What is Observer

In the current U.S. socio-political climate, leaders are expected to be adept at confronting prejudice and stepping up as allies for marginalized groups. Leaders' emotions and social considerations can be critical in motivating or hindering allyship enactment. To explore this nascent area, this chapter offers a selective review of the research on emotion management in organizations and the role of emotions in leader-employee relationships, particularly when leaders serve as allies to marginalized group employees. Next, qualitative findings are presented from a secondary data analysis of an interview study conducted with exceptional leader-allies that explore: 1) negative emotions experienced by leader-allies in a prejudice context, 2) leader-allies' self-presentation concerns when expressing emotions in public versus private, 3) leader-allies' relational concerns about the consequences of confrontation, and 4) their plans for future emotion regulation. Finally, implications of the role of emotion and social regulation among leader-allies in prejudice confrontation are discussed.