Eight ways leaders try to help, and why the most British instinct is one of the least effective
"Keep calm and carry on" might be one of the most British instincts there is. As a way of helping a colleague through a difficult day, it is also one of the least effective strategies available to a leader.
Leaders spend a surprising amount of time trying to make other people feel better: calming a frustrated customer, settling an anxious team member, supporting a colleague who has just had bad news. Researchers call this interpersonal emotion regulation, and it is a large part of what leading people through change actually involves.
Eight Ways Leaders Try to Help
The Regulation of Others' Emotions Scale, developed by MacCann and colleagues, identifies eight strategies people use. They differ mainly in how much they engage with the other person's experience.
High-engagement strategies
Receptive listening - actively hearing and validating how someone feels.
Valuing - expressing appreciation for their effort or contribution.
Cognitive reframing - helping them see the situation differently, for example as a learning opportunity.
Direct action - practically helping to solve the problem.
Moderate-engagement strategies
Humour - lightening the mood.
Distraction - shifting attention elsewhere for a while.
Low-engagement strategies
Expressive suppression - encouraging someone to put a brave face on it.
Downward social comparison - pointing out that others have it worse.
Research comparing these strategies consistently finds the high-engagement ones linked to better outcomes for the person being helped and for the relationship. The low-engagement strategies tend to close the conversation down rather than resolve anything.
“"Others have it worse" and "chin up" end the conversation. They rarely end the problem.”
The “chin up” approach, rarely has the desired effect. Photo Getty Images Unsplash
What People Actually Do at Work
A 2026 study from the University of Sheffield by Verma, Niven and Lawrence-Thomas tracked 219 UK and Irish office workers through 791 real workplace interactions where someone expressed negative emotion. The encouraging news is that receptive listening was the most commonly used strategy. Expressive suppression was the least.
Two further findings are particularly useful for leaders.
Closeness Comes First
The closer people felt to the person who was struggling, the more motivated they were to help, and the more they used supportive strategies such as listening and valuing. Humour and distraction also increased with closeness, which makes sense: both depend on knowing the person well enough to judge what will land.
The practical implication is straightforward. Leaders cannot build relationships at the moment someone is struggling. The quality of support a leader is able to offer in a difficult conversation is largely decided by the relationship that existed before it. That is the Support Network dimension of The Resilience Wheel in practice.
When You Are Feeling It Too
The second finding concerns the helper's own emotional state. The more negative people felt during an interaction, the more motivated they were to help and the more strategies of every kind they used. Intense moments prompt effort.
There was one interesting age difference. When emotions were running high, older workers were less likely to fall back on expressive suppression. Under pressure, they set aside the least effective strategy rather than reaching for it.
This matters because difficult conversations during change rarely happen when a leader is calm and well-rested. They happen when the leader is also under pressure. Leaders who notice their own state, and choose not to default to "let's just get on with it", tend to offer far better support.
Swapping the Stiff Upper Lip
A few practical swaps make a significant difference:
Instead of "Try not to let it get to you." Try "That sounds really frustrating. What's the hardest part?"
Instead of "At least you've still got a job." Try "This change has landed hard on your team. What would help most right now?"
Instead of "We all just need to crack on." Try "I appreciate how much you've carried this month. Let's look at what we can take off your plate."
Instead of moving straight to solutions, listen first. Reframing and practical help land far better once someone feels heard.
Why This Matters for Change
Looking After Yourself as the Helper
Supporting other people's emotions takes energy, and during sustained change leaders can find themselves doing it all day. The research showed people put in more effort when they were feeling negative themselves, which is admirable and also unsustainable over long periods. Leaders who support others well over time tend to have their own outlet: a peer, a coach or a trusted colleague who does the same for them. In Resilience Wheel terms, a leader's Support Network needs to flow in both directions.
Matching the Strategy to the Emotion of Change
Change tends to produce a recognisable set of emotions, and each responds best to different support:
Loss - of a role, a team, a way of working - responds best to receptive listening and valuing what the person has contributed.
Uncertainty responds best to direct action: clear information about what is known, what is not, and when more will be shared.
Frustration responds to listening first, then reframing, once the person feels heard.
Anxiety responds to practical help and steady presence, rather than reassurance that everything will be fine.
None of these call for suppression or comparison. All of them call for a leader who is willing to stay in the conversation a little longer than is comfortable.
Listening Properly Is Harder Than It Sounds
Receptive listening was the most common strategy in the Sheffield study, which is encouraging. Doing it well is another matter. Most leaders are trained, and rewarded, for solving problems quickly. Listening properly asks them to slow down first:
Reflect back what you have heard before responding, so the person knows it has landed.
Resist the urge to fix in the first two minutes.
Ask one more question than feels natural.
Allow silence. People often say the most important thing after a pause.
When Humour Helps and When It Hurts
Humour sits in the middle of the eight strategies, and the research suggests why. It increased with closeness: people used it more with those they knew well, where they could judge what would land. In the Sheffield study, younger workers also used it more than older colleagues.
Used well, humour releases tension and reminds people they are not alone. Used too early, or with someone the leader does not know well, it can feel dismissive, as if the problem is not being taken seriously. A useful rule is to listen first and laugh later, if the moment allows it.
Every significant change produces difficult emotions: uncertainty, frustration, loss, anxiety. Leaders are often the first person those emotions are expressed to. How they respond shapes whether people work through those feelings or bury them, and buried feelings have a habit of resurfacing as cynicism and disengagement a few months later.
The stiff upper lip has its place. Staying composed under pressure is a genuine leadership strength. Asking other people to suppress what they feel is something else entirely, and it is rarely what helps them move forward.
For L&D Professionals
Most leadership programmes teach leaders to manage their own emotions far more than they teach them to support other people's. Teaching the eight strategies explicitly, and practising the high-engagement ones, gives managers a practical toolkit for the difficult conversations that change inevitably brings. Because closeness drives the quality of support, investment in relationship quality is part of the same capability, not a separate initiative.
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