skillbrief

BECOMING AN
EMOTIONALLY
INTELLIGENT LEADER
To be a really effective leader, it’s not enough to simply have technical
expertise or a lot of experience in your field. It also requires an
emotionally intelligent leader – calm, clear, focused, and caring.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
AND EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

Leaders are judged not only on their The ideas of emotional intelligence have
experience and expertise, but also on been around for decades, but really
how well they manage people. To be a took hold in the 1990s.
really effective leader, it’s not enough
to simply have technical expertise or
a lot of knowledge and experience
Emotional intelligence is about:
in your field. Effective leaders need
to be emotionally intelligent – calm,
clear, focused, and caring. Emotional
Recognizing and regulating emotions in ourselves and
intelligence is especially necessary in
other people
a multigenerational, multicultural, and
diverse workplace environment which is
the norm today.
Being aware of how you feel, managing those feelings,
When you’re not emotionally on top of and understanding how to use them as motivation
things, you’re prey to negative emotions,
knee-jerk reactions, and constant stress.
All of these conditions erode your Having the empathy to understand other people’s
effectiveness. To stay physically healthy, feelings
as well as mentally sharp, you’ve got
to pay attention to your emotions, and
those of others around you. It allows Developing the social skills to help motivate and manage
others
you to balance the pressures you face
and work more harmoniously and
efficiently, and with less cost to your
own and the organization’s wellbeing.

THE VALUE OF
EMOTIONS IN BUSINESS

We’d all like to think that we make
decisions based on the facts, and the
facts alone. But the truth is, in business,
just like in your daily life, everything you
do involves your emotions. And that’s
fine – as long as you deal with your
emotions appropriately. That’s the value
of emotional intelligence.
Feelings and emotions can be caused
by the events in your life, but the
feelings themselves are yours to
recognize and handle. How you do
that makes a big difference in your
effectiveness as a leader. Good
management is about building good
relationships – and understanding your
own feelings is a key step toward doing
that.
Emotions exist for a reason, and
each one can be used in a positive
or a negative way. Think of it like a
dialog inside your brain, between your
emotional side and your rational side.
An event takes place and your emotions
quickly react and try to interpret it.
You experience an emotion before
the rational side of your brain has
had a chance to think through what’s
happened. That emotion is a clue about
what the external situation means to
you.
But what you do with the emotion
depends on your rational side. Ideally,
you come up with a judgment or
a decision based on your rational
assessment of the situation as well as
on the way you feel about it.

1
UNDERSTANDING
YOUR EMOTIONS
Sometimes it can be tricky to
identify the emotion you’re feeling.
You’ve got to understand what you
feel about what happened, if you
want to understand what’s causing
your emotion.
When you do that, most of the time
you can track your feelings back to
a few basic emotions.
RECOGNIZING THE
COMPONENTS OF
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Experts point to five key
components of an emotionally
intelligent leader.
Self-awareness, self-regulation,
and motivation all relate to
understanding yourself, so
those three components are
known as the personal domain
of emotional intelligence. The
final two components are about
relating to other people, so they
make up the relational domain.
Sadness can help you step back from a situation and find a way to cope. It
gives you mourning time and a chance to reflect. When you’re sad, you might
re-evaluate your actions and priorities, and think about changes you need to
make. On the other hand, sadness can also paralyze you. You can feel so sad
that you can’t take action to change the situation.
Anger often comes from feeling someone else is wrong or bad and needs
to be punished. On the positive side, anger can help you “attack” when you
need to stand up for yourself. It can help you protect your self-esteem, and
provide motivation to push you to take action when necessary. But anger can
also be damaging. It alienates your teammates, is physically stressful, and can
encourage you to ignore your own faults and role in the situation. Anger has
its place, but you have to make sure it isn’t destructive to your relationships.
Happiness is the emotion we all want to feel as often as we can. When
you’re happy, you want to get involved with other people, and they want to be
around you, too. You’re prepared to try new things and take on challenges.
You’re more spontaneous and you’re willing to take risks. The only downside is
that when you’re happy, you might forget to plan or take proper precautions.
When you feel like you can conquer the world, you can have unrealistic
expectations and that can lead right back to sadness when they aren’t met.
Uncertainty often leads to fear, but that’s OK. Fear is a very important
emotion. It spurs you into action by causing the “fight or flight” urge. It’s very
motivating. It makes you aware of the threats you’re facing and helps you
prepare yourself and take precautions. But fear also causes a lot of stress and
tension. When you’re afraid, it’s hard to concentrate or be creative. And when
your reasons for being afraid aren’t reasonable, fear can distract you and stop
you from concentrating on what’s important.
Self-awareness – A self-aware leader is aware of her own emotions. She
assesses her own resources and preferences accurately and draws self-
confidence from her own self-knowledge.
Self-regulation – A leader who can effectively regulate himself can manage
his own emotions. Because of this, he has self-control, and as a result he’s
perceived as conscientious, adaptable, and trustworthy.
Motivation – This relates to the elements of your emotional make-up that
encourage you to reach your goals: so, having commitment, initiative, and
optimism.
Empathy – This is about understanding others and helping them to develop.
It also involves recognizing and understanding the differences between
people, and knowing how these differences can benefit your team as a whole.
Social skills – These determine how well you can generate positive emotional
responses in others. A leader with good social skills communicates well
and manages conflict effectively. She knows how to collaborate, build
relationships, and use her influence for everybody’s benefit.
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BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL
EMOTIONAL SKILLS
In business, the higher up the Personal domain competencies
ladder you rise, the more technical
and cognitive skills you’re expected When you try to determine the cause of a conflict, you may need to dig
to have – they’re necessary for doing a little deeper to get to the actual root cause. There are three things to
the job well. But the factor that consider.
differentiates good leaders from
great ones is emotional intelligence.
Understanding yourself is a key part
Being aware of how you feel
of building your emotional skills.
Self-awareness is the first competency in the personal domain of emotional
intelligence. People with emotional self-awareness recognize their own
emotions and understand how those emotions affect their performance. They
know the importance of “checking in” with themselves, in the moment, and
examining what’s really happening before they react.

Self-aware people are not overly critical or unrealistic about themselves – they
are able to make an accurate assessment of their strengths and weaknesses,
and they see themselves for who they are. This, then, leads to higher self-
confidence. Because of the confidence that comes with self-awareness, they
are able to play to their strengths and avoid or mitigate their weaknesses.

Regulating your emotions

Self-regulation is the second element of emotional intelligence in the personal

domain. This involves three key competencies.

Self-control
That means keeping your negative emotions and impulses in check, and
staying calm and clear-headed under stress.

Transparency
This means being authentic and open with other people about your values,
beliefs, and actions.

Adaptability
Emotional intelligence requires flexibility and acceptance that things don’t
always go as you plan.

Motivating yourself

Motivation is the final competency of the personal domain. A leader who is

motivated believes in achievement. This leader has high personal standards
and looks for ways to improve, for herself and for others. She has initiative,
because she understands that she controls her own destiny. This leader
is prepared to create and seize opportunities whenever she can, and is
optimistic – she sees the glass as half full, and she sees opportunities instead
of threats.

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DEVELOPING PERSONAL
EMOTIONAL COMPETENCY

BUILDING SELF-
Pay attention to the physical signs of emotion - Physiological
AWARENESS responses can tell you a lot. Maybe your eyes are tearing
The first step toward developing up, or your breathing has changed. You may feel a rush of
personal emotional competency adrenaline, or even feel “frozen.” Notice these signs – they’re
telling you something important.
is becoming more aware of your
emotions. To understand what
you’re feeling and where those
Listen to your self-talk - Try to reframe negative self-talk more
feelings are coming from, you’ve
positively.
got to slow down and notice what’s
going on in your mind and body.

Observe your mental images - When you’re upset, you often

see visual images or vague impressions in your mind. Maybe
you “see red” when you’re angry, or you feel small when you’re
sad.

REGULATING EMOTIONS
EFFECTIVELY
Being aware of how you feel is
half the battle, but there are also First, accept your current emotional state
behavioral steps you can take to
self-regulate your emotions. Begin by
trying to regulate yourself through
logic.
Then decide how you’d like things to be
Another approach is reframing your
thoughts to correct inappropriate
responses.
Then, make a list of actions that will help you get there
Learn from your emotions. They’re
there for a reason. Calling upon your
initiative, optimism and desire for
achievement helps you self-regulate
your emotions through positive
motivation.

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO
EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE
When you notice you’re talking negatively to yourself, slow down, take a few deep
breaths, and make space in your mind for positive self-talk. It will put you in a
better position to recognize and regulate your emotions.

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BUILDING YOUR
RELATIONAL SKILLS

Being an effective leader means being able to help other people accomplish
their goals. To do that, you need to have excellent relational skills.

BEING SOCIALLY
Characteristics of a socially aware leader
AWARE
Socially aware leaders do more
than sense other people’s emotions
– they show that they understand
and care.

They have empathy, so they can They have organizational

put themselves in other people’s
situations and see their points of
view. This helps them encourage
their team members to be
honest, because they know they’ll
be understood.
intuition. This means they
understand how social networks
and office politics work. They can
read key power relationships and
have a good sense of how people
relate to each other.

USING SOCIAL
SKILLS
It’s important for leaders to practice
good social skills. They help them
manage relationships and build
rapport. They encompass the
competencies of developing others,
showing interest, and providing
feedback and coaching. They help in
inspiring your team by encouraging a
sense of shared goals and using your
influence, building buy-in through
engagement and persuasion.
A good leader should be a change
catalyst – recognizing when change
needs to happen and thinking of
practical ways to overcome barriers.
Know how to find common ground
to manage conflict, and promote
teamwork by fostering an environment
of respect and cooperation, even when
you’re dealing with difficult people.

DEVELOPING RELATIONAL
EMOTIONAL COMPETENCY

Improving your relational emotional competencies improves your working

relationships with others. There are behaviors you can undertake to do that.

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DEMONSTRATING
SOCIAL
AWARENESS
You need to become socially aware.
That means demonstrating empathy
Demonstrating empathy and organizational intuition
and organizational intuition, which
has a few key components.
Understanding yourself
1
Tapping into your own emotions makes it easier to perceive
how other people feel. Use those perceptions, reframe them,
and learn from the experience. When you’ve been there
yourself, you can better relate to the challenges that others
face.

Understanding others
2
Good leaders observe and understand other people’s feelings –
they have empathy. To demonstrate empathy, accept people on
the basis of what they’re offering right now. Don’t judge them
based solely on the past. Show them respect. Your employees
will only respect you when you respect them. Treat people
with courtesy. Your team will sense that you value them, and
appreciate it.

Listening to your team

3
Show them you’re giving them your full attention by
paraphrasing and checking to ensure you’re hearing what
they’re saying, then show them support. Let them know you
have their backs, and are mindful of their frustrations and
struggles. Use your perception to assess how others might
be feeling. Watch for signs, listen to the message behind the
words, and pay attention to body language.

LEVERAGING YOUR
SOCIAL SKILLS
Leadership is about getting work done
through others. Leveraging your social
skills effectively builds productive
relationships. Focusing on teamwork
is a great way to build confidence
and loyalty in your team. Keep them
informed, support them, and show your
appreciation. Connect their efforts with
the work of the organization.
Developing strong and supportive
bonds is an important step in improving
your relationships. All leaders need
help from others. Use your formal and
informal networks to get to know other
people in your organization, and ask for
their feedback and insight.
It’s important to get fully involved with
your team. Sharing information and
raising important issues, and being
willing to get your hands dirty to help
solve problems, connects you with your
team. And that connection is key to
getting the job done.