Emotional Agility: Between Emotion and Action
By Sophie Makonnen
My last blog explored a simple but important idea: emotions aren’t distractions—they’re data. They’re not something to “manage” away, but signals to tune into. Emotions tell us that something matters, whether it’s frustration, excitement, joy, resentment, fear, embarrassment, or anxiety. Something is at stake.
But once you’ve paused, listened, and acknowledged what you’re feeling… what comes next?
Because listening is just the beginning.
The next step we often skip is deciding what to do with that emotional information. How do you respond without pushing past it, pretending it doesn’t matter, or getting swept away?
That’s easier said than done. Because once you’ve acknowledged the emotion, you're often left in unfamiliar territory. Do you speak up? Do you pause? Do you push forward?
You feel something deeply, but the work doesn’t stop. There are still activities to oversee, deadlines to meet, and teams to support. The culture may not tell you to ignore your feelings, but there’s an unspoken pressure to keep things moving. And in trying to stay present with your emotions while also pushing forward, you can feel stuck, uncertain how to honour what’s coming up without getting derailed by it.
Here’s the real challenge: How do you use your emotions without powering through them or becoming them? This blog is about that in-between space.
This is where the practice of emotional agility becomes essential. It offers us a way to stay connected to what we feel without letting it define us and to lead with clarity and care, even when the emotional terrain is complex.
What Is Emotional Agility?
We have challenged the idea that emotions should be dismissed and established that they are helpful. But recognizing that emotions are valid and valuable is just the beginning.
Once we’ve acknowledged what we’re feeling, how do we stay in contact with those emotions without being consumed by them?
This is where emotional agility, a term coined by psychologist Susan David, comes into play. It’s the capacity to be with your thoughts and emotions, especially the difficult ones, with openness and compassion, and still take action that aligns with your values.
It’s not about being unaffected. It’s about making space for emotion without letting it take over. In other words, it’s the difference between being hooked by your emotions and navigating them with intention, per Susan David’s words.
When you're emotionally agile, you acknowledge what you're feeling but don’t let it drive your decisions by default. You create enough space to pause, reflect, and ask: What’s happening here? What matters most right now? That pause should not get in the way of action. Its purpose is to allow for more thoughtful action. And it’s in that moment of choice, not reaction, that one can recognize leadership capacity.
Often attributed to Viktor Frankl, there’s a well-known insight: between what we feel and how we respond, there’s a space. Emotional agility helps us widen that space. It allows us to respond with greater care, alignment, and intention—even when the context is unclear or the pressure is high.
Here’s how Susan David puts it:
“Emotional agility is not about ignoring difficult emotions and thoughts. It’s about holding them lightly, facing them courageously and compassionately, and then moving forward in a way that’s aligned with your values.”
It’s the inner skill that helps you say:
“I’m feeling overwhelmed—but I don’t have to make a decision from that place.”
“I notice self-doubt creeping in—but I can still take this step.”
“This feels unfair—and I can address it without burning out or breaking down.”
Emotional agility isn’t about being unshakable. It’s about being flexible. Not performatively calm, but steady in what matters.
And in systems where control is often an illusion, inner flexibility is one of the most powerful forms of leadership we can practice.
Before we explore how to practice emotional agility, it’s worth considering why it matters, especially in social impact work, where emotions often lie beneath the surface.
Why It Matters in Social Impact Work
In social impact spaces, emotional complexity is woven into the work itself. You’re not just managing projects—you’re advancing a mission that matters. But you’re doing it within systems shaped by bureaucracy, politics, and often, urgency.
You're expected to deliver measurable results in environments shaped by cross-agency dynamics, shifting priorities, and sometimes unclear expectations. All while holding space for the human impact of your work—on partners, communities, and sometimes, on your identity.
When we don’t have space to process emotions like frustration, disappointment, or moral tension, they don’t disappear—they leak into our meetings, emails, silence, or burnout.
Emotional agility also helps protect you from the internalized narratives that so many professionals carry quietly:
• “I have to keep proving I belong.”
• “I should be able to handle this without needing support.”
• “If I speak up, I’ll be seen as too emotional or too much.”
It permits you to hold complexity—to say, yes, this is hard, and here’s how I want to show up anyway. It helps you stay connected to your purpose without being consumed by the pressure.
It’s not just about resilience—it’s about self-compassion.
In mission-driven work, where so much is expected of you but not always reciprocated, that kind of clarity isn’t just helpful. It’s essential. When the mission is rooted in care but the systems don’t always reflect it, the gap can feel personal and exhausting. Emotional agility helps you stay steady in that space.
That’s why it helps to have a practical approach—something that supports you when the work becomes deeply personal, and forces beyond your control shape the outcomes.
I’ve lived that tension myself.
Over 17 years ago, I worked on a project focused on school infrastructure. It mattered to me—professionally and personally. I believed that improving education wasn't only about teachers and textbooks, though both are critical, but also about the physical spaces where children learn. Especially for students living in extreme poverty, I wondered: Why go from one broken space to another? Why so much continuity in discomfort?
If school is meant to be a place for change, it shouldn’t reproduce poverty in its design. Of course, I knew infrastructure alone wasn’t the solution. All the pieces needed to move—economic opportunity, quality teaching, community support—but the space still mattered.
At the time, I didn’t feel this view was taken seriously. It wasn’t central to the education agenda, and with little data to back it up, it was easy to sideline. Still, I pushed forward. The project was eventually approved.
Then a natural disaster struck, devastating the capital and surrounding areas. The organization shifted into emergency response mode. My project was redirected to set up temporary educational facilities—an essential and urgent pivot.
It was the right response. I had lived through the same disaster. But I still remember the moment I learned that the emergency effort would be the project. The work I had poured myself into—the careful design, the persistence—had quietly become something else.
A small price to pay, given what was at stake. But still, a moment that stayed with me.
Looking back, it taught me what it means to care deeply, adapt quickly, and stay connected to what matters—even when the outcome shifts.
The Four Steps of Emotional Agility in Action
So, how do you practice emotional agility?
Dr. Susan David offers an interesting four-step framework to help us move from reactivity to intentional, values-aligned action. These steps don’t require you to have all the answers or to be emotionally “together” all the time. They offer a pathway—a way to stay in relationship with your emotions without becoming overwhelmed or defined by them.
Let’s walk through the four steps:
Show Up
The first step is to face your emotions, not fight them. This means allowing yourself to feel what you feel, without judging the emotion as wrong, dramatic, or inconvenient. Even the difficult emotions have something to tell us.
Showing up means getting curious about what’s present. It means creating space for your inner experience with honesty and compassion, not wallowing in it but understanding it.
You might ask yourself:
What am I feeling right now?
What is this emotion pointing to?
You can’t shift what you’re not willing to acknowledge. Emotional agility starts with presence, not performance.
Step Out
Stepping out is noticing your thoughts and emotions without being swept up by them. It means acknowledging that what you feel or think in a given moment might hold insight, but doesn’t have to dictate your next move. When you step out, you create a slight but meaningful pause between the situation and your response. And in that pause, you're no longer reacting on autopilot or from old habits or inner narratives. You’re choosing how to respond with clarity and intention.
Stepping out is about loosening the grip of strong emotions or rigid stories. It’s about noticing the narrative running in your mind—“They never listen to me,” or “I always have to prove myself”—and asking:
Is this story helpful?
Is it true?
What else might be true?
This step invites clarity and self-leadership, especially when your emotions feel intense or overwhelming.
Walk Your Why
This is the heart of emotional agility: reconnecting with your values.
Once you’ve shown up and stepped out, the question becomes: What matters most to me now? No, what I should do or what will make others happy, but what aligns with who I want to be.
Your values act like a compass. They don’t tell you what to feel—they help guide what you do with those feelings.
Walking your why allows you to respond, not react, to challenging moments in a way that feels true to you. It’s how you stay anchored in integrity, even when emotions run high or the path ahead is unclear.
Ask yourself:
What value do I want to honour right now?
How can I show up in a way that reflects who I am and what I care about?
Move On
Finally, emotional agility invites us to take action. But not a reactive action. Instead, it asks: What’s one small, meaningful step I can take that reflects my values? It is about taking a deliberate step in a new direction. This doesn’t have to be grand or perfect. It could be a conversation, a boundary, a pause, a shift in tone, or a decision to revisit something later with a clearer mind. The goal isn’t to solve everything—it’s to move forward with intention.
You might reflect:
What’s one step I can take from this place of clarity?
What would leadership look like here, rooted in my values, not my stress?
Small, values-aligned actions create momentum. Over time, this is how we build resilience: not by powering through but by choosing wisely, one step at a time.
Crossing the River: A Story for Emotional Agility
There’s a river you’ve crossed many times before. Sometimes the current is strong. Other times it’s quiet, but still deep. You know better than to try to leap across—it’s too wide, too unpredictable.
The river is like our emotional experience—ever-changing, sometimes overwhelming, but always present.
Instead, you look for the stepping stones. You don’t rush. You pause. You watch the flow of the water.
Each stone is a choice.
You place your foot, feel for balance, and only then do you shift your weight. You’re not ignoring the river—you’re moving with care through it.
That’s what emotional agility looks like.
Not avoiding emotion, and not getting swept away by it either. Just learning how to cross, one steady step at a time.
One Last Pause
Emotional agility isn’t about always getting it right. It’s not about mastering your emotions or staying calm no matter what. It’s about noticing what’s happening inside you—and giving yourself a moment of pause before moving forward. That pause can be quiet. Unseen. But it matters. So the next time discomfort shows up, Pause. Listen in. Let it inform your perspective, but not override your judgment.