Emotional Wellbeing at Work: 7 Behaviours That Support It

Emotional wellbeing at work does not mean feeling positive all the time. Work brings pressure, setbacks, difficult conversations, uncertainty and days when things simply do not go to plan.

Emotional wellbeing is better thought of as our ability to recognise what is happening, respond constructively, recover when things are difficult and take appropriate action to support ourselves and others.

It is also important not to make workplace wellbeing entirely an individual responsibility. Workload, role clarity, job control, leadership, relationships, psychological safety and access to support can all influence how people experience work.

Within that wider organisational context, there are behaviours individuals can develop that may help them manage the everyday emotional demands of working life.

Emotional wellbeing at work is not about avoiding difficult emotions. It is about noticing them, understanding what they may be telling us and choosing what we do next.

What supports emotional wellbeing at work?

There is no single behaviour that creates emotional wellbeing. It is usually the result of many factors working together, including the environment we work in, the demands placed upon us, the resources available to us and the way we respond.

Here are seven practical behaviours worth developing.

1. Pay attention to what you let into your head

Our attention is a limited resource.

News alerts, social media, workplace rumours, constant notifications and repeated exposure to problems we cannot influence can quietly consume a surprising amount of mental energy.

Looking after emotional wellbeing does not mean ignoring difficult information or surrounding ourselves only with positive messages. It means being more deliberate about what receives our attention.

A useful question is:

Is this information useful, proportionate and something I can act upon?

If the answer is no, continually returning to it may be adding noise rather than helping. At work, the same principle applies. Staying informed matters. Becoming absorbed by every conversation, frustration or piece of speculation usually does not.

2. Notice how you are feeling

We cannot manage an emotional response particularly well if we have not noticed it. Emotional awareness is the ability to recognise our emotions, reactions and behavioural patterns and to notice how they may be affecting judgement, communication and performance.

That might mean recognising:

• frustration before sending the email
• anxiety before entering the meeting
• defensiveness when receiving feedback
• fatigue before agreeing to one more commitment
• excitement before making an overly optimistic decision

The goal is not to analyse every feeling. It is simply to notice enough to give ourselves a choice about what happens next.

Sometimes a short pause and a simple question is enough:

What am I feeling, and how might it be influencing what I am about to do?

This is one of the reasons emotional awareness is measured within eqflow®. Awareness provides information. What we do with that information requires another capability, emotional regulation.

3. Regulate before you react

Emotional regulation is not about suppressing emotion or pretending that everything is fine. It is about responding proportionately.

Pressure can narrow attention and make immediate reactions feel compelling. An angry response, defensive comment or rushed decision may provide momentary release while creating a much bigger problem later.

Regulation creates space between the emotional response and the behaviour that follows it.

That space might involve:

• pausing before answering
• asking a question rather than making an assumption
• checking the facts
• reframing the situation
• taking time before making an important decision
• choosing to return to a conversation when you can approach it more constructively

The aim is not perfect composure. It is having enough flexibility to choose a response that fits the person, situation and outcome you are trying to achieve.

4. Understand what motivates you

People are not all motivated by the same things.

One person may value autonomy and the freedom to decide how work gets done. Another may be energised by collaboration. Others may place greater value on growth, recognition, reward, wellbeing or a strong sense of purpose.

Understanding what matters to us can help explain why some parts of a role feel energising while others steadily drain motivation. It can also lead to better conversations.

Instead of waiting until motivation has disappeared, we can ask:

• What parts of my work give me energy?
• What matters most to me at this stage of my career?
• What am I currently missing?
• What could I reasonably change?
• What conversation might I need to have with my manager?

Not every role can satisfy every preference, and motivation should not be confused with expecting work to feel enjoyable all the time.

However, understanding our motivational drivers gives us better information for making decisions about roles, development and the conditions in which we tend to work well.

motivationflow® explores seven workplace motivation drivers and how their relative importance may change between day-to-day working conditions and periods of pressure.

5. Build resilience, but remember to recover

Resilience is sometimes described as the ability to keep going. That is only part of the picture.

Healthy resilience also involves adapting when circumstances change, thinking accurately when things go wrong, maintaining perspective, expressing needs appropriately and knowing when persistence is useful and when a different approach is required.

Recovery matters too. Research into recovery from work has repeatedly found that being able to psychologically detach from work during non-working time is associated with better wellbeing and lower fatigue and exhaustion.

In practice, that may mean creating periods when work is genuinely finished rather than remaining mentally connected to it throughout the evening.

Resilience is therefore not a competition to see who can tolerate the most pressure.

It is the capability to respond, adapt and recover.

resilienceflow® measures six workplace resilience capabilities: Optimism, Unbiased Thinking, Self-Esteem, Perseverance, Adaptability and Assertiveness.

6. Know what to hold onto and what to let go

One of the most useful distinctions at work is the difference between what we can control, what we can influence and what sits outside both.

We cannot control another person’s reaction. We cannot personally remove every organisational constraint. We cannot make uncertainty disappear.

We can usually choose something about our own response.

That may include seeking better information, raising an issue, setting a boundary, asking for help, adapting our approach or deciding where our effort is most useful.

This is not about accepting poor workplace conditions or taking responsibility for things that genuinely sit elsewhere.

It is about avoiding two unhelpful extremes: trying to control everything, or assuming that nothing we do makes a difference.

A more balanced question is:

Given the reality of this situation, what can I usefully do next?

This relationship between personal agency and external reality is explored further in our article on locus of control, accountability and leadership.

7. Be brave enough to seek support

The original version of this article ended with a simple observation: people who look after their emotional wellbeing are often brave.

That still feels worth keeping.

Sometimes courage looks like trying again after a setback. Sometimes it means having the conversation we have been avoiding. Sometimes it means setting a boundary or admitting that we do not know what to do next.

And sometimes it means recognising that ordinary workplace development strategies are not enough.

If emotional distress is persistent, overwhelming or affecting someone’s ability to function, seeking appropriate professional support is a sensible response, not a failure of resilience.

Managers and colleagues can listen, support and help people access appropriate resources, but they should not be expected to diagnose or treat mental health conditions.

Emotional wellbeing is both personal and organisational

There is an important caution in any discussion about workplace wellbeing.

Teaching people to regulate their emotions, build resilience or manage their attention cannot compensate for persistently unreasonable workloads, unclear roles, bullying, poor leadership or working conditions that create avoidable harm.

Individuals have choices about how they respond at work. Organisations have responsibilities for the environment in which those choices are being made.

The strongest approach considers both. For individuals, that means building useful behavioural capability.

For leaders, it means paying attention to the conditions, systems and behaviours that shape people’s experience of work.

A simple emotional wellbeing check

When work is demanding, ask yourself:

• Awareness: What am I feeling?
• Regulation: Is my response proportionate?
• Attention: What am I giving mental energy to?
• Motivation: What is energising or draining me?
• Resilience: Do I need to persist, adapt or recover?
• Control: What can I realistically influence?
• Support: Is this something I should be dealing with alone?

Understanding behaviour under pressure

Many workplace behaviours change when pressure increases.

Someone who usually regulates their emotions effectively may become more reactive. A normally adaptable person may become rigid. A motivational driver that matters little day to day may become much more important when demands increase.

This is why the flowprofiler® assessment family examines behaviour in two states, day-to-day and under pressure.

flowprofiler® brings together 18 behavioural dimensions across emotional and social intelligence, resilience and motivation, providing individuals and organisations with a structured way to explore current behavioural patterns and development opportunities.

The purpose is not to label people or suggest that an assessment can measure mental health.

It cannot.

flowprofiler® assessments are workplace psychometric assessments. They provide behavioural insight that can support development, coaching, leadership and better workplace conversations.

Because understanding how we behave is often the first step towards choosing what we want to do differently.

Explore the flowprofiler® assessment family or contact us to discuss how behavioural assessment can support your people and leaders.