From Code to Charisma: Emotional Mastery for Tech Leaders

In tech, leadership is about more than managing projects – it’s about influencing teams and driving collaboration. This article explores how understanding the brain’s states – rational, emotional, and survival – can enhance decision-making and innovation. By mastering emotional regulation, trust, and psychological safety, leaders can empower teams to thrive and unlock their full potential.

The Power of Influence in Leadership: Collaboration in the Tech Industry

As a Leadership Psychologist working with tech professionals, I define influence as the ability to guide, inspire, or shape the actions and decisions of others without relying on authority or formal power.

In the tech industry, influence is essential because it helps individuals collaborate across departments, align on goals, and drive innovation in often complex, fast-paced environments. It’s not just about convincing others to adopt your ideas but creating an environment where you inspire trust and openness, fostering a culture of shared problem-solving and continuous learning.

Influence serves several key purposes. First, it enables leaders to rally teams around a common vision, ensuring everyone is working toward the same goals. For example: a team leader regularly shares the progress of a product launch, so the team remains focused and motivated toward achieving it.

It also allows individuals to advocate for their ideas and solutions in a way that resonates with others, driving the adoption of new technologies or processes. Think about an engineer that presents a new software feature to the team, using data and case studies to show how it will enhance user experience, persuading others to support its development.

Finally, influence is crucial in navigating challenges, as it helps leaders and engineers manage conflicts, encourage diverse perspectives, and align differing opinions toward productive outcomes. E.g.: a project manager mediates between stakeholders with conflicting priorities, ensuring all parties understand the constraints and align their goals to move forward.

Essentially, influence is about creating meaningful connections and empowering others to achieve collective success.

The Differences Between the Rational, Emotional, and Survival Brain

Understanding the different parts of the brain – rational, emotional, and survival – can be incredibly useful when navigating workplace (and private, for that matter) dynamics.

The rational brain, primarily driven by the prefrontal cortex, is responsible for logical thinking, problem-solving, and long term decision-making. In a tech environment, this part of the brain is crucial when engineers are for example coding, debugging, or designing solutions. It allows for clarity, focus, and strategic thinking and is concerned with content and the future.

The emotional brain, located in the limbic system, processes feelings, empathy, and social interactions. It’s central to how we connect with others, manage stress, and navigate team dynamics. In tech settings, this part of the brain influences collaboration, motivation, and how we respond to feedback or conflict. Understanding emotions – both our own and others’ – helps create a positive, productive work culture. It is also the gatekeeper that decides on whether we can even access the rational brain – if we do not feel safe enough with the people/environment around us, the emotional brain will signal the survival brain to ‘get into action’.

Finally, the survival brain, governed by the brainstem and amygdala, is triggered in response to perceived threats, often activating one of the survival strategies: “fight, flight, freeze or fawn” response. In high-pressure situations, like tight deadlines or challenging projects, as well as conflict with others, this part of the brain can cause stress and anxiety, which can hinder performance.

Recognizing when this brain is activated and managing its impact is key to maintaining focus and well-being. The process by which we can return from the survival brain to the rational brain is called emotional regulation. Emotional regulation is the process by which we manage the emotional responses triggered by the survival brain, bringing us back into a more balanced, calm, and rational state. The goal is to prevent the survival brain from taking over entirely, allowing us to think more clearly and respond appropriately to challenges.

Detecting the brain state

Detecting which brain state a person is in – rational, emotional, or survival – can be done by observing both verbal and non-verbal cues.

When a person is in the rational brain state, they tend to exhibit calm, clear thinking, and logical communication. Their tone is steady, and they’re more likely to engage in problem-solving conversations, ask thoughtful questions, and express ideas in a structured way. They’re typically open to feedback and will respond with reasoned arguments. They tend to make measured eye contact – not overly avoiding or extremely confrontational.

In an emotional brain state, you might notice a shift toward more expressive, reactive behavior. People may become more passionate, animated, or even defensive. They might show signs of empathy or frustration depending on the situation. Body language may include raised voices, gesturing, or closed-off postures, like crossed arms. Conversations can become more subjective or focused on personal experience rather than logic.

When someone is in a survival brain state, responses become more automatic and less reflective. People may appear tense, disengaged, or overly defensive. Non-verbal signs include shallow breathing, fidgeting, or a tense posture. They might be quick to react, less open to collaboration, or struggle to engage in rational conversation, as their focus is on self-preservation. They tend to avoid eye contact as much as possible or engage in aggressive, very direct eye contact.

Recognizing these shifts allows leaders to adapt their communication and provide the right support to help individuals move back to a more productive (rational) brain state.

Helping Others to be in the Rational Brain State in the Workplace

Getting individuals into a rational brain state involves creating an environment that minimizes stress and fosters focus. The first step is reducing any external or internal threats that might trigger the emotional or survival brain. This can be done by addressing immediate concerns or anxieties that team members may have, such as tight deadlines or interpersonal conflicts. If you can’t reduce threats in a situation, due to ongoing conflicts, or unavoidable stressors in life, it becomes even more crucial to manage how you respond to those threats. For example by using social support.

Another key strategy is to promote psychological safety. When people feel safe to express ideas, ask questions, and make mistakes without fear of judgment, they’re more likely to shift into a rational state. Encouraging open communication, active listening, and empathy during discussions helps lower defensiveness and allows individuals to feel heard and understood.

Additionally, facilitating structure and clarity is vital. Providing clear goals, expectations, and processes can reduce cognitive overload and confusion, which can push people into the emotional or survival brain. Techniques like taking short breaks, promoting mindfulness, or guiding people through a brief breathing exercise can help reset their focus and calm their nervous system, encouraging a shift back into rational thinking.

Ultimately, it’s about creating a supportive and calm environment where people feel empowered to think logically, collaborate effectively, and solve complex problems together.

When in an actual conversation/conflict situation, it can be helpful to use the LSD technique: Listen attentively; Summarize the content and emotions the other was talking about and Directing the conversation with an open question. This way the other person feels heard and understood and will be more easily able to regulate themselves back to their rational brain. LSD can be used several times in a conversation and is a very effective technique to increase cooperation and decrease stress and conflict.

To give an example, a participant in one of our feedback workshops wanted to practice LSD.

Alex (developer) is frustrated because the project manager, Sarah, has moved up a feature release deadline, making it tight and hard to meet.

Step 1: Listen Attentively

Sarah: “I hear that you’re frustrated about the new deadline and worried we won’t have enough time to test properly, is that right?”

Step 2: Summarize Content and Emotions

Sarah: “It sounds like you’re feeling stressed because the new timeline feels unrealistic and could compromise quality.”

Step 3: Direct with an Open Question

Sarah: “What do you think we could do to prioritize the most critical features while still meeting the deadline?”

By using the LSD technique, Sarah shows she understands Alex’s worries, helping him feel heard and encouraging a more collaborative approach to solving the problem.

Emotional regulation

Regulating and dealing with emotions starts with awareness. The first step is recognizing when emotions are influencing our thoughts or behaviors. Being aware of one’s own triggers, allergies, and coping strategies is highly useful, for example by using Offman’s Core Quadrants (a tool that provides insight into four personal traits: core qualities, pitfalls, challenges and allergies) and doing introspection or coaching.

Encouraging mindfulness practices – such as deep breathing or short meditation breaks – can help individuals pause and reset, allowing them to consciously respond rather than react. Journaling is a great practice to regulate on a daily basis and develop a healthy habit. I encourage the use of an emotion wheel (a visual representation of various emotions organized in a circular, wheel-like format) to increase the vocabulary and identification of exactly how one feels. An environment of openness is also highly recommended: Managers and leaders can model this by creating a supportive, non-judgmental environment where emotions are acknowledged as information, not dismissed.

Additionally, framing challenges as opportunities for growth rather than threats can reduce emotional reactivity. Encouraging open discussions about feelings in a constructive way helps individuals process emotions and move back to a more rational mindset. Ultimately, building emotional resilience through consistent reflection, feedback, and support allows individuals to better manage emotions, leading to a more productive and positive work environment.

About Feedback: What you can do more of

Our brain is wired to think in terms of scarcity. When we are lacking or wanting something, we develop a sort of focus for it: If for example you are thinking about buying a new car, you suddenly feel like seeing the car you have in mind much more frequently than before.

A thought experiment to illustrate this: When I challenge you to NOT think of yellow tennis balls, normally one of two things happen. Either, you will think of yellow tennis balls; or you have to focus very hard on something other than yellow tennis balls.

If we want to encourage other behaviour (for example whenever we give feedback), it is a lot more practical and efficient to tell the feedback receiver which behaviour we would like to see more of. This way, they are more likely to display more of the desired behaviour and we practise clear expectation management rather than leaving it to the individual to come up with some alternative solution that we may then not like after all as we had something different in mind.

To give an example. “James, you’ve been doing a great job resolving customer issues quickly. I’d love to see you add a bit more empathy to your responses. For example, when a customer is frustrated, try acknowledging their feelings first, like saying, ‘I understand how frustrating that must be.’ This will help build stronger rapport and make the customer feel heard.”

The role of trust and psychological safety and influencing others

Trust and psychological safety are foundational when it comes to influencing people. As a leadership psychologist, I see these factors as crucial for enabling open communication, collaboration, and innovation.

Trust allows individuals to feel confident that their ideas and contributions will be valued, which makes them more likely to engage, share feedback, and take risks without fearing negative consequences. This creates a more productive, creative atmosphere where people can be vulnerable and authentic.

Psychological safety amplifies this effect by ensuring that team members feel safe to express themselves without fear of judgment or retaliation. When people feel psychologically safe, they’re more likely to bring their full selves to work, share diverse ideas, and challenge the status quo – key ingredients for driving change and problem-solving in tech projects.

As a leader or colleague, if you foster an environment where trust and psychological safety are prioritized, you create the conditions for influence that is rooted in mutual respect, openness, and shared goals, ultimately leading to better collaboration and more innovative solutions.

All in all, influence is crucial in the tech industry for fostering collaboration and innovation. By understanding brain states and promoting trust, psychological safety, and emotional regulation, teams can create environments that encourage rational decision-making and effective problem-solving. Prioritizing clear feedback and emotional awareness leads to better teamwork and success. It’s worth it!