Who holds the emotions? Exposing the hidden power imbalance in “emotionally intelligent” leadership

These past months I had a huge breakthrough.

I’ve always been someone who cares deeply — for people, for harmony, for the emotional undercurrents in a room.
But I hadn’t fully seen the pattern:

I wasn’t just caring.
I was controlling the field through emotional perfectionism.

It hit me how often I’ve filtered what I say, softened the edges, and tried to “stay composed” — even when something inside me was screaming to just be real.

This wasn’t about seeking approval.
I’m not a people-pleaser.

This was something else:

*The unconscious pressure to feel only the “right” emotions
*The habit of pre-processing emotions before speaking truth
*The tendency to manage others’ emotional responses while downplaying my own

Emotional perfectionism isn’t about being neat

Since I was young, people called me a perfectionist. But now I see — it was never about being tidy. It was about being emotionally tidy.

It was about the need to be:
• Emotionally accurate
• Never too much
• Never too wrong
• Never the one to hurt or destabilize others

It showed up as:
• Overthinking what I say or write
• Explaining my truth over and over, to soften it
• Guilt after expressing strong boundaries
• Anxiety after making a decision, replaying what I “could’ve done better”

The hidden belief:

If I’m wrong or too sharp, love will be withdrawn. Safety will be lost.

Overholding. Overcaring. Overwaiting.

Because I feel and see so deeply, I’ve carried the emotional field for others.
I’ve adapted to their capacities, held space for their growth, waited for their expansion.

This showed up as:
• Staying too long in misaligned relationships
• Seeing potential instead of accepting reality
• Carrying emotional labor — initiating hard conversations, sensing what’s unspoken
• Feeling responsible for how others receive my truth
• Delaying my own expansion out of fear of leaving others behind

The hidden belief:

If I leave, they’ll collapse — and I’ll be the one who failed them.

This kept me in a constant tug-of-war between:
• Wanting to speak truth
• Needing to be heard without losing connection
• Feeling too much when I expressed myself
• Feeling not enough when I held back
• Being deeply wise, but fearing visibility
• Wanting to serve, but not wanting to be “wrong” or “too intense”

And it made me wonder — if I’ve been doing this, how many others are?

What does this mean for how we lead, relate, and build?

Emotional perfectionism ≠ people-pleasing

Many confuse the two. Here’s the difference:

Pleasing is often rooted in fear of rejection or punishment. It’s externally focused: “If I behave the way they want, I’ll stay safe.” It leans toward submission and approval-seeking. Think: nodding, apologizing, avoiding confrontation.

Emotional perfectionism, however, is more subtle — and, paradoxically, more empowered on the surface. It's not about pleasing others' demands but preemptively managing the emotional field to prevent disruption, discomfort, or perceived failure in connection. It’s:
“I must be loving and composed”
“I must not make them feel bad”
“I must process everything internally before showing up”
“I must carry the emotional weight so others don’t have to”

It’s not about obedience. It’s about managing the emotional field while appearing composed and selfless.

The masculine (or emotionally blocked) mirror

While emotional perfectionism often shows up more visibly in women, its mirror image tends to appear more frequently in men — though rarely named. Many male leaders may not resonate with the emotional over-functioning I’ve described, but they often embody its opposite: a subtle detachment, a tendency to bypass emotional complexity through stoicism or strategic numbness.

Rather than engaging directly with emotion, they unconsciously outsource emotional labor to those deemed “better at it” — often the women around them. Emotional safety is expected as a given, yet rarely co-created through shared vulnerability or presence.

What’s often overlooked is that female leaders, in order to succeed within these emotionally barren dynamics, have had to harden as well. Many have learned to suppress their deeper emotional intelligence just to be taken seriously — not because they lack emotional depth, but because the system doesn’t reward it.

So while emotional perfectionism appears as a feminine burden, it simultaneously enables and sustains a masculine norm of emotional outsourcing. It’s a feedback loop — each side compensating for what the other avoids — and it’s one of the quiet mechanisms that keeps our leadership cultures stuck in imbalance

How this plays out in organisations

In many organisations, the most empathic leaders quietly carry the emotional weight of the whole team. They become the invisible regulators of group dynamics, constantly attuning, absorbing, and smoothing things over — until burnout inevitably creeps in.

Feedback loops become distorted. Truths are diluted or avoided entirely, not because people lack courage, but because they're conditioned to fear the emotional fallout. As a result, discomfort is dodged, and nothing truly transforms.

Those who are naturally more blunt or emotionally detached often dominate decision-making spaces, while those who are attuned, nuanced, and sensitive to the collective field tend to censor themselves — not out of insecurity, but out of responsibility.

This creates subtle but powerful imbalances. Performance is praised. Output is tracked. But the emotional reality — the humanity of the team — is quietly pushed aside.

The cost? Emotional bottlenecks. Lost truths. Skewed power dynamics. And teams that are physically present but emotionally disconnected.

We call it "burnout." We call it "resistance."
But underneath, it's often a field that’s being held by too few people, for too long — while the rest unconsciously lean on their holding.

New leadership = emotional coherence

New leadership isn’t about being emotionally “correct.”
It’s about being emotionally real.

It means creating cultures where:
• Leaders don't delegate emotional work to the most empathic person in the room
• Truth isn’t polished before it’s spoken
• Holding the field is a shared responsibility

My final reflection:

What if your strength isn’t how composed you are —
but how willing you are to stop managing and start showing?

Let’s stop numbing each other’s discomfort.
Let’s start building fields where truth can land, and wholeness can rise.

Because emotional mastery isn’t about control.
It’s about coherence.
And leadership isn’t about holding it all.
It’s about leading others into a space where nothing has to be held alone.

Rooted within. Building beyond.
~ Luciënne