Career development

Emotional regulation: a key professional skill for staying clear-headed in complex situations

October 24, 2025

In today's fast-paced world, knowing how to regulate your emotions is becoming a key skill. Far from being a matter of personal development, this ability is part of true professional intelligence: the ability to stay the course in complex situations, to make the right decisions and to remain solid in the face of uncertainty - just as the most seasoned executives of our time know how to do.

Over time, I've observed - as many of us have - that emotional mastery is rarely acquired through theory. It is built up over the years, by taking part in or managing complex projects, transformations or crisis situations, when tension and uncertainty test our bearings as much as our composure. Such learning often takes place in environments where rigor and performance dominate.

This observation is part of a broader reality that goes beyond the world of finance. In all industries, pressure on margins is increasing, while regulatory complexity and geo-economic tensions are redefining the balance.

In this context, where external constraints and internal resources combine, emotions inevitably run through organizations. They are present at every level: in a customer meeting, during exchanges between colleagues, alone in front of a computer screen, or during a work session faced with a delicate decision.

Faced with this reality, the ability to control one's emotions is becoming a key skill, on a par with technical, strategic or analytical skills. Contemporary psychology, and in particular the work of Stanford University professor James Gross, shows that emotional regulation is based on concrete, observable mechanisms. It does not consist in "controlling oneself", but in consciously acting on the way in which an emotion is born, transformed and expressed.

According to James Gross, it is possible to act at different points in the emotional process: before an emotion emerges, by modifying the situation or perception, or after its appearance, by adjusting the way it is expressed.

These five levers reflect a simple reality: everyone can learn to become a player in their emotions, rather than a spectator. Let's take a closer look.

Situation selection

Sometimes, the best way to manage an emotion is to avoid the context that provokes it. Postponing a meeting when tempers flare, deferring a delicate exchange to a more propitious moment, preserving a few minutes of calm before a busy day are all part of a form of emotional strategy. It's not running away: it's preparing the conditions for a constructive exchange.

Change of situation

When a situation cannot be avoided, it is often possible to adjust certain parameters. Asking a specialist colleague to be present during a particularly technical discussion with a customer, clarifying the agenda before a complex session, or proposing a shorter, more focused meeting format: small gestures that change the emotional dynamics of a group.

Attention deployment

What we choose to focus on directly influences how we feel. Faced with a colleague, customer or supplier under stress, focusing on the nature of the request rather than its tone helps preserve the quality of the dialogue. During a crisis, for example, focusing on the facts rather than on the anguish of the multiple variants that could emerge helps to maintain the necessary distance. Rationalizing the problem into subsets, using tried-and-tested crisis management methods, or returning to one's own tools and methods, often helps to restore the clarity needed to make the right decision.

Cognitive change

The aim here is to reformulate inwardly the often automatic meaning we attribute to an event. A comment perceived as criticism can be seen, with hindsight, as a signal of confidence or an invitation to progress. Apparent tension in a team may reflect a need for adjustment, not necessarily opposition. Changing the way you interpret a situation immediately changes the emotional charge that accompanies it.

Response modulation

Finally, when emotion has already set in, there's the question of how to respond to it. Taking a breath before speaking, slowing down the pace of a meeting, regaining awareness of your body posture, deferring a response to a message perceived as aggressive: these micro-gestures have a powerful regulating effect. They restore control of tone, and therefore of substance. Over the years, I've had the opportunity to observe a number of top managers confronted with high-stress situations: I've never seen them lose their composure. Their mastery came from experience, and certainly from regular training in these modes of regulation.

Emotional regulation is not innate: like any skill, it must be developed. It has a direct influence on the quality of decisions, team cohesion, customer relations and an organization's ability to deal with complexity.

An emotionally lucid professional is not someone who is cold, but someone who remains intellectually available when things are hectic around him. However, this ability varies from person to person. We don't all react in the same way to pressure: some feel stimulated by urgency, others weakened by the unexpected. This has as much to do with our personalities as with our backgrounds, the way in which each of us has been able, over time, to develop our own regulatory tools. The environment also plays a decisive role. It's always an interaction between the individual and the context in which he or she evolves, between personal resources and the reality on the ground, which can be favorable or unfavorable.

At ISFB, this approach is an integral part of our management and crisis management training courses, where we explore precisely these joint dimensions - how to understand oneself, others and the collective dynamic - to better act with lucidity and accuracy. We use tools such as WAVE and PULSIONS in our Mentoring and Team Building services, which are always read with the help of our consultants to help each individual identify his or her own emotional performance levers. These elements are also integrated into our banking assessments, to link individual development to the operational reality of the business.