This week blog is a reflection on the importance of emotion in decision-making. I have been involved in various situations where my confidence was very strong and the outcome was somewhat what I expected, and then in situations where I was less confident and outcome was greater than planned.

Military Experience

While in the military, the most traumatic event in my military service was September 11, 2001.  I was very confident in my job duties, my leadership skills, and how I interacted with others. I worked in the maintenance operation’s center, where our team had trained for 10 years on how to react to various simulated scenarios.  When the events of 9/11 unfolded, I found myself numb and suddenly insecure about what I am supposed to do. My unit was deployed and I was left behind to manage the daily operations, which was supposed to be status quo.

My decision-making was now embraced with emotional anger, which empowered my adrenaline. I had key leaders invading my space, as my area became the active response center for the Oklahoma area. As a leader, I was trained to not show emotion but react. I immediately put the emotion to the side, and reacted. I had aircraft that needed to be generated for readiness to respond to attack in the area, if needed. I needed our traditional weekend airman to come and help, voluntarily.

I had to make some very hard decisions as a young leader. I tried persuading volunteers to come in and help, but majority of the help were full-time college students or had other vital jobs in the community. I had to apply the state activation method and enforce military members to leave their jobs, families, and school. This was a very hard decision, and personally I had no problem leaving my children with family, but it really bothered me to rip other people away from their families.

After three days of emotional anger, no sleep, running the maintenance operations center, ate very little due to my nerves; I was so exhausted to even make a decision, and I felt like a zombie with no emotional attachment. It was my wing commander he ordered me to go home and get some rest.

The value of the event is I learned that one can make good decisions based when there is an emotional connection, and in this scenario was anger.  I know I did all the right things, however I also learned my own ability to cope with emotions eventually became drained. Emotions can be sporadic and run out of fuel, and we must know how they can help or hurt us.

Serving in the military, I had plenty of opportunities to deploy overseas. I have seen things and people react, based on all types of emotions. Some are good, and some were bad. I think we also learn from other people’s decision-making based on emotion. An example is when a military sergeant yells at another troop because if feels good to them, which you can easily identify based on their words, direct approach, and tone there is an emotional connection to their decision to participate in this type of activity. I am not a mean spiteful person, but watching this type of behavior has taught me not to make those type of decisions or make sure I remove my personal emotions from the situation. As leaders we have to be confident and secure in what we do, and at the same time not use our personal emotions to make situations worse.  I truly feel the military is what taught me on how to handle emotional during decisions.

The 9/11 event and activity is one where I was extremely confident, but fail short in the end as not everything turned out the way I had wanted. Getting sent home because I was exhausted, made me question my own ability to be a leader. I did nothing wrong, but became the start where I am always doing a self-check and questioning my own decision-making. I am always asking for feedback on how I handled something.

Parenting

In parenting, my confidence in decision-making is like an emotional roller coaster. Raising four daughters was or is still a challenge. When the girls were little, decision-making was simple and confidence was higher, as they relied on the parents to make all the decisions for them. As the girls reached their teenage years, the confidence was decreased and decision-making was a challenge as they had minds of their own.

Example of emotional decisions, is when the girls starting their hanging with friends phase as teens. We were considered to be the helicopter parents, and my choice to make sure I talked with other parents prior to my children going to their homes, totally disappointed our girls. Even at the age of 18, I expected my girls to call me when they got somewhere and when they left. My emotion was embraced with the protective unknowns and not thinking our girls was smart enough to keep out of potential danger. I did not trust the environment of our society, which is based on the too much news about parents where not engaged to this amount of detail, and bad things could occur.

I always felt like I was a horrible parent who ruined their lives because I was too protective. However, they are all adults today. Two of them are now parents themselves and I have learned so much listening to how they will parent their teenage children someday. They too are very protective and have the early parent confidence that their kids will not do certain things, perhaps more protective than I was. My greatest accomplishment is hearing them parent just like we did.

My emotional attachment to my children is what drove all my decision making as a parent. It was very much a roller coaster that had challenges, obstacles, and various times I felt unconfident and left with wondering if I made the right decisions. Today, I can say I made the right decisions. Parenting is one of those events were you have less confidence and had a complete better outcome than I thought it would be.

Conclusion

Effects of emotions play a role in decision making, especially when we do not know the projected outcome. There is risk associated with decisions and I think we have to be careful to make sure the right balance of emotion is applied. I also think our confidence in oneself comes over time and it is something we cannot just get overnight. The military scenario of 9/11 I was very confident in my job, but not confident in myself. In order to maintain what was expected, I let myself down physically.  When it came to parenting, I never felt like I made the best decision. Later when my children became parents, they let me know just how great of a parent I really was. I do value feedback, which helps people understand their strengths and weaknesses in their confidence in making decisions. Those decisions that have higher levels of risk require more feedback to ensure confidence is restored and good decisions are being made.

References: 

Hoch, Stephen J., and Kunreuther, Howard C. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.