associated with heavy smoking, hazardous drinking, moderate to high physical activity and sleep reduction.

How do you handle stress and pressure in healthcare?

Healthy Ways to Overcome Stress –

Rest and relaxation

Break for a power nap —Power naps can increase energy, stabilize emotions, and restore brain functionality. Breathe deep —Oxygen flow throughout the body can be increased with deep breaths. Breathe in slowly and completely through your nose, then slowly exhale through your mouth. Repeat this process 5–10 times to relieve stress. Experiment with yoga —Stretching, in general, is great for your body and an excellent way to reduce stress. Try meditation —Meditation can calm nerves and help you focus on the positives in life rather than the negatives. Use popular apps like Headspace, Inscape, Mindvalley, and Insight Timer to practice mindfulness, Get a massage —You may build up physical stress in your muscles from the mental stress of your life. If this sounds like you, take a couple of minutes and massage your shoulders and neck. You may be surprised at how tense your muscles are. Better yet, schedule a massage with a licensed massage therapist.

Adopt healthy eating and lifestyle habits —”Making unhealthy eating choices can be due to many reasons including: stress, boredom, lack of time, or convenience,” Hanson says. “When it comes to diet, exercise, and healthy eating plans, remember it is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. It’s important to find an eating plan that fits into your personal lifestyle, with healthy food choices that increase your wellness and energy. In my experience, I’ve found that when someone finds an eating and exercise plan that they enjoy and can stick with long-term, many times they feel happier and healthier, with an increased level of self-awareness, energy, and confidence.” Go outside —Immersing yourself in nature and the warm sun can improve levels of vitamin D, help with concentration, and prevent illnesses. Listen to music —Listening to music can help you recover from stress faster, and it can also help the endocrine and psychological stress response, according to the National Institutes of Health, Read or listen to stories —Reading draws your focus away from your stress. By immersing yourself into a novel, you let your brain absorb the story, and you let the stress and everything around you dissipate. If you don’t like reading novels, you can always read news articles or other pieces of similar length. There are also audiobooks through Audible or Blinkist, where you can listen to stories instead of reading them. Get organized —Clean up your room or clear off a desk. Organizing is one of the best ways to recover from a stressful day at work because it will help you decompress and help push your life in a positive direction. Pet therapy —Having a dog, cat, or any pet around comes with many benefits. The simple act of interacting with and petting an animal releases the feel-good chemicals of oxytocin and serotonin, which can help promote relaxation and decrease stress and anxiety levels, according to Psychology Today, Take some time off —Whether it’s a day, weekend, or a full vacation, getting away from the stress of work can be a positive experience. Use essential oils —Concentrated oils, or essences, have many uses. Lavender oil is often used to fight anxiety, depression, headaches, or muscle pain. Rub a tiny bit of oil in your hands and take a few deep breaths. But use caution: Bottled oils can be potent—up to 50 to 100 times more concentrated than the oils in plants, according to The Washington Post —and can be risky if used incorrectly. Take time for gratitude —”Every morning when I wake up and every evening when I go to bed, I make it my mantra to say what I’m grateful for, including my family, friends, community, career, good health and wellness, and more,” Dr. Hanson says. “Giving gratitude for what we have, what we can share, and how we can help others, is a strong stress reliever and helps us to appreciate all the positive things in life.”

Why is my job so mentally draining?

There is typically legitimate reason for emotional exhaustion at work. Long hours, lack of appreciation, increased work demands and job insecurity are a few factors that can cause emotional exhaustion. Identifying your own emotional exhaustion is important.

What is mental demands of a job?

It refers to the amount of work where the execution of a specific task requires that employees perform mental processes, such as thinking, deciding, calculating, remembering, analyzing, searching, observing, to mention few. Published in Chapter: Mental Workload Assessment and Its Effects on Middle and Senior Managers in Manufacturing Companies Arturo Realyvásquez-Vargas (Tecnológico Nacional de México, Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, Mexico), Emigdio Z-Flores (Tecnológico Nacional de México, Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, Mexico), Lilia-Cristina Morales (Tecnológico Nacional de México, Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, Mexico), and Jorge Luis García-Alcaraz (Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico) Copyright: © 2020 | Pages: 29 DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1052-0.ch006 Abstract This chapter aims to know the mental workload level and its effects on middle and senior managers in manufacturing companies.

1. The chapter aims to know the mental workload level related to gender, age range, civil status, number of children, years of experience, and worked hours per week.
2. As method, the NASA-TLX method was implemented.
3. This method measures mental workload based on six dimensions: mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, effort, performance, and frustration level.

Data was collected by applying an online questionnaire. Results indicated that some dimensions contributed to mental workload in the following decreasing order: mental demand, temporal demand, effort, performance, frustration level, and physical demand.

What is the meaning of emotional demands?

1. Introduction – In the past couple of decades, there has been a shift away from an economy dominated by industrialization to an economy that is heavily reliant upon the service sector. This can be easily seen in Europe, with approximately 70 per cent of the workforce consisting of service workers, and more specifically 80 per cent in Sweden, an increase of 10 per cent in the last 20 years,

1. The now dominant service sector poses risks to workers in the form of emotional demands as a result of the interpersonal nature underpinning this line of work,
2. This has stimulated a wave of interest in the literature on the importance of emotional demands.
3. However, despite the wealth of research into the health eroding consequences of emotional demands, as well as the de-motivational consequences under conditions of low resources, there is still limited understanding surrounding emotional demands in the workplace.

Emotional demands have been understood as those aspects of a job that require sustained emotional effort due to interactions with clients, However, this definition fails to consider interactions with fellow employees that can also require sustained emotional effort.

What jobs have low emotional labor?

You Might Have Too Much Emotional Intelligence For Your Job It’s become cliché to assert that having high emotional intelligence equals better performance at work. But I’m going to shock you, because the link between emotional intelligence and job performance is wildly overstated.

In fact, research suggests that in certain jobs, having higher emotional intelligence is actually correlated with lower job performance! I know, this is mind-blowing. In 2010, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign conducted an of every available study linking emotional intelligence to job performance.

They analyzed 476 such studies, involving 191 distinct jobs, and discovered that the determining factor in whether emotional intelligence would be positively or negatively related to job performance was something called “emotional labor.” Emotional labor is the extent to which we have to regulate and display certain emotions to achieve our goals.

For example, nursing would be a job with high emotional labor (involving lots of empathy, interpersonal interactions, they need to express positive emotions, etc.) By contrast, low emotional labor jobs, like accountants, welders, and some programmers, would have fewer interpersonal interactions and less need for cheerful service and empathy.

If you’re unsure whether your job demands high or low emotional labor, I’d recommend you take the free quiz In jobs with high emotional labor, having high levels of emotional intelligence led to better job performance. This is pretty intuitive. Let’s imagine you’re a management consultant.

• Every day you’re expected to make customers feel good, understand and empathize with their emotional states, and probably even appear upbeat and friendly (whether you feel that way or not).
• In jobs like this, having high emotional intelligence, and specifically being able to regulate your emotions, is a really important ability.

But now let’s imagine that you’re a statistician whose job is to crank out hundreds of data analyses. Resource allocation theory suggests that spending energy on regulating your emotions may distract you, and drain your attention, from the task in front of you.

• If your job is cranking out statistical reports, your finite attentional energy could easily be consumed by displaying the most appropriate emotions or empathizing with your coworkers or putting on a happy face.
• Now, I’m not suggesting that emotional intelligence is a bad thing and that we should all stop being empathic and regulating our emotions.

But what I am saying is that many of the claims that emotional intelligence is a magic cure-all are overblown. Let’s take empathy as a component of emotional intelligence. At first glance, it would seem like a really good thing to understand and share the feelings of others (i.e.

empathy). And in a great many cases, empathy is a wonderful ability. But imagine you employ a team of commission-driven cold-calling salespeople. Every day they face rejection, insults, and objections. A key to their financial and psychological survival is the thickness of their skin. These are people that need to withstand fifty angrily disconnected calls and still make the fifty-first call undaunted.

If they empathize too much with each person on their calling list, they might start to question the very nature of their job. “Am I really annoying when I call?” “Maybe I shouldn’t interrupt people while they’re working.” “I guess that I wouldn’t like these calls either.” Or what about a turnaround executive who’s been ordered to restructure a failing company? This is another case where an abundance of empathy can actually make the job significantly more difficult.

Conducting layoffs is already difficult, but doing so while making a deep emotional connection with every single affected employee is a recipe for sleepless nights (and maybe depression and alcoholism). It’s been a while since psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer introduced the world to emotional intelligence in 1990.

And ironically, the concept’s subsequent popularity may have hampered the development of a more nuanced view. As companies rushed to implement emotional intelligence training everywhere and anywhere, most forgot to ask whether this would have the hoped-for results.

• Emotional intelligence has tremendous potential as a concept and a developable skill.
• But rather than applying it in every nook and cranny of our lives, we’d be better served by asking where and how it should be applied.
• I would strongly encourage you to think through your own job; does it demand high or low levels of emotional labor? Does your job require empathy, faking a smile, suppressing anger, or making emotional connections? Depending on your answers, you may need to rethink whether you spend your energy developing emotional intelligence or a very different set of abilities.

Mark Murphy is a NY Times bestseller, author of, and founder of, : You Might Have Too Much Emotional Intelligence For Your Job