How to Regulate Your Emotions at Work and Stay in Difficult Conversations
How many times have I been here? I say something, and I can feel the energy in the conversation shift. My heart rate picks up. What comes back at me escalates things, and suddenly I want to leave. On other days, I want to fire back.
Two situations are running through my mind right now. Two very different people, both in my work world. One was with a client. For whatever reason, that day I was feeling all the feels, and I could sense a negative reaction building. I was tired and behind on projects. The other was a colleague sharing a situation at her workplace, not for the first time, and I wanted to jump in to fix it and correct it, not stay in the conversation and listen.
In both, I knew I needed to stay in the conversation while I was activated, because I want to stay in the relationship.
This area of communication intrigues me because I’m a reactive person. I feel things big and I react big. So when we wrote Stop with the “Be Calm” Already back in May 2025, I knew calm was never going to be a directive that worked for me. That article asked why we keep making calm the standard for effective leadership. This one asks the next question.
What becomes possible when we stop treating emotional comfort as a requirement for connection?
Emotional regulation at work isn’t about hiding frustration, forcing ourselves to be calm, or pretending we aren’t affected. It’s the ability to recognize what we’re experiencing and choose how we respond, even when the emotions don’t go away. For leaders, that means remaining available for the conversation without making someone else responsible for how we feel.
Emotional Regulation vs. Being Calm: What’s the Difference?
Calm is a state of relative steadiness. Regulation is our capacity to work with what we’re experiencing and choose how we respond.
That distinction matters because we can feel frustrated and still listen. We can feel anxious and still be curious. We can be angry and still choose words that leave room for the other person.
We don’t have to change how we feel to choose how we show up.
A few people seem to be wired for calm. It works for them. Most of us ride a whole roller coaster of emotions as teammates, with clients, and as leaders. The rest of us can learn to regulate, which is quite different. Regulating means we’re in touch with what we’re feeling and how we’re reacting, and we intentionally shape how that feeling comes out.
Regulation doesn’t require us to make the feeling disappear. Sometimes we can shift how we feel by changing our perspective or where we put our attention. Sometimes the feeling stays right where it is, and we choose how to move forward with it. I can regulate my anger. Feeling something doesn’t dictate how I have to act.
Why Suppressing Emotions at Work Doesn’t Work
It’s Not Just the “Negative” Emotions We Squish
I worked with a leader who was incredibly joyful and fun. That joy wasn’t seen as “professional” in her business world, so she was told to dial it down, along with her perceived perkiness. Bad advice. She became muted. Being with her felt like a dull energy had settled over her. Her superpower was removed, and she was no longer the leader with all the potential they had hired.
We tend to think it’s only anger and frustration we’re asked to hide. It’s also any emotion we decide doesn’t fit our picture of a leader or a good team member. When we squish those, we stop being ourselves.
If you squish who you are, it often comes out sharper, or, conversely, dulled. Our voice changes. Our body tightens. We get tense holding back what we’re feeling, and everyone around us feels it without knowing where it came from.
Can You Regulate Emotions During a Difficult Conversation?
The Space Between Feeling and Expressing
Feeling an emotional response and expressing an emotional response are two different things. There’s distance between them, and that distance is where regulation lives.
The good news? Regulation doesn’t only happen before the conversation. We can regulate right in the middle of it. Even if the feeling has started leaking out, we can still notice it, own it, and choose what happens next.
Grown-ups need this too. Scroll Instagram and you’ll find wonderful accounts teaching five-, six-, seven- and eight-year-olds how to regulate their emotions, most with solid research behind them. So I keep asking, where are the regulation accounts for adults? We need the same tools. We just get to use them in budget meetings instead of on the playground.
Three Ways to Regulate Your Emotions During Difficult Conversations
- Breath, Starting with the Exhale
I know. Breath can sound so cliché. That’s okay, because most of us still don’t notice our breath, let alone realize we can use it to slow our own escalation.
Years as an actor and drama teacher taught me that we’ve been coached to focus on the inhale, which tends to give us a shallow, high breath. Pay attention to the exhale instead. We speak on the exhale most of the time. The inhale is reflexive, so when we exhale intentionally, we often make room for the breath to drop back in, low and wide into the lower part of the lungs. That’s athletic breath.
Compare that to sipping air high in the chest by the collarbones. That high clavicular breath can accompany stress or heightened arousal and sometimes suggest to the people around us that we’re in fight-or-flight.
Researchers have studied slow breathing for years, and the findings are encouraging. Breath isn’t magic. It is one of the most accessible tools we carry into every room.
Try this: The next time you feel yourself getting activated in a meeting, notice your breath before you respond. Exhale intentionally. Give yourself that moment before your next words.
- Acknowledge and Respond
This one comes straight from our Fruitful Friction® work, and it’s the tool I needed with my colleague.
When we’re activated, we tend to jump to our response. We fix, we correct, we counter. Acknowledge and Respond asks us to do two things, in order. First, acknowledge what you heard. Then respond.
The acknowledgment has to be real. “I hear what you’re saying” doesn’t count. Most of us have heard that line plenty of times and known no one heard a thing. Repeat back something specific, one real detail, so the other person knows it landed.
As an actor, I was taught “yes, and.” What I find problematic about “yes, and” is that it seems to say yes to everything. In improv, it’s acknowledging, not agreeing. Same here. We don’t have to agree. We do have to let people know we heard them.
“I get that you’d like funding for this. It doesn’t fit with this quarter’s plan.”
If I acknowledge what I heard, I can go a different direction. If I don’t, it tends to go into conflict. Acknowledging also gives my own system a beat to catch up, and you still get to be you while you do it.
Try this: Before you counter someone’s perspective, acknowledge one specific thing they said. Not to agree with them. To let them know you heard them.
- Transparency, Out Loud
You may know Dr. Dan Siegel’s phrase “name it to tame it.” Transparency is how we put that to work in the room. You name what’s happening with you, out loud, to the person in front of you.
“I want you to know I’m feeling a little heated right now. I want to talk this out with you.”
Words create worlds, so choose them with care. “I’m frustrated” or “I can feel myself getting heated” lands very differently than “I’m really angry.”
Leave out the “because.” The minute we add “because you,” we can inadvertently shift blame onto someone else, the opposite of what we want. Transparency is about clarifying our own story and letting people know we know what’s going on with us.
Try this: When you notice yourself getting defensive or frustrated, consider naming what’s happening without making someone else responsible for it. “I’m noticing I’m having a strong reaction to this, and I want to understand your perspective.”
Why Leaders Can’t Always Hide Their Emotions
They Already Know You’re Upset
My joke with leaders? You are not as good at playing poker as you think.
So many leaders believe they’re excellent at covering up how they feel. They aren’t. The poker face doesn’t make the feeling go away. It pushes it under the surface, and most of the time people still pick up that something’s going on. They just don’t know the story, so they write one. How much better for us to clarify our own story than to let someone else create it for us!
Transparency doesn’t automatically create trust. Trust comes from emotional awareness, appropriate transparency, and responsible behavior.
When people know that you are aware of what’s happening with you, trust has room to grow. That trust is what lets us move into what we call, in the Fruitful Friction® work, the Messy Middle, and stay present there long enough for the conversation to create traction.
How Does Emotional Regulation Affect a Team?
Regulation Is a Team Sport
Regulation isn’t only a solo job. Our regulation affects the people around us, and their regulation affects us. What does that mean in a meeting? It’s not that I’m trying to regulate someone else. Oh no. How I breathe, my pace, and how I acknowledge others shape what’s possible for both of us. In my experience, with support from various research projects, when I slow my breath, the people in the room with me often slow theirs. When I open my body, not crossing my arms or closing off, people can feel that opening too.
You Don’t Have to Be Comfortable to Stay Connected
We often judge how a conversation went by whether we felt comfortable. Comfort isn’t the measure of connection. We can be uncomfortable and still be respectful, curious, and fully present with each other. A conversation can be respectful, safe enough, and productive without feeling comfortable at all. I’m not about your comfort. I’m about our connection, while I own my awkward.
We don’t have to be comfortable to be connected. We don’t have to agree to stay in relationship.
What we do need are boundaries, not walls. Boundaries are where we keep some things private. Walls are where we divide ourselves. Come inside the walls and keep some things behind your boundaries.
Sometimes the Regulated Choice Is a Pause
In our Fruitful Friction® work we are very clear that not every conversation needs to live in the Messy Middle, that area of possibility where we stay present with each other. Sometimes the most regulated move is to step out, either because the conversation shouldn’t be happening at all, or because it needs a different time. “Let’s come back to this.” How many times have we wanted to say that and didn’t?
I was in a conversation recently where someone said, “Hey, let’s just take a break.” He shook it out, took a little moment, and came right back, ready. He just needed to regulate. And then I got to regulate. I respected that so much.
Should Leaders Show Emotion at Work?
Let’s pull that question apart. Leaders have emotions at work, because leaders are human beings. Owning that is non-negotiable. Showing emotion means knowing you have it and expressing it within boundaries that don’t hurt anyone else. We get laughter and joy. We get tears. We get frustration.
Power matters here. A leader’s emotions land with extra weight, so the leader carries extra responsibility. Know what’s going on with you, own it, and never take it out on the people who report to you.
Calling emotional people “unprofessional” isn’t true. They’re professionals living a human existence. Executive presence isn’t the absence of reactions. It’s taking responsibility for our reactions and caringly staying in the conversation to get where we need to go, rather than retreating.
Frequently Asked Questions About Emotional Regulation at Work
Can you be emotionally regulated and still feel angry?
Absolutely. Emotional regulation doesn’t mean anger disappears. It means recognizing your anger and choosing how you express it. We can feel angry and still listen, ask questions, set boundaries, and stay in a productive conversation.
What’s the difference between emotional regulation and emotional suppression?
Suppression is about holding back or hiding the outward expression of emotion. Regulation is about recognizing what we’re experiencing and choosing how to respond. We don’t have to eliminate the emotion to express it responsibly.
How can leaders regulate their emotions during difficult conversations?
Start with an intentional exhale. Acknowledge what the other person has said before responding. And when appropriate, name what’s happening with you without blaming someone else. These three practices help us stay present and connected, even when the conversation is uncomfortable.
Practice Makes It Real
Looking back at my two situations, I can see the tools I needed. With my colleague, acknowledge before I fix. With my client, my exhale and a little transparency.
They may already know you’re upset. The question is whether you know what’s happening with you, and what you choose to do with it. That’s where regulation becomes a skill. Not in making the emotion disappear, but in staying available to the person in front of you while you feel it.
Staying present while activated is totally learnable. It’s what our Executive Presence and Fruitful Friction® training are all about. Reading about it is a start. Rehearsing it with real scenarios, with real humans in the room, is where it sticks.
Knowing what to do when emotions run high is one thing. Being able to do it in the middle of a difficult conversation is another.
Through our Executive Presence and Fruitful Friction® training, we help leaders and teams practice exactly these moments. Not to eliminate emotion or disagreement, but to stay present, communicate clearly, and find traction when conversations get uncomfortable.
Contact us for individual and team deep dives, or call 303.868.3889. Let’s get your people practicing the conversations that matter most.
Hilary Blair is a leadership keynote speaker based out of Denver, CO, and is the co-founder of ARTiculate: Real&Clear. She is also a highly regarded actor, improviser, facilitator, voice-over artist, and voice expert coach. Connect with us, we are dedicated to and passionate about clarifying communication. Start a conversation as we explore the multiple ways we can support your unique communication style and technique.
