10/23/2025

How “Surface Acting” Drains Strong Leaders

Here's how to break the cycle

It is Wednesday afternoon and you are halfway through another exhausting day of putting out fires, slogging through endless meetings and handling personnel issues with which you wish you didn't have to deal. The time comes for your next team meeting, where you are expected to introduce a new company cost-cutting initiative. You have your own doubts but need to deliver the missive to your team. With your emotional gas tank running low, you can only manage a feigned enthusiasm while bombarded with questions about the implications of the new policy. Your half-hearted performance fails to inspire or create any genuine connection, meaning that Thursday morning rolls around and you are running on empty. With nothing left in your tank, you limp through the day trying to hide your frustration and forcing a smile when necessary, starting the cycle all over again.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

All leaders must manage their own and others' emotions (known as emotional labor) to stay effective. But with competing priorities it can be hard to have the energy to engage thoughtfully with emotional demands. Past research has found that people tend to respond to this kind of labor with two broad strategies. First there is "surface acting," as described in the scene above, where you suppress your true feelings and simply fake the emotions you are expected to show. Second is "deep acting," which involves genuinely reshaping your emotional response; for example, you thoughtfully engage with the new initiative to find an angle that genuinely excites you or proactively imagining ways that the policy may cause fear and anxiety, so that you are prepared to address your team's concerns.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Harvard Business Review.