Your best leaders are being told they’re ‘too emotional.’ You’re about to lose them and the organizational capability that prevents the next crisis.

In my 15 years of coaching executive teams, I’ve identified what I call ‘the emotional precision gap,’ and it costs organizations millions annually.

Last year, I was working with a client who was part of upper management in a renowned bank (think Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank). She came to me after a rather common experience. She was expecting a promotion when she instead received the feedback: “You’re too emotional. You don’t have what it takes to be a leader.” 

This took the wind out of her sail, and what followed was a rather difficult and long period of self-doubt, which led her on the path of changing the company. 

Her so-called mistake was showing excitement about challenging projects. Expressed enthusiasm when her team performed well and genuine curiosity when someone came up with new ideas. 

There was nothing wrong with her behaviour. Instead, the organization had a major issue: a lack of emotional granularity and a leadership team that hadn’t yet recognized emotions as part of organizational performance. 

Why? Most likely because most organizations still believe that emotions are a private matter and need to be managed.

I call this “the emotional precision gap” that costs organizations millions of dollars each year and their best leaders. 

What makes some people special?

My client Martha, who wasn’t feeling “stressed” or “fine”, a default vocabulary most leaders in her position would use. 

Instead, she was experiencing: 

• Frustration that her genuine involvement was being held against her
• Confusion about why caring deeply was labeled as leadership liability
• Anxiety about how to show up and who she was supposed to be
• Determination to prove that she had what it takes to be at the executive table

This is emotional granularity in action. 

Martha was so precious in expressing her emotions and placing it into context that I didn’t even know at first how to help her. 

Most leaders I have come across use vague labels that not only obscure what is really happening but also prevent them from seeing what is truly at stake.  

With many of my clients, the first step is to work on their internal compass:

• What are you feeling
• What does this mean to you
• What actions do you feel compelled to take based on what you are feeling
• What does it tell you about the situation and environment you are in
• How does it relate to the people around you

Martha was confused about being misrepresented by her manager and unsure how her biggest strength suddenly became her biggest obstacle. She clearly knew what she was feeling and what this meant. What was not clear to her was whether and how she could fit into the organizational culture. 

The Emotional Precision Gap

Her manager’s feedback: “You’re too emotional,” directly undermined her identity, on who she is, and how she should behave. What she understood as a strength was presented to her as a weakness. You could call this an identity crack.  

Yet the real issue wasn’t Martha’s emotional expression. It was that the entire organization lacked the emotional literacy to recognize the difference between emotional expression and emotional instability, between authenticity and unprofessionalism, between granular emotional communication and loss of control. 

Yet the real issue wasn’t Martha’s emotional expression. I call this “the emotional precision gap”: the entire organization lacked the emotional literacy to recognize the difference between emotional expression and emotional instability, between authenticity and unprofessionalism, between granular emotional communication and loss of control. This gap costs organizations millions annually in lost talent, poor decision-making, and widespread burnout.

What do we refer to when we are “saying you are too emotional?” This is a question that someone yet needs to answer without stumbling over their own words. 

And that is the question that Martha was struggling with. What did it mean to be too emotional? 

Martha changed the organization after months of trying to fit in. The potential prize wasn’t worth the risk of losing what she loved about herself and what so many others cherished in her. She was generally in sync with herself. She just wasn’t in sync with the company culture, and there was no way for her to sync in. And she was not willing to burn herself out by trying to connect with an organization that was shutting down avenues of connection. 

Emotional Granularity in Action 

Martha wasn’t too emotional. On the contrary, Martah was emotionally eloquent. She was aware of the internal signals (Emotions), their meanings, and was precise in describing them. 

This is not a risk; it is an asset that would have helped to prevent the 2008 financial crisis. 

Here is what Martha demonstrated incredibly well and what every organization could learn from her:

Better self-regulation isn’t only an asset for burnout prevention; it is also an asset for risk assessment, being present, and taking in information rather than being defensive. It is the key to effective leadership. 

The cost of not creating a culture that includes emotions isn’t just burnout and losing talent, but also missed opportunities and decreased creativity. 

The more we are connected to our emotions, the better our decisions and the more creative our problem-solving ability. Besides the fact that emotions are how humans connect, if we want effective teams, we need to ensure they feel connected to one another.  

Overall, companies that focus on Emotional Intelligence outperform companies in traditional ‘hard skills only’ cultures on key business metrics like productivity, retention, safety, and customer loyalty. 

The neuroscience behind emotional granularity and why it outperforms general EI

Research on emotions and neuroscience in recent years has not only significantly shifted how we understand emotions but also debunked many misconceptions about them. One relevant point is that there are no specific regions of the brain solely responsible for specific emotions. 

Instead, emotions, or rather emotion concepts, are located in different brain regions based on when and how the concept of an emotion was learned. That also means that each of us has a unique emotional fingerprint within our brains.  

Why does this matter? Well, because it points precisely at why communication around emotions is crucial. And inherently shows why people often feel alone when someone responds to them, as if that person exactly understands what they are feeling. They actually can’t exactly know, and a statement like that is rather dismissive. 

Instead, we need to create spaces where people learn to express themselves and make sense of their experience in the present moment. That is only possible in interactions. 

Our emotion concepts are based on past experiences; to make them relevant and accurate, we need to exchange information with the people around us. That way, we make them context-specific and create space to correct our brain’s prediction. 

Emotion concepts are based on these predictions. By clearly communicating how you feel and what you are experiencing, as in the case of Martha, you increase the accuracy of your experience and your ability to be in the present moment, rather than living in the past. 

What is Emotional Granularity?

Emotional Granularity refers to an individual’s ability to experience, evaluate, and express emotions precisely and in context. Just as Martha did when she described what she was experiencing.  

Martha didn’t base her current experience on past memories. She didn’t simply say I feel bad, and I don’t know what to do. She unravelled the intertwined emotions and pinpointed what made her feel stuck. This is what we call context-sensitive processing and is a sign of high emotional literacy.  

What can you do in your organization?

You can start by normalizing emotions as part of employees’ performance, and a distraction from it. It is important to encourage leaders to model emotional precision and communication, and it really starts at the top. HR isn’t enough for this. 

Introduce simple shared vocabulary (beyond “stressed” or “fine”) in team meetings, and build in short check?ins where people name what they’re feeling and what it means for their work. This enables awareness and reflection. It also creates the time and space needed to develop emotional granularity.  

From there, invest in targeted development: train managers to ask better emotional questions, reflect back what they hear, and use that insight in decisions about workload, feedback, and recognition. 

Over time, treat emotional granularity like any other capability, assess where your culture is today, define what “good” looks like, and track shifts in engagement, conflict, and burnout as you practice.

Assessment Questions

Here are some possible assessment questions:

1. What is the current level of emotional vocabulary in our organization?
2. Do our leaders model emotional precision or suppression?
3. What is the cost of conflict, poor decisions, and burnout currently?
4. What would a 20-30% improvement in productivity and engagement be worth?

Key Takeaways:

• 77% of employees report that work stress negatively impacts physical health
• Traditional emotional intelligence training focuses on awareness but misses precision
• Most leaders lack the vocabulary and frameworks to translate emotional awareness into sustainable change

Summary

Emotional granularity is not about being “too emotional”; it is about being precise enough with your inner experience to stay in sync with yourself, your decisions, and the people around you. When organizations misread this asset as a liability, they trade away their best risk-sensing, creativity, and connective tissue within the system. The companies that will thrive are those that treat emotional granularity as a core leadership capability, on par with strategy and finance, and intentionally build cultures where emotions are named, understood, and used to make smarter, more sustainable decisions.

Remember, emotions are part of your thoughts. You can’t subtract them. Not naming them means keeping them invisible. A decision without emotional awareness is like calculating your EBITDA without taking tax strategies into account.

What’s the emotional precision gap costing your organization? Share one emotion your leadership team struggles to name. I read and respond to every comment.

References:

Alshammari, A. S. (2023). Emotional intelligence, leadership, and work teams. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1223450.

Do?ru, M. Z. (2022). A meta-analysis of the relationships between emotional intelligence and work-related variables. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 703658.

Kariuki, M. W. (2024). Role of emotional intelligence in leadership and organizational performance. International Journal of Psychology, 9(1), 45–60. https://iprjb.org/journals/IJP/article/view/2362

O’Boyle, E. H., Humphrey, R. H., Pollack, J. M., Hawver, T. H., & Story, P. A. (2011). The relation between emotional intelligence and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32(5), 788–818.

Tugade, M. M., Fredrickson, B. L., & Feldman Barrett, L. (2004). Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: Examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1161–1190. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1201429/pdf/nihms2954.pdf

Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D., & Dunne, J. D. (2021). Cultivating emotional granularity. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 703658. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.703658/full