Agreed, and I think an unintended consequence of 'focusing on feelings' is that it basically ensures that future interactions will also be all about feelings. (ie. we get more of what we reward)
As an aside: Early in my career I had a manager who was really tough. He was quick to point out problems and was very direct in his language. At first I hated it and was fairly intimidated by him. However I noticed a few things: It was never personal, no personal language was used. It was always factual and consequential. Second, he was good a making decisions and sticking with them. In the end I enjoyed working with him because I knew were he stood on virtually every issue, so it was easy to adjust my work to his expectations.
Next in my career, I worked for a very very different manager. She was very nice, but passive aggressive. That was actually not much of a problem, but her biggest fault is she didn't like making decisions. She would refuse to commit and want everything to be as fluid as possible. In the end, I hated my time there. I normally felt that any meeting with her was totally pointless because she refused to produce any actionable decisions from the meeting. It may sound like a dream job to some to have a boss that "never tells me what to do", but after a year or so it becomes a soul-grinding nightmare.
Agreed, and I think an unintended consequence of 'focusing on feelings' is that it basically ensures that future interactions will also be all about feelings. (ie. we get more of what we reward)
As an aside: Early in my career I had a manager who was really tough. He was quick to point out problems and was very direct in his language. At first I hated it and was fairly intimidated by him. However I noticed a few things: It was never personal, no personal language was used. It was always factual and consequential. Second, he was good a making decisions and sticking with them. In the end I enjoyed working with him because I knew were he stood on virtually every issue, so it was easy to adjust my work to his expectations.
Next in my career, I worked for a very very different manager. She was very nice, but passive aggressive. That was actually not much of a problem, but her biggest fault is she didn't like making decisions. She would refuse to commit and want everything to be as fluid as possible. In the end, I hated my time there. I normally felt that any meeting with her was totally pointless because she refused to produce any actionable decisions from the meeting. It may sound like a dream job to some to have a boss that "never tells me what to do", but after a year or so it becomes a soul-grinding nightmare.