Emotional Labor and Professionalism: Finding Balance at the Local Level

Abstract

When examining emotions and professionalism, scholars have questioned how these concepts can coexist. Using ten interviews with local administrators, this exploratory study suggests that emotions and professionalism are interrelated—to be professional, an administrator must be skilled in emotional labor. Specifically, professionalism acts as a display rule regulating the emotional behavior of employees. An employee's ability to meet this display rule impacts their individual social capital, along with experiences of emotional contagion from other organizational members. By connecting emotional labor to professionalism, these findings suggest that the emotional competencies of local administrators should receive greater emphasis in professional training programs.

Keywords

emotional labor professionalism local government

Introduction

Emotions are central to interpersonal relationships and play an essential role in the development of high functioning public organizations. To regulate their emotions in a manner that contributes to organizational objectives, public employees are expected to provide emotional labor while at work. Emotional labor is the energy employees expend to display appropriate emotions, while hiding inappropriate emotions (Mastracci and Adams 2019). Public servants capable of doing this help cultivate productive service-delivery transactions with local constituents (Lu and Guy 2014), while also assisting their organization in maintaining an amicable workplace environment (Kiel and Watson 2009). Emotional labor is often a crucial job requirement in local government where public servants are expected to interact with constituents and maintain collaborative relationships with colleagues.

While emotional labor is part of the everyday work of local administrators, scholars have historically described emotions as a challenge to notions of professionalism (Thompson 1975). The term professionalism implies that public servants have a “specialized knowledge” of their work (Perry 2018, 95), that is gained through specialized training. While traditional organizational research often suggests that the presence of emotions jeopardizes professionalism, and more broadly, bureaucratic rationality (Putnam and Mumby 1993), recent literature challenges these assumptions and proposes that emotions can supplement professionalism (Mastracci and Adams 2019). Because the coexistence of these concepts is still not fully understood, this study seeks to explore how public servants manage expectations of professionalism and emotional labor, using in-depth interviews with ten local administrators. The analysis of interviews suggests that emotions and professionalism are interrelated—to be professional, an administrator must be skilled in providing emotional labor. In addition, the interaction of emotional labor and professionalism has implications for the broader organization and individual employees through emotional contagion and social capital, respectively.

Common notions of professionalism have often emphasized technical and managerial competencies (Gargan 2007). However, local administrators from this sample regularly emphasized the significance of emotional labor in relation to ideals of professionalism. Taking this information into account, this exploratory study proposes that we expand the field's understanding of professionalism to incorporate emotional competencies (Awasthi and Mastracci 2021), along with technical and managerial competencies. By tethering emotional labor to professionalism, this study suggests that responding to the emotional demands of a job is a trainable skill that will assist local administrators in effectively serving their organization and constituents.

Professionalism in Local Government

As local government administration developed into a field of practice, professionalism was held as a core tenet (Nalbandian 1990). Progressive Era leaders wanting to end the spoils system, sought to bring more professional practices into local administration through the hiring of professional managers. In 1908, the nation's first city manager was appointed in Staunton, Virginia (Montjoy and Watson 1995; Stillman 2014). Years later, the International City Manager's Association, now called the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), was formed in 1914 (Stillman 1974). The following year, the National Municipal League adopted a new model city charter that promoted combining the commission form of government with a professional manager, now commonly known as the council-manager form of government (Montjoy and Watson 1995). In short, as local administration developed into a field of practice, it was grounded in ideals of professionalism, and promoted having professional administrators lead government.

While professionalism is a central tenet of local government administration, some scholars questioned the fields alignment with standards of professionalism (Pugh 1989). Traditional definitions suggest that professions contain the following:

(1) application of skills based on technical knowledge; (2) requirements for advanced education and training; (3) some formal testing of competence on admission to the profession; (4) existence of professional associations; (5) the existence of codes of conduct or ethics; and (6) the existence of an accepted commitment or calling, or sense of responsibility for serving the public. (Fox 1992: 4)

While the field lacks a standardized test of competence granting admission into the profession, it still meets these other qualities, highlighting the rigor of becoming a local public manager.

More recent definitions describe professionalism as, “the establishment of jurisdiction over an esoteric body of knowledge, as well as self-regulation over membership and appropriate conduct by professionals” (Kadowaki 2015). These are all qualities present in the field of local government administration. For instance, the accreditation process for graduate programs from the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration, combined with specialized programs in local government and urban affairs establishes an esoteric body of knowledge. In addition, the ICMA's Committee on Professional Conduct provides a means to regulate the behavior of members working in the field. Moreover, the National Certified Public Manager Consortium and American Academy of Certified Public Managers provide continuing education opportunities, allowing administrators to continue to refine their skills.

While the field has created several programs and procedures to ensure a local government workforce of professional administrators, there are still opportunities to ask questions and improve our understanding of professionalism. When theorizing on how to further advance professionalism in public administration, Perry (2018) posed the following questions: “How suitable are our models of professional education for developing public service professionals? In what ways do models for professional development need to change?” (100). This study proposes that scholars and practitioners should consider the significance of emotional labor in the work of local administrators and how the field's expectations of professionalism can begin to incorporate emotional competencies (Awasthi and Mastracci 2021).

Emotional Labor and Professionalism

Traditional notions of professionalism have often placed emotions in confrontation with standards of the good administrative professional (Thompson 1975). Although emotions are essential to understanding employee behavior, they were considered a barrier to the rationality needed to run an efficient and effective organization (Ashforth and Humphrey 1995). Ideals of professionalism have emphasized technical training and objectivity of administrators (Green, Wamsley and Keller 1993), concepts often not aligned with feelings and emotional displays. However, later perceptions of professionalism begin to suggest that, “being a professional is not merely about absorbing a body of scientific knowledge but it also about conducting and constituting oneself in an appropriate manner” (Fournier 1999: 287). In sum, emotional behaviors of employees began to be aligned with their professional identity.

When providing emotional labor, employees are expected to present emotions that align with norms established by the organization, regardless of how they are actually feeling (Mastracci, Newman and Guy 2010). The organizational expectations that guide what emotions are appropriate to display at work are known as display rules (Ashforth and Humphrey 1993). For example, if a front desk attendant is frustrated with an unruly client, the attendant is expected to maintain a pleasant and calm demeanor to achieve the organization's goal of satisfactory customer service.

While emotional labor is sometimes conflated with emotional intelligence, these concepts are distinct. Emotional intelligence is an indicator of an employee's ability to evaluate and respond to their emotions, as well as the emotions of others (Salovey and Mayer 1990). Emotional labor is the actual effort an employee must put forth to address the emotional requirements of their job. Based on these definitions, emotional labor is the focus of this study because it emphasizes the actual work performed by public servants to complete work requirements.

While foundational literature recommends that organizations and employees avoid emotions because they challenge rationality (Putnam and Mumby 1993; Guy and Newman 2004), the collection of exploratory interviews from this study suggests that emotional labor is central to the work of local government administrators.

Design and Analysis of Interviews

Themes for this exploratory study are based on ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews with local government administrators working in three midwestern states—Kansas, Missouri, and Minnesota. Participants were recruited using purposive sampling from an MPA alumni organization connected with a state university MPA program. While the number of interviews and purposive sampling method prevent generalizability, this exploratory study provides rich data through the structure of questions and variety of administrators based on location, work experience, and position.

Research participants completed a single, in-person interview with the principal investigator lasting ∼45 min to 1 h. Interviews were digitally recorded following written consent from the participant. Following a semi-structured format, all research participants were asked the same set of questions regarding how emotional labor influences their work as a local government administrator. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with open-ended prompts, allowed participants to build trust with the interviewer and to describe their work in their own language (Soss 1999). This method allows for the collection of detailed information that focuses on the “actions, feelings, reactions and thoughts” of participants (Kirkevold and Bergland 2007: 69). While emotional labor is central to the daily work of local administrators and professionalism is foundational to government administration, the connection between these two concepts is relatively unexplored. By addressing this area of research, these exploratory interviews provide insight on the complex work of local public administrators.

Interviews took place between October 2019 and January 2020 with administrators across three different states, working in ten different municipalities. All descriptive information was self-identified by the research participants at the conclusion of the interview. Among the administrators interviewed, two identified as people of color, while eight identified as white. Seven of the administrators identified as women, with the remaining three identifying as men. All administrators interviewed have completed a master's degree, and their ages at the time of the interview ranged from 27 to 45 years old. In terms of organizational position, five of the administrators were either city managers or assistant city managers, two were middle-management department heads, and three occupied lower-level analyst positions. To protect participant confidentiality, all identifying information has been removed from the interviews, and all participants will be referred to by their title (i.e., city manager, assistant city manager, department head, or analyst).

The analysis of data occurred concurrently with data collection to refine and focus analysis (Pope, Ziebland and Mays 2000). Immediately following the completion of an interview, the interview was transcribed and reviewed for general themes. Key themes identified from the interviews allow the study to explore how emotional labor influences the experiences of local administrators. After all the interviews were completed, another round of review was conducted for familiarization with the data (Pope, Ziebland and Mays 2000). The analysis procedure relied on an integrated coding process, which uses an “inductive (ground-up) development of codes as well as a small deductive list of preset codes (start list)” (Bradley, Curry and Devers 2007: 1763). Themes presented in the next section were developed from conceptual codes during data analysis.

Findings

Professionalism and emotional labor are both expectations placed on local public servants and are often discussed as competing concepts in early literature (Ashforth and Humphrey 1993; Putnam and Mumby 1993). However, interviews from this sample suggest that emotional labor and professionalism are interrelated. Local administrators described professionalism as a display rule guiding their emotions, suggesting that providing emotional labor is necessary to achieve professionalism. Participants also highlighted that an employee's ability to build social capital is connected to their skill in providing emotional labor, and that managers face unique challenges with emotional labor due to the visibility of their role and emotional contagion.

Managing Emotional Labor as a Strategy to Achieve Professionalism

Several local administrators from the sample described how their professional identity was influenced by their emotional displays. When asked to discuss how they display their outward emotions at work, administrators expressed feeling “passionate” about a new project, or “frustrated” by an issue in their department. However, they emphasized the need to control these feelings, so they could maintain a professional appearance among their colleagues. By conceling their true feelings to display emotions that are organizationally appropriate (e.g. calmness or positivity), these administrators are providing a specific type of emotional labor called surface acting (Hochshild 1983; Grandey 2000). For example, one assistant city manager commented,

One of the things that I have been working on is to have more of a poker face in some situations. I'm a very passionate person and I think that people know that I'm very passionate. When I believe strongly about something I can get really animated. So, one of the things that I am trying to work on is to come across as a more calm, professional.

In this instance, the assistant city manager feels compelled to hide the “passionate” feelings she might have and display a calmer demeanor that maintains her professional identity. In this example, professionalism is acting as a display rule that guides which emotions are appropriate for her to show while at work. To comply with this display rule, the assistant city manager presents a calm demeanor by surface acting—suppressing her actual emotions to display appropriate workplace emotions.

A more junior analyst at another organization made similar comments, highlighting that she often works to control her outward display of emotions to present herself as professional:

My rule of thumb is poker face. I just try to always make sure that I have a good attitude and a positive attitude. You have situations where maybe you don't agree with something. I try not to wear my emotions on my face because to me, I think about it in terms of, I just want to always be professional.

This analyst presents a similar discussion to the city manager. Central to her role as a professional is maintaining organizationally desired emotions (e.g. positivity). A newly appointed department head also highlighted the significance of presenting an appropriate demeanor while at work.

I typically describe myself in two ways. One is positive, the next is, can-do attitude, which I think depending on the work, presents itself differently. So sometimes it means that I am just joking around and it's pretty light-hearted, then other times it means I'm really serious because I'm trying to make sure that we get this done really quick or something like that.

This statement indicates that the emotions needed to be a professional can vary. While at times an administrator may need to present a serious or calm demeanor, at other times it involves allowing oneself to be light-hearted and personable.

Among the local administrators interviewed, emotional labor is a means to achieve professionalism and get the work done. Several administrators stressed that suppressing certain emotions, while displaying organizationally appropriate emotions (i.e., surface acting), was key to presenting themselves as professionals. In this sense, professionalism was knowing which emotions to show at the proper time.

Emotional Labor and Social Capital

Along with emotional labor being a strategy to achieve professionalism, several administrators suggested that emotional labor is also a means to build social capital within their organization. Social capital represents the “features of social organization such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for a mutual benefit” (Putnam 1995: 67). Research suggests that employees can use social capital to obtain benefits in their organization, such as promotion, inside information, and influence over decisions (Inkpen and Tsang 2005).

Local administrators often emphasized that colleague relationships are central to effectively doing their job because it provides the supportive networks needed to be successful. One department head, said:

I don't think you can be successful in local government if you do not build relationships because those are the people that will have your back. The good days and bad days, those are the people that have your back or don't have your back.

Although the importance of coworker relationships and social capital is expected in organizational settings, what made statements from the local administrators interesting was that they consistently connected their emotional displays with their ability to build relationships that enhanced their social capital. One assistant city manager emphasized the significance of presenting herself as being in a “good, consistent mood” because it had implications for her ability to build social capital. When discussing how her moods influenced her relationships, she stated:

Throughout my career, having good relationships with people has made a difference in my ability to get where I'm at right now. When you have people that are willing to go to bat for you, when they're willing to recommend you to be on panels and nominate you for awards and things like that, none of that happens unless you have quality relationships with people and you made an intentional focus on building those relationships.

From this assistant city manager's perspective, consistently displaying a “good” mood was central to maintaining relationships with her colleagues that provided her with social capital. With time, that social capital could allow for personal benefits, such as recommendations and award nominations. In sum, her emotional displays were connected with her relationships, which influenced her social capital.

When discussing how outward displays of emotion relate to relationship building, an analyst described organizational decision-making processes and how to effectively manage her own conduct during these interactions:

It's just having some discernment and some tact about the processes, and then I think as you build relationships with people and people start to trust you more, you can start to say, well, maybe we should do it differently. I worked at places and there's been these projects or processes that feel untouchable. There's things that we know we could do differently or better, but there's a gatekeeper for it, and if you don't have a relationship with the gatekeeper, you're not going to get any change in that project or that process.

In this instance, this administrator emphasizes having relationships with key organizational figures or “gatekeepers.” From her perspective, being able to control her outward emotional displays by having “tact” during the decision-making processes of the organization is a foundational part of building relationships that provide social capital, which then allow her to have policy influence over certain organizational projects and policies.

One city manager also highlighted how emotions provide him with social benefits in his organization. He commented, “I think when you provide emotion, I think it shows your staff or whoever you’re talking to that you care, and I think there's a benefit there.” He went on to provide the following example,

It doesn't obviously happen overnight, but I think you see the fruits of your labor over time. So I think just getting out, not just to my department heads but all my staff. This morning, we had the big snowstorm, and I picked up donuts on the way in and took them over to the public works guys and said thanks for plowing over the weekend. I think just little efforts to reach out at all levels of the organization is helpful because that's how you get little nuggets of information about what's going on with everyone.

In this example, making an effort to show emotion—in this instance appreciation—with employees provided this city manager with information throughout the organization that may not be available to him otherwise. In sum, taking the time to invest in emotion work within his organization was associated with building social capital.

While scholars have often described emotional labor as a requirement of employees that helps the organization achieve its goals (Hochshild 1983), additional research suggests that meeting the emotional requirements of a job can provide employees with individual benefits by helping them develop colleague relationships that are associated with social capital (Humphrey 2020). Statements from this sample provide additional support to research in this area.

The Manager is Always on Display

Positioned at the top of their organization's hierarchy, city managers and assistant city managers hold positions allowing them to influence the behavior of other organizational members (Crane and Jones 1991; Rainey 1997). Their influence is often seen through formal practices, such as hiring or new employee trainings (Rainey 1997). However, there are also informal means to influence employee behavior, such as how managers display their emotions at work.

Prior research suggests that the emotions of one employee can influence the emotions of another employee, a phenomenon described as emotional contagion (Pearce and Sowa 2019). Managers from this sample highlighted feeling as though their emotional displays had a domino effect throughout the rest of their organization. Due to their visibility among staff, they needed to be vigilant when showing their emotions and consider how their emotional displays might impact other employees. One city manager commented,

I have learned that as the manager, you have to recognize how your tone and your emotions impact the rest of the organization. I've heard stories about other managers who, when they walk in the door, people know what kind of day they're going to have based on the attitude of that person coming in. So, I try to set a steady course, try not to have too many highs, too many lows.

Emotional contagion from managers was also discussed by employees at lower levels of the organization. When asked to discuss how he displays his outward emotions at work a junior analyst mentioned that his emotional displays are largely reflective of his manager. He commented,

So, I’m still pretty new to the field, of course, but in my first couple of years, it's really dependent upon the person who's in charge of you. So, the first organization I’ve worked in, this person had a PhD and was an engineer before that, and was strictly work. Not someone that you could really approach. He wasn’t mean or cold necessarily, but it was just work.

The analyst went on to explain that if he felt frustrated or uncertain about his work, and went to the supervisor with questions he, “couldn't really show emotion because it was something that [his supervisor] didn't really understand.”

An assistant city manager at another organization provided similar comments, but from the management perspective. Specifically, she suggested that her emotions can ripple throughout the rest of the organization,

I feel a great sense of responsibility for the employees that I supervise, for their happiness at work. I can't always change the nature of their job, but I do feel there are things I can do to ensure that they are happy at work. I take a lot of pride in being consistent in my moods. I've worked for supervisors that whatever's happening in their personal life, they would bring it into the workplace. And that makes it really hard for employees you supervise to know whether it's a good day to talk to you.

The emotional displays of managers have a notable impact on employees throughout the rest of the organization. Administrators in this sample indirectly emphasized the concept of emotional contagion from organizational leaders. Because of their visibility in the organization, the emotional displays of managers have the potential to influence the emotions of employees for the benefit or detriment of the organization.

Discussion and Conclusion

While recent studies highlight the significance of emotion in achieving professionalism (Lively 2000; Mastracci and Adams 2019), this discussion has yet to be fully explored in the local government context. This study provides an initial exploration by analyzing ten interviews with local government administrators. The exploratory findings suggest that professionalism and emotional labor are related, and that a local administrator's professionalism is influenced by their response to the emotional labor demands of their job.

While this study provides some exploratory insights on professionalism and emotional labor, there are many opportunities for future research in this area. First, future research can explore how understandings of professionalism differ from one organization to the next, and how these varied expectations impact employee emotional labor. In addition, this sample is primarily composed of administrators identifying as white, and women. Having a larger and more diverse sample will allow for additional analysis on how emotional labor impacts local administrators based on their race and gender. Conducting future research in this area can provide additional nuance to how local government employees navigate the complex expectations of their jobs.

Even with its limitations, this exploratory research presents three themes that can help improve the field's understanding of emotional labor. First, professionalism acts as a display rule regulating the emotional behavior of employees. Second, being skilled in emotional labor can impact an employee's ability to develop social capital. Employees skilled in providing emotional labor are likely to reap social capital benefits that others will not. Finally, the emotional state of managers can ripple throughout the rest of the organization, which can be beneficial are harmful depending on the emotions of the manager. This means managers must constantly be cognizant of their emotional displays. Administrators attempting to manage expectations of emotional labor and professionalism should consider the following practical take-aways:

As an employee, have conversations with more experienced organizational members to learn how professionalism is defined in the context of your organization and your specific role. In addition, pay close attention to onboarding and socialization processes that might provide insight. Reflect on how this information will impact the emotional labor of your position, and what emotional displays are expected of you to help build relationships with others.

As a manager, attempt to recognize how your emotions are impacting those around you, and work on adapting your emotions when they negatively impact the workplace. Be willing to ask for anonymous employee feedback on your conduct and the general workplace environment.

As a manager, clearly communicate the emotional display rules of your organization. This can happen through explicit statements during employee onboarding procedures, statements in employee handbooks, and evaluations on employee conduct.

These practical take-aways provide a feasible means for local administrators to manage emotional labor in a way that can improve their organizations. Employees capable of addressing the emotional labor requirements of their job possess a skillset that improves their professionalism and is central to the functioning of local government organizations.

Ensuring that a local government can address the problems facing its community often begins with maintaining an effective work environment where employees have relationships that allow them to communicate and collaborate with one another. The ability to manage one's own emotions, as well as the emotions of others is foundational to relationship building and creating an amicable workplace environment. By recognizing the significance of emotional labor in local public organizations, scholars and practitioners can begin to prioritize emotional labor and make emotional competencies part of the professional training of local administrators.

Footnotes

Funding

This research was conducted, in part, with support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 1540502.

ORCID iD

Nicole M. Humphrey

Author Biography

Nicole M. Humphrey is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Miami. Her work utilizes organizational behavior concepts grounded in public management scholarship to gain insight diversity and equity in public sector organizations.

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