Chapter 8 - Working with Emotions

Summary

Emotional influence not only depends on a person’s group membership, but also on their particular position within the group’s structured interpersonal relations. When the group is part of a wider organisation, additional regulatory regimes may constrain or afford particular forms of emotional conduct. This chapter focuses on how work roles shape emotion communication and regulation. Team leaders’ emotions can set the emotional tone of work-groups, encouraging solidarity and common purpose. In the service sector, clients and customers impose different kinds of emotional demand on employees. Workers whose jobs involve interacting with consumers present the company’s outward face, and are encouraged to regulate their emotional presentations accordingly (emotional labour). Caring professionals need to manage the potential personal costs of empathising with clients undergoing potentially devastating life changes. In all of these cases, employees’ emotions influence and are influenced by the people they deal with in their working lives.