Management of Emotions in the Workplace: A Study of Mindfulness

This paper explores how organizations address emotions by offering training and tools that promote emotion management. One such tool is mindfulness. With a combination of meditation and bodily exercises, mindfulness has become a favored tool for managers to offer to employees with the promise of increasing the individual’s ability to focus attention, to increase productivity and to keep calm in high-velocity, complex settings and not least to reduce the risk of stress and prevent burn-outs. It is discussed how training in mindfulness can result in promotion of certain emotional responses and discouragement of others and thereby promote a mode of emotional control over organizational members.