I wanted to be consistent and write a blog once a week to share my experience leading and competing in the world of athletics for almost 3 decades and now coaching C-Suite leaders and organizations. I haven’t done a great job as I have taken on a number of new clients, starting another new business venture (which is exciting) and I’m in the middle of authoring my first book. So my free time for writing has been focused on “The Book”.
I was asked to write my next blog on Leading With Emotional Intelligence. So here it goes.
There are four competencies to emotional intelligence. EQ is increasingly relevant to organizational development and developing people and teams. EQ principles provide a way to understand and assess people’s behaviors, interpersonal skills, leadership styles and potential. The way people lead years ago does not work in today’s environment and with the number of different generations in the work place, if you are leading the same way, I am sure you are struggling to be an influential leader.
Success requires more than where you went to college and all the titles and degrees you’ve obtained. There are many executives and professionals with a lot of letters behind their names and this does not make someone a great leader that others want to follow. We’ve all met people who are intellectually brilliant who are academically off the charts but yet are socially and inter-personally inept. Success does not automatic follow only knowing the standard theory and being book smart.
Emotional intelligence is the X Factor in each of us that sets leaders apart. To be successful it requires two primary competencies: personal competence and social competence. Personal is self awareness and self-management skills which focuses on you individually. Some key areas are self-confidence, emotional self-control and adaptability. Being able to be aware, control your emotions and manage your behaviors and tendencies sets you apart from the rest.
The two social competencies are focused on recognizing and understanding other people’s emotions and being able to manage relationships and managing the emotions of others.
By developing our emotional intelligence in these areas we can become more productive and successful leaders, helping others be more successful too. The process and results of emotional intelligence development contain skills to reduce stress for you and your organizations. Also being able to decrease conflict-improving relationships and creating continuity and harmony are developmental areas also.
Can you increase your emotional intelligence? Of course, we all can. If you can become more self-aware of your behaviors, train and practice intelligent behaviors, you will eventually get to the point where you will not have to think about good behavior.
Emotional intelligence takes a secure leader and one that wants to be the best. It will take learning more about themselves and changing behavior into new and effective from old and destructive. This is the X factor that separates the extraordinary leaders from all the others.
