Human beings are messy, emotional creatures. We all feel anxiety, anger, fear, and defensiveness at points in our lives and often, we give in to these strong emotions. It gets even messier when we have emotional outbursts in the workplace, which can happen quite often.

At some point in your management career, you will have to handle a situation where an employee is angry or upset. How you deal with this emotional outburst is crucial to maintaining a positive working environment and, if done right, can positively change the trajectory of the employee's experience. But let's face it, it can be overwhelming to work through an emotionally charged situation with an employee and it's easy to make things worse. The stakes are high, and a negative interaction could cause the employee to feel unheard or uncared about, decreasing overall satisfaction and could result in the person leaving the company.

Appropriately connecting and communicating with an upset employee is essential to turn the situation around effectively.

Listen to hear my tips on what to do, and more importantly, what not to do.

The question of the episode comes via LinkedIn. "Kerry, I have an employee whom I need to give tough feedback to, but he is a single thread. If he takes it the wrong way and leaves, I am screwed, and the company is screwed. What should I do?"

Great question, and I have been there – more times than I want to admit.

Everyone needs feedback to improve, and withholding feedback from this person keeps them from performing better and making improvements. So they deserve to hear the feedback. Check out the episode for more tips!

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