- What Is Emotion Regulation?
- Take our Emotional Intelligence Test
- Find counselling near me
Key points
- Losing composure in public has social cost that is greater for some than others.
- The regulation many <a href="https://healthylife7.com/women-taking-glp-1s-see-spike-in-marriage-and-cohabitation/” title=”Women Taking GLP-1s See Spike in Marriage and Cohabitation”>women bring to teams is a trained skill that is expected without recognition or credit.
- Rewarding the loudest person in the room mistakes emotion dysregulation for authority.
This week, I got stuck in the middle of grounded and delayed flights at airports across the country. I jokingly texted my husband, “I swear flying right now is like: here’s a tightrope, tie it between these two buildings and get across. Also, the rope is old, and we don’t know where to tie one end of it yet.”
We were both traveling from the same conference, at different times, into a wave of airport delays that hit thousands of travelers all over the U.S. Tensions were high—and that’s exactly when you often get to see the best and worst in people, because stress reveals how leaders, at every level, guide a room through uncertainty
On the first day of my two-day attempt to get home, a man near me lost it after a delay announcement. He shouted he was “never” flying this airline again. “No one” does their job. “Everyone” around him was an “idiot.” When the flight was ultimately canceled, he slammed his bag on the floor and started calling one person after another, repeating the same complaints, seemingly seeking help regulating himself in the only way he knew how: by shouting his anger out for someone else to catch.
Within minutes, another man appeared to catch the contagious emotion. At the counter, he shouted at the gate agent: “Do your job! Tell us what’s going on!” She quietly responded that there was no new information yet. He didn’t believe her. He ranted that everyone deserved to know “right now!”
She eventually left her station and sat down. She still didn’t have any answers; she just needed to rest. At this point, a third man stepped in and gently told the second one, “We’re all in this together trying to manage it. We need to take a breath.”
It seemed to work. The emotion contagion stopped spreading
Meanwhile, nearly every woman around me in that crowded gate was calmly gathering information, comparing notes, planning next steps. I said as much to one of them. She laughed. “Yeah. That guy would have totally been my husband if he was here with me.” Other women joined in, some of them stranded since the night before, all of them frustrated, none of them contaminating anyone with it
The Privilege Behind Expressed Anger and Entitlement
The two men who loudly expressed their anger and expectation of service that day could do something most women in that gate couldn’t (or didn’t): throw a public fit without fearing real consequences. They could command a room’s attention until they were finished
That’s a form of power. It’s also rarely recognized as one. There is a social cost for women and marginalized people who express anger and entitlement the way those men did: They would likely be labeled difficult, emotional, unprofessional, unhinged, and often many much worse derogatory insults and slurs. Holding back is a survival mechanism
- What Is Emotion Regulation?
- Take our Emotional Intelligence Test
- Find counselling near me
What Gets Called Leadership, and What Doesn’t
The emotion regulation those women showed likely wasn’t just a personality trait. Sure, for some it could be—but many women, regardless of personality, learn from a young age to absorb the tension at work and at home
This skill isn’t itself gendered. It’s a skill that anyone can learn. But it’s invisible—so when it works, you don’t know it. You only notice it when it’s not there. And it can look effortless, even though it takes constant vigilance
The third man who stepped in to calm the second man down became a small, visible hero of the gate. The women doing the same work all around him, all day, received no such admiration, nor were they seen as leaders
Meanwhile, the loudest, most dysregulated people often get the most attention. People rush to comfort them instead of rewarding the ones who demonstrated real patience and self-restraint without drawing attention to themselves
Emotion Regulation Essential Reads
The Upside of Mental Flexibility
What Your Spoiler Preference Says About You
5 Stress Responses and Their Costs
I went back to the airport the next day. Despite similar delays, there was a felt difference. The gate agents gave consistent updates, even when minor: “We heard they just arrived.” “They’re pulling up.” When the new crew finally showed up, a woman jumped up and rallied the whole gate to cheer them on. As the crew walked through, the pilot grinned and said, “Sorry we’re late, we got stuck in a phone booth changing.” We laughed. We stayed calm despite additional delays
The difference was based on both stress responses and communication. From and individual stress response, I saw five across two days:
- Contagious extreme language and negative emotions.A short fuse and all-or-nothing language (never, no one, everyone), like the first man.On a team, it spreads.
- Entitlement.Expecting immediate responsiveness or answers that aren’t yet available. It teaches the people around you to scramble, or to lie. It erodes trust.
- Active calming.Stepping in to help someone else regulate.This strengthens leadership in the moment, though is carries a cost: absorbing other people’s stress without limits can burn out the person doing it.
- Comic relief.Easing tension with humor, the way that pilot did. It’s a uniquely underrated form of leadership, but hard to do well.
- Shutting down.Going quiet and sitting out when it becomes too much.It’s understandable when you’re asked to respond with no support, but it limits problem-solving.
What Leaders and Organizations Can Do
- Recognize and appreciate when a woman regulates a room, not just when a man does it once. Notice especially if the people holding the teams together are never credited for providing that additional emotional labor.
- Stop rewarding loudness as a proxy for authority. The loudest person is often the least regulated one, not the most capable. Promotion patterns that consistently reward loudness instead of emotional capacity signal an unhealthy work culture.
- Equip frontline customer-facing employees, disproportionately women and marginalized people, with real information. Withholding information asks the people with fewer resources and power to absorb disproportionately greater interpersonal stress.
- Build emotion regulation as a trainable, critical, required skill for everyone. The skill some people already have was practiced and earned, often at a cost. Teach it deliberately instead of continuing to rely on the people who already carry it.
