Emotions Are Information: How Emotional Intelligence Makes You a Better Tech Leader (Not Weaker)

Nov 17

The Cost of Being "Too Emotional" in Tech

"You're too emotional for tech."

When my manager said those words during a routine 1:1 at Google, I felt my stomach drop. We'd just finished discussing a calibration meeting where I'd advocated for one of my struggling team members—pushing back on a rating that felt wrong.

His message was clear: caring too much was a liability.

I spent seven minutes in the third-floor bathroom wondering if he was right. Maybe I didn't belong in tech. Maybe the industry wasn't built for people who felt things deeply.

Four years later, that same manager asked me to train his leadership team on emotional intelligence.

What changed wasn't that I became less emotional. I learned to treat my emotions as what they actually are: high-quality leadership data.

And that shift transformed everything about how I lead.

Why Tech Has an "Emotions Are Weakness" Problem

The tech industry loves to position itself as purely logical, data-driven, and objective. Decisions should be based on metrics, not feelings. Leaders should be rational, not emotional. Teams should focus on output, not how people are doing.

But here's the truth: Every decision you make is influenced by emotions, whether you acknowledge them or not.

The executive who says they "just follow the data" is ignoring the anxiety that made them look at certain metrics instead of others. The manager who prides themselves on being "totally objective" is missing the frustration that's influencing their tone in meetings. The leader who claims emotions don't matter is creating a culture where people hide how they're really doing—until they quit.

The Hidden Cost of Emotional Suppression

When organizations treat emotions as unprofessional:

Attrition increases - People leave before admitting they're struggling
Innovation decreases - Teams don't voice concerns about risky projects
Psychological safety disappears - Nobody wants to be "the emotional one"
Burnout accelerates - Leaders ignore their own warning signs until it's too late
Decision quality suffers - Teams miss critical information their intuition is trying to surface

I've seen this pattern play out at Microsoft, Oracle, and Google. The teams that perform best aren't the ones that suppress emotions. They're the ones that use emotional data alongside every other kind of information.

The Moment Everything Changed: Treating Emotions as Data

After that bathroom breakdown, I started tracking my emotional responses like I would any other business metric.

When did I feel anxious? What was I noticing? When did someone's words not match their energy? What happened next? When did I want to avoid a conversation? What was that telling me?

The results shocked me.

That knot in my stomach during calibrations? It predicted attrition with 80% accuracy. The team member I fought for quit three weeks later, exactly like my gut said she would.

The project that made me anxious despite good metrics? Failed spectacularly because we'd missed a critical dependency my intuition had picked up on.

The executive who made me uncomfortable in meetings? HR investigation six months later.

My emotions weren't noise in the system. They were pattern recognition my brain was running faster than my conscious mind could articulate.

The Science Behind Emotional Intelligence

Research backs this up:

Leaders with high emotional intelligence outperform their peers by 20% on key leadership competencies (TalentSmart)
90% of top performers have high emotional intelligence (Harvard Business Review)
Teams led by emotionally intelligent managers show 25% higher engagement scores (Gallup)

Your emotions aren't making you weak. They're processing information about:

Microexpressions you're not consciously noticing
Patterns from past experiences your brain is matching
Misalignments between what people say and how they're saying it
Risk factors your analytical mind hasn't articulated yet

Ignoring that information doesn't make you more objective. It makes you less informed.

The Four-Step Framework: Using Emotions as Leadership Data

Once I realized emotions were valuable data, I needed a system to use them effectively. Here's the framework I developed (and now teach to leaders navigating their Activation Point):

Step 1: Notice Without Judgment

When you feel something strong—anxiety, frustration, excitement, dread—don't immediately dismiss it or act on it. Just notice it.

Practice saying:

"I'm feeling anxious about this decision."
"I'm frustrated with how this meeting went."
"I feel excited about this person's potential."
"I'm uncomfortable with this direction."

The goal isn't to determine if the emotion is "right" or "wrong." It's to acknowledge the data your brain is surfacing.

Common mistake: Immediately labeling emotions as "unprofessional" or "irrational" and trying to suppress them. This is like deleting a metric from your dashboard because you don't like what it's telling you.

Step 2: Ask What the Emotion Is Telling You

Every emotion is your brain's way of processing information. Get curious about what it might be noticing.

Anxiety often signals:

Risk you haven't fully articulated yet
Missing information you need for a good decision
Misalignment between this choice and your values
A pattern from past experience your brain is recognizing

Frustration often signals:

Unmet expectations that need to be communicated
Unclear boundaries that need to be set
Repeated patterns that aren't being addressed
Values misalignment with a person or situation

Excitement often signals:

Strong alignment with your strengths and values
Potential for growth and impact
Authentic connection with a person or project
Movement toward what matters most to you

Dread often signals:

Something important being avoided
A conversation that needs to happen
Misalignment between your current path and desired future
Your Activation Point approaching

Step 3: Cross-Reference With Other Data

Your emotions aren't the only data point. But they shouldn't be ignored either.

Questions to ask:

What are the metrics saying?
What patterns have I seen before in similar situations?
What is my team telling me (explicitly and implicitly)?
What would someone outside this situation notice?
Am I missing information that would change my perspective?

The magic happens when emotional data and analytical data point in the same direction.

If your gut says "this person isn't ready for promotion" AND the performance data is mixed, that's important information.

If you feel excited about a risky project AND the market analysis supports it, that alignment suggests authentic opportunity.

If you're anxious about a hire despite a strong resume AND something felt off in the interview, trust that dissonance.

Step 4: Act With Both Courage and Wisdom

Sometimes your emotions will tell you to do something that feels risky:

Have the difficult conversation everyone is avoiding
Advocate for someone who's struggling
Walk away from the "safe" choice that doesn't feel right
Challenge a decision that looks good on paper but feels wrong

This is where you need courage.

But you also need wisdom to act in a way that serves everyone involved:

Choose the right timing and context
Communicate with both honesty and care
Consider the impact on others
Separate your emotional data from your emotional reaction

Example: You feel frustrated with a team member's performance. The emotional data is valid—something isn't working. But wisdom means having a curious, supportive conversation about what's happening rather than expressing your frustration in the moment.

Real Results: What Happens When Leaders Use Emotional Data

Once I started treating emotions as information rather than interference, the results were measurable:

Team Performance:

Built the highest-performing team in our org at Google
100% retention rate (unprecedented in our division)
Top engagement scores across all metrics
Zero "drama" or interpersonal conflicts requiring HR intervention

Decision Quality:

Improved hiring success rate by trusting "gut feel" alongside structured interviews
Identified struggling team members 2-3 months earlier, enabling early intervention
Predicted project failures before metrics showed problems
Navigated organizational politics more effectively by reading room dynamics

Personal Leadership:

Stopped avoiding difficult conversations because discomfort became information, not a reason to wait
Built deeper trust with teams by creating space for emotions to be acknowledged
Made bolder career moves by distinguishing between "growth anxiety" and "misalignment anxiety"
Developed stronger executive presence by integrating rather than suppressing emotional awareness

Career Impact:

Asked to train other leaders on building trust and reading team dynamics
Promoted to roles requiring high emotional intelligence and stakeholder management
Built coaching practice helping other leaders navigate their Activation Points
Established reputation as someone who could handle complex people situations

Common Myths About Emotions in Leadership (Debunked)

Myth #1: "Emotional leaders are unprofessional"

Reality: The most effective leaders are emotionally aware AND professionally skilled. They don't express every emotion they feel, but they use emotional information to make better decisions.

Professional doesn't mean robotic. It means having the emotional intelligence to read situations, respond appropriately, and create environments where people can do their best work.

Myth #2: "Logic and emotions are opposites"

Reality: Your brain doesn't separate emotional and logical processing—they work together. Neuroscience research shows that people with damage to emotional processing centers struggle with decision-making, even when their logical reasoning is intact.

Trying to make "purely logical" decisions is like trying to navigate with only half your GPS working.

Myth #3: "Showing emotion makes you look weak"

Reality: Suppressing emotions makes you look disconnected. Acknowledging them appropriately makes you look human and trustworthy.

The difference is between:

❌ Having an emotional outburst → "This project is a disaster and it's your fault!"
✅ Acknowledging emotional reality → "I'm frustrated because we agreed on these deliverables and I'm not seeing the progress I expected. Let's talk about what's happening."

Myth #4: "Men can be logical leaders, but women are too emotional"

Reality: This is unconscious bias, pure and simple. Research shows men and women experience emotions equally—society just judges women more harshly for expressing them.

Everyone has emotions. The question is whether you use them as information or pretend they don't exist.

Myth #5: "Emotional intelligence is just being nice"

Reality: Emotional intelligence includes having difficult conversations, setting clear boundaries, and making tough calls. It just means you do those things with awareness of emotional dynamics rather than pretending they don't exist.

Some of the most emotionally intelligent things I've done as a leader looked "mean" on the surface:

Firing someone who wasn't a fit (with compassion and support)
Giving critical feedback that someone needed to hear
Saying no to a high-performer's request when it would have hurt the team

Emotional intelligence gave me the courage to do those things well, not the excuse to avoid them.

How to Start Using Emotions as Leadership Data (This Week)

Ready to treat your emotions as information? Start with these practices:

Daily Practice: The Emotion Check-In

Set a reminder for end of day. Spend 5 minutes answering:

What strong emotions did I experience today?
What might they have been telling me?
What patterns am I noticing over time?

Tool: Use a simple notes app or journal. Track for 30 days and review for patterns.

Before Big Decisions: The Gut-Check Process

When facing an important decision:

What does my gut say? (Notice without judgment)
What might that feeling be noticing? (Get curious)
What does the data say? (Cross-reference)
Where do they align? Where do they conflict? (Integrate)
What's the wise action that honors both? (Act with courage and wisdom)

In Meetings: The Energy Audit

Pay attention to:

When does the energy in the room shift?
Who isn't speaking? Why might that be?
What's the emotion underneath what people are saying?
What is my body telling me about this situation?

Don't act on every observation. Just notice and collect data over time.

Weekly Practice: Pattern Recognition

Every Friday, review:

What emotions kept showing up this week?
What were they trying to tell me?
Which ones was I right to pay attention to?
Which ones were old patterns I'm working on?
What do I want to do differently next week?

The Real Activation Point: Permission to Feel

The bathroom breakdown wasn't my Activation Point. It was the moment four years later when I realized I'd been right all along.

My Activation Point was when I gave myself permission to trust what I was feeling.

When I stopped trying to be "less emotional" and started being more deliberate about using emotional information alongside every other kind of data.

When I realized that the very thing I'd been told was a weakness was actually my greatest strength as a leader.

This Is Your Activation Point If...

You're at your Activation Point around emotions if you recognize any of these patterns:

✓ You've been told you're "too emotional" or "too sensitive" ✓ You suppress your feelings at work and then explode at home ✓ You ignore your gut feeling and later wish you'd listened ✓ You see other leaders getting away with emotions you're punished for expressing ✓ You're exhausted from pretending you don't feel what you feel ✓ You know something's wrong on your team but can't point to hard data ✓ You're stuck between the leader you've been and the leader you want to become

The courageous action isn't to become less emotional. It's to become more skillful at using your emotions as leadership data.

What Changes When You Trust Emotional Data

Here's what I know after 20+ years of leading teams at Microsoft, Oracle, and Google:

The leaders who pretend they don't feel things aren't more objective—they're just less informed.

The teams that don't talk about emotions aren't more professional—they're just less honest.

The cultures that value "logic over feelings" aren't more effective—they're just missing half the data.

Your emotions aren't noise in the system. They're part of the signal.

And the moment you start treating them that way—with curiosity rather than judgment, as information rather than interference—everything changes:

You make better decisions
You build stronger teams
You navigate politics more effectively
You identify problems earlier
You create cultures where people can be honest
You accelerate your own growth and development

Most importantly, you stop fighting against yourself and start leading from wholeness.

Your Turn: The 30-Day Emotion-as-Data Challenge

For the next 30 days, commit to this experiment:

Week 1: Notice

Track your emotional responses without judgment
Write down what you feel and when you feel it
Don't try to change anything yet

Week 2: Ask

Start asking "What might this emotion be telling me?"
Look for patterns in your emotional data
Notice when emotions predict outcomes

Week 3: Cross-Reference

Compare emotional data with other information
Notice when they align or conflict
Start making small decisions using both

Week 4: Act

Take one courageous action informed by emotional data
Notice the results
Reflect on what you learned

At the end of 30 days, answer:

How often was your emotional data accurate?
What patterns surprised you?
What changed when you started paying attention?
How will you continue using this approach?

The Bottom Line

The three words that changed my leadership career:

"Emotions are information."

Not weakness. Not unprofessional. Not "too much."

Information.

Your team doesn't need you to be a robot. They need you to be real.

They need you to notice when something's off. To trust your gut when the metrics don't tell the whole story. To create space for people to be human in a world that keeps telling them to be machines.

The best leaders I know aren't the ones who've learned to suppress their emotions.

They're the ones who've learned to listen to them.

Ready to Activate Your Leadership?

If this resonates with you, you're likely approaching (or at) your Activation Point—that precise moment when clarity, courage, and catalyst converge to make transformation possible.

Here's how I can help:

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About the Author

Lilah Jones is a keynote speaker and executive coach who helps high-performing leaders navigate career transitions. After leading teams at Microsoft, Oracle, and Google, she now coaches executives through The Activated Leader methodology—a four-stage framework for turning disruption into advantage. Her newsletter reaches thousands of leaders navigating their own activation moments.