Disengaged or Emotionally Detached? Is it the same?

I switched from working for a large corporation to running my own business, in part because I wanted more freedom, but more importantly because I stopped growing in the work environment I was in. I felt misaligned, disconnected and detached from myself and the work I was doing. Something I hadn't realized until I was set free.

Employee engagement may be the biggest challenge facing leaders today. With the war for talent on the rise, attracting and retaining talent is paramount to success of a business. Research supports that engagement helps drive higher performance, commitment and loyalty. It is understood that lack of engagement impacts revenue, turnover and customer satisfaction. Addressing the issue, however, is complicated and for many organizations, strategies for tackling it remain ineffective.

Engagement can be defined as: “bond, promise, match, connection and commitment”. It takes two in other words. Disengagement, in contrast, is: “surrender, give-up, break-up, breach or break”. Perhaps the goal isn’t engagement, but to be engaged. Webster defines engaged as: busy, occupied and unavailable. This made me chuckle. Are employers expecting engagement, but engaged elsewhere not with employees? Are employees likewise reciprocating the same? Now that’s modelling.

Forbes Magazine ran an article entitled: “What is Employee Engagement”. “Definition: Employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goal. This emotional commitment means engaged employees actually care about their work and their company.” (Jun 22, 2012). This sounds one-sided, but other definitions can be found that speak to the collaboration between two parties. Engagement can also be personal and individualized to a person. What was clear, is that emotion plays a critical role in engagement, and so perhaps the issue isn't what is seen on the surface, but beneath the surface. What’s really going on is emotional detachment.

When it comes to business and perhaps with the advancement of technology, is society becoming more and more emotionally detached? Studies support this. Maybe this is out of necessity, decisions need to be made, maintaining boundaries allows a person to remain calm in highly emotional circumstances. But, at what price? Are we losing touch with our emotions to such a degree that we are becoming detached from what it means to be human? Emotion, after all, may be the only difference between a robot and being human. Passion, creativity, thinking, growing, learning etc. all require emotion. Emotion is how we form memories and hardwire in the brain.

The clinical definition of emotional detachment is; “a coping survival skill during traumatic childhood events such as abuse or severe neglect”. Is the workplace becoming more like a war zone with constant change and unhealthy competition? Are some work environments so toxic that detachment is a survival mechanism? It is alarming to consider how being emotionally detached may affect our ability to function and to grow. How does it affect our ability to connect, communicate and relate to others? Perhaps instead of engagement we should be focusing on emotional attachment. Emotional attachment is defined as; feelings of closeness and affection that helps sustain meaningful relationships over time.

Lurinda Rinehart

LifeStrong Consulting - Higher Results Faster

The Coaching Professionals