Emotional Labor and Professionalism: Finding Balance at the Local Level

• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Nicole M. Humphrey
• DOI: 10.1177/0160323X211048847
• Subject Matter: Field Notes

Emotional Labor and

Professionalism: Finding Balance

at the Local Level

Nicole M. Humphrey

Abstract

When examining emotions and professionalism, scholars have questioned how these concepts can

coexist. Using ten interviews with local administrators, this explorator y study suggests that emo-

tions 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 behav-

ior of employees. An employee’s ability to meet this display rule impacts their individual social cap-

ital, along with experiences of emotional contagion from other organizational members. By

connecting emotional labor to professionalism, these f‌indings suggest that the emotional competen-

cies of local administrators should receive greater emphasis in professional training programs.

Keywords

emotional labor, professionalism, local government

Introduction

Emotions are central to interpersonal relation-

ships and play an essential role in the develop-

ment of high functioning public organizations.

To regulate their emotions in a manner that con-

tributes to organizational objectives, public

employees are expected to provide emotional

labor while at work. Emotional labor is the

energy employees expend to display appropri-

ate emotions, while hiding inappropriate emo-

tions (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 his-

torically 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 tra-

ditional organizational research often suggests

Department of Political Science, University of Miami, Coral

Gables, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Nicole M. Humphrey, Department of Political Science,

University of Miami, 1300 Campo Sano Ave, Coral Gables,

FL 33146, USA.

Email: nhumphrey@miami.edu

Field Notes

State and Local Government Review

2021, Vol. 53(3) 260-270

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0160323X211048847

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