Beyond Emotional Labour

Emotional labour is often described as the invisible work involved in managing emotions, both our own and those of others, in order to meet social or professional expectations. Scholars note that women frequently shoulder a disproportionate share of this labour, particularly in leadership roles where they are expected to remain calm, approachable, and emotionally available regardless of the circumstances. While emotional labour is often discussed as a workplace challenge, my conversation with Anna Hopkins, London City Councillor for Ward 9, revealed a more complex story — one that connects emotional labour to family responsibilities, resilience, self-care, and the choices women make throughout their lives.

Hopkins has spent more than a decade in municipal politics and has worked in a variety of professional settings, including a law firm and a family-owned business. Reflecting on her experiences, she suggested that emotional labour is not tied to any single profession. Rather, it grows as responsibilities grow.

When discussing the different stages of her life, Hopkins repeatedly returned to the importance of family, support systems, and learning to ask for help.

“I think as women, we should really learn how to ask for help. Cause we can. I think we’re pretty strong, we can multitask much better, we can take on a lot in our lives, but we do create more stress in our lives, and we put ourselves below the needs of others. You can’t do it forever. You have to also start taking care of yourself as well. But you’re not taught all that. You don’t all of a sudden wake up one day and go “oh well, I need help”, you know? Things just, all of a sudden change and then you realize [you have to].”

For Hopkins, emotional labour increased as she moved through different life stages. Marriage, raising children, volunteering, community involvement, and professional responsibilities all brought new expectations and obligations. Yet she emphasized that many of these responsibilities were choices she actively embraced.

Hopkins’s reflections echo broader research on women’s leadership that emphasizes agency rather than victimhood. While women often encounter gendered expectations and structural barriers, leadership scholars argue that effective leaders are not defined solely by the constraints they face but by how they respond to them. Hopkins repeatedly returns to the importance of choice, adaptation, and personal responsibility, presenting leadership as an ongoing process of navigating imperfect circumstances while remaining grounded in one’s values.

Emotional Labour in Public Leadership

Women in leadership positions often face unique emotional expectations. These expectations can be particularly pronounced in municipal politics, where elected officials operate in close proximity to constituents and often encounter residents’ frustrations, concerns, and personal challenges directly.

Hopkins spoke candidly about the double standards women continue to encounter in public life.

Hopkins’s experiences also reflect what scholars describe as a double bind facing women leaders. Women are often expected to display empathy, warmth, and emotional intelligence, yet they may be criticized when they express emotion too openly. Men who display vulnerability are often viewed as authentic or relatable, while women risk being dismissed as overly emotional. Emotional labour, therefore, becomes more than interpersonal work; it becomes a strategy for navigating gendered expectations surrounding authority and competence.

These expectations require women leaders to engage in additional emotional labour. They must not only perform their jobs effectively but also carefully manage how their emotions will be interpreted by others. Hopkins acknowledged that this reality is often unfair, but she has learned to approach it pragmatically.

Rather than allowing these challenges to discourage her, Hopkins views them as realities that must be navigated with resilience, confidence, and self-awareness.

Her comments reflect a broader understanding of leadership as persistence in the face of criticism, misunderstanding, and self-doubt.

The Challenges of a Digital World

Although Hopkins does not believe the expectations surrounding emotional labour have fundamentally changed throughout her career, she does believe the way people interact with one another has changed dramatically.

She pointed to technology, social media, and digital communication as factors that have altered how people relate to one another and how emotional labour is performed.

Hopkins observed that online communication often removes empathy and encourages polarization. Over her eleven years on council, she has witnessed growing division and a decline in respectful disagreement.

For elected officials, this shift creates additional emotional demands. Responding to criticism, conflict, and frustration through emails and online platforms often requires more patience, restraint, and emotional regulation than face-to-face interactions.

Her observations also highlight how emotional labour is shaped by technological change. Research on digital communication suggests that online interactions often reduce opportunities for empathy, relationship building, and informal problem-solving. For local elected officials, whose work depends heavily on maintaining trust and relationships within their communities, these changes can increase the emotional demands of leadership. Emotional labour increasingly involves not only managing face-to-face interactions but also navigating polarized online environments where misunderstanding and conflict can spread rapidly.

Learning Through Mistakes

Another important theme that emerged from our conversation was Hopkins’s belief that resilience develops through experience.

Throughout her career, Hopkins has learned that leadership does not require perfection. Mistakes, setbacks, and moments of self-doubt are inevitable. What matters is learning from them and continuing forward. This perspective reflects a growing body of leadership research that views resilience not as an innate personality trait but as something developed through experience. Rather than presenting leadership as the ability to avoid failure, Hopkins emphasizes learning, adaptation, and self-reflection. Her willingness to discuss mistakes openly challenges idealized images of leadership that equate competence with perfection.

She spoke openly about moments when she felt overwhelmed, discouraged, or isolated, particularly as an elected official who is expected to project confidence even during difficult periods.

These expectations illustrate another dimension of emotional labour: the effort involved in appearing composed and capable even when experiencing stress, disappointment, or uncertainty.

Taking Care of Your Younger Self

Perhaps the most memorable part of our conversation was Hopkins’s reflection on self-compassion. While much of emotional labour involves caring for others, she emphasized the importance of learning to care for oneself.

She reflected on how women often spend years prioritizing the needs of others while neglecting their own well-being.

Hopkins’s emphasis on self-compassion also speaks to an often-overlooked dimension of emotional labour. Much of the literature focuses on the emotional work performed for others — clients, coworkers, constituents, or family members. Hopkins instead draws attention to the emotional work required to sustain oneself. Her reflections suggest that effective leadership requires not only caring for others but also developing practices of self-care and self-forgiveness that make long-term public service possible.

For Hopkins, leadership is not simply about serving others. It is also about recognizing personal limits, learning from experience, and extending the same compassion to ourselves that we so readily offer to others. In this way, self-care becomes not the opposite of leadership, but one of the conditions that makes sustained leadership possible.

Conclusion

My conversation with Anna Hopkins suggests that emotional labour is about far more than managing feelings in the workplace. It is intertwined with family responsibilities, public expectations, leadership, and personal growth. While women leaders continue to face unique emotional demands, Hopkins’s experiences demonstrate the importance of resilience, self-awareness, and choice.

Rather than allowing emotional labour to define her, Hopkins has learned to navigate it through reflection, perseverance, and self-compassion. Her advice is both simple and powerful: ask for help when you need it, learn from your mistakes, and do not forget to extend kindness to yourself along the way.

In this sense, emotional labour emerges not simply as a burden of leadership but as one of the ways leadership itself is practiced, negotiated, and sustained.