12 Ways To Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

 

Emotional intelligence (EI) is key to personal and professional success.

In fact, 71% of employers value emotional intelligence over technical skills, according to Harvard Business School.

Yet, it’s often misunderstood.

Many believe it’s about:

↳ Always being nice.
↳ Hiding your emotional reactions.
↳ Something you're either born with or not.

But that’s not the case.

Emotional intelligence can be developed with practice.

Here are 12 things you can do to improve your emotional intelligence:

1/ Adapt Quickly.
2/ Manage Your Stress.
3/ Be Open To New Ideas.
4/ Keep Emotions In Check.
5/ Stay Calm Under Pressure.
6/ Be Honest And Transparent.
7/ Build Healthy Relationships.
8/ Listen Carefully And Actively.
9/ Stay Positive In Tough Times.
10/ Say Sorry When It’s Your Fault.
11/ Seek And Incorporate Feedback.
12/ Approach Conflicts Constructively.

Remember: Emotional intelligence is about mastering responses, not suppressing them.

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What's your Emotional Intelligent Leadership Style?

 

If we have learned anything at EBW Global since this pandemic began, it is that the role of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) for leaders in the workplace is ever more critical.

Leaders and managers around the world are finding their ability to use their Emotional Intelligence in their daily lives is having a profound effect on the success of their teams and businesses.

From the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s national coronavirus briefings to work Zoom meetings with socially distanced colleagues, how key messages are delivered is impacting hugely the success of their take up by employees and the general public alike.

The message back from them is clear:

Make us feel valued, safe and that our voices are heard.

This isn’t to say that all operational leaders and employees will crave security and understanding, or that there is a one-size-fits-all solution.

Some will need space or the expectation of results, others might seek long-term goal setting or rapid-fire short-term tasks.

The trick is knowing who will respond to what; and why.

This is not an easy task to achieve when communicating solely via email or video chats with one hundred other priorities fighting for your attention.

It is, however, one that can be made feasible and profitable by adapting leadership techniques on demand and taking the time to add another skillset to your professional arsenal.

"It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change."

Charles Darwin

We find that a great starting point for leaders and managers is to think of leadership in terms of six main styles:

Above: The EBW Leadership Compass

1 - Visionary Leaders - Mobilizing people towards a vision. This style is great for when moving in a new direction; it may struggle when motivating highly experienced staff.

2 - Coaching Leaders – Developing people for the future. A style that works well when building up long-term capabilities, this is least effective when teammates are defiant and unwilling to learn.

3 - Affiliative Leaders – Creating emotional bonds and harmony. Not to be used exclusively, this can work well alongside visionary leadership and is used to best effect in times of stress or when building trust.

4 - Democratic Leaders – Building consensus through participation. Excellent for co-creation and inspiring collective ownership, this style may not be best suited for emergency situations or those requiring rapid decisions.

5 - Pacesetting Leaders – Expecting excellence and self-direction. Perfect for highly motivated and skilled teams, this can provide quick results, but suffers when people need extra guidance or lack drive.

6 - Commanding Leaders – Demanding immediate compliance. This style is most effective in times of crisis or when employees do not respond to other leadership styles. But it can stifle motivation innovation and flexibility.

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How do you build resilience at work?

 

”I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot… and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s precisely why I succeed.”

Michael Jordan

No matter what your focus is with your clients or your organisation, leadership, management performance, team potential etc' as we recover from COVID19 building resilience is likely to be a big factor.

Defined as the ability to recover from adversity; Resilience is the ultimate tool because it allows us to adapt, to learn, to turn setbacks into progress.

It can be tough enough to manage your own stress. But how can you, as a manager, help the members of your team handle their feelings of stress, burnout, or disengagement?

Because work is getting more demanding and complex, and because many of us now work in 24/7 environments, anxiety and burnout are not uncommon.

Especially as we move back to office or to hybrid working.

In our high-pressure workplaces, staying productive and engaged can be challenging.

Although it’s unlikely that the pace or intensity of work will change much anytime soon, there’s a growing body of research that suggests certain types of development activities can effectively build the capacity for resilience.

One approach is to focus on employees’ personal growth and development.

But how does this teach people to be more resilient?

Research tells us there are four key components that resilient people have:

Confidence - having feelings of competence, effectiveness in coping with stressful situations and strong self esteem are inherent in being resilient.

Social Support - building good relationships and seeking support so individuals overcome adverse situations.

Adaptability - being flexible and changing in situations which are beyond our control are essential to maintaining resilience.

Purposefulness - having a clear sense of purpose, clear values, drive and direction helps individuals persist in the face of setbacks.

These four components of resilience can be learnt and grown through understanding and developing your Emotional Intelligence at work (Business EQ).

For example, we are not born with self confidence. It is a learned skill. We either learn it by accident, or on purpose. Or we live our lives never learning it at all.

By using Emotional Intelligence to focus on building resilience you can quickly help people to deal better with the stresses and strains of work and raise performance at the same time.

How to introduce Emotional Intelligence at work?

Build your expertise with assessments and tools, such as the EBW, and help leaders and teams understand how their emotions impact their behaviour and what to do about it.

By using EBW emotional intelligence assessments and tools you will be able to explore the reasons why your colleagues and clients may struggle at work and how to change their performance by:

• Shifting performance blocks by using unique insights & powerful conversations

• Successfully deal with turbulent change with tools that focus on action generating results

• Building sustainable results by using a series of reinforcing ‘motivational nudges’ and steps to develop and embed new emotional behaviours

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How to lead teams with more expertise than you

 

In today’s fast paced world, managers, especially top executives, can't be experts in everything.

The "leader as expert" might work for an engineer who becomes a manager of an engineering team, but no leader can be an expert in all aspects of the business they lead.

Leaders and managers today must not only learn how to wear many hats but accept that they will be managing people who have more expertise in a particular area than they do and may be a good deal older/younger and have more experience than them as well.

This isn’t something that just applies to leaders and managers, we all encounter that gut-gnawing nervousness when we look for professionals to depend on, whether it’s an accountant or a car mechanic. We have to balance the awareness that we are not experts with the fact that occasionally we do get the wool pulled over our eyes.

What happens when you start leading people who have more expertise than you?

How can you lead them when they know a lot more about their work than you do?

Welcome to reality: You are now the leader without expertise — Many leaders at this point feel frustrated, tired and disoriented, even angry or start believing that they should not be in their role This is the point where careers can derail.

Lacking confidence or readiness in a role is not unusual and is known by psychologists as ‘the impostor phenomenon’. It is well researched and more common than most people realise.

The phenomenon occurs equally across genders and affects not only the thoughts of those in charge, but it is important to note, their actions, too.

Research suggests that tasks are often, not only delegated according to a person’s skill set or performance, but tasks are assigned based on how similar a person is perceived to be to the leaders/managers.

Similar values, attitudes and dispositions all effect how likely an employee is to be selected for an assignment.

Now you may think that you don’t assign tasks that way, that you are different, that you assign tasks on merit or skill set but the following research may give you food for thought.

Myriam Bechtoldt at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management investigated the imposter phenomenon with 190 managers from different work sectors in Germany.

They found those managers who identified as low in self-confidence assigned routine tasks more to team members who also had low self-confidence.

Significantly, the more that leaders/managers felt like imposters, the greater chance they had of assigning challenging tasks to team members who felt like imposters and struggled with self-confidence.

But perhaps, I can hear you say, the leaders/managers were being clever and simply boosting the confidence of self-doubting team members’ by assigning them challenging tasks to give them the experience of being successful?

If that were the case, routine tasks would also be assigned with the same bias. But the research suggested that managers tended to delegate routine tasks to self-doubting team members even when it did not improve their promotability.

Then, maybe the results could be explained because the managers recognised that people with low confidence often have improved conscientiousness. Or perhaps the managers were discriminating against those with self-confidence?

The researchers investigated these ideas as well and measured conscientiousness and found it did not influence the assignment of tasks and there were no associations between self-confident individuals and task delegation, suggesting that discrimination played no part in the process.

The EBW View

This research uncovers some key biases in leadership behaviours regarding how tasks and opportunities are assigned when leaders feel they are lacking readiness for a role, are working with people outside their area of expertise.

The underlying thrust of the research suggests that using our Emotional Intelligence at work to develop an understanding of emotional biases is key making decisions about which expert team members to best to assign different roles and tasks.

Being better aware of why you delegate tasks and roles will enable you to build powerful teams and help you encourage colleagues to feel valued while giving them appropriate opportunities to showcase their skillset whilst delivering on the team's vision and goals.

Here are 3 top tips for leading a team that is outside your area of expertise:

Here are 3 top tips for leading a team that is outside your area of expertise:

1. Stay Aware – Use Your Emotional Intelligence

   Favouring people similar to yourself with time and responsibility may make you feel more comfortable but be aware of why you are doing this. Encouraging the diversification of tasks will stop your business or team from amplifying similar opinions and ideas that may not be the optimal way forward.

2. Measure Progress

   Having clear milestones and checkpoints, is key for both the manager and the managed. Focus your relationship around agreed-upon, measurable objectives. Leading outside your area of expertise is about being an expert in in monitoring and measuring progress. Make sure the expert or the more experienced individual understands that they can gain more flexibility and room to manoeuvre as long as measurable progress is being made.

3. Create a supportive, collaborative work climate

   Authenticity is king - you can gain credibility and disarm even the most unapproachable expert by saying things such as, "I'm still learning here, so could you help me understand why X works here better than Y?" Your team will respect your humble questions and trust you more.

Asking your experts what you can do to help (and then doing it) is key in gaining credibility. If they need more time to get something done and somebody is breathing down their necks about a deadline, then do the "blocking and tackling" work that every great leader does to protect and support the team. If you've got their back, they'll have your back. Understand where and when you can help, and then help.

Written By The EBW Global Team

Emotional Intelligence

 The capability of people to perform the work or job that they do falls into three areas:

Technical skills – which includes technical expertise e.g. accountancy skills.

Intellectual capability – which is commonly known as IQ, or cognitive abilities.

Emotional capability – often referred to as emotional intelligence or EI.

Whilst a significant amount of information, research and education exists in the fields of technical skills and intellectual capability, the area of Emotional Intelligence remains largely untouched.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognise, understand and manage emotions in ourselves and others.

Emotional Intelligence is divided into the four clusters of Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management (often been referred to very broadly as “people skills” in years gone by).

Daniel Goleman, a leader in this field, has identified that successful managers and leaders possess a high percentage of emotional intelligence. By successful we mean those who have; Achieved better financial results,

Developed more effective and supportive organisational climates or culture and Achieved higher productivity gains with their workforce. Goleman’s (1998) findings also indicated that Emotional Intelligence contributes 80 to 90% of the competencies that distinguish outstanding leaders from average leaders.

The behaviours identified include;

the ability to recognise and understand their own moods, emotions and drives as well as their effect on others;

the ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses, moods and to think before acting;

the passion to work for reasons beyond money or status and the propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence;

the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people and the skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions; the proficiency in managing relationships, building networks and the ability to find common ground and build rapport.

IQ versus EI

In professional and technical fields the typical entry-level threshold IQ is 110 to 120. It is generally considered that your IQ, which is largely genetic, will change little from childhood. Since everyone is in the top 10% or so of intelligence, IQ itself offers relatively little competitive advantage.

EI on the other hand can be learned at any age. Growing your competency in EI is not easy or quick, as it takes perseverance in the process of critical self-evaluation, commitment to improvement and of course behavioural practice.

It is also important to note, that competence in Emotional Intelligence does not necessarily increase with age as you might expect. Some people may learn from life’s experiences, but many do not.

Self-Awareness:

The core of Emotional Intelligence is self-awareness. Self-awareness is comprised of three competencies;

emotional self-awareness, where you are able to read and understand your emotions as well as recognise their impact on work performance and relationships; accurate self-assessment, where you are able to give a realistic evaluation of your strengths and limitations; self-confidence, where you have a positive and strong sense of one’s self-worth. The starting point and key in these areas is the ability to be critically self-reflective.

Self-Management

Self-management is comprised of five competencies;

Self-control, which is keeping disruptive emotions and impulses under control;

transparency, which is maintaining standards of honesty and integrity, managing yourself and responsibilities;

adaptability, which is the flexibility in adapting to changing situations and overcoming obstacles;

achievement orientation, which is the guiding drive to meet an internal standard of excellence;

initiative, which is the readiness to seize opportunities and act.

Social Awareness

Social Awareness is comprised of three competencies;

empathy, which is understanding others and taking an active interest in their concerns;

organisational awareness, which is the ability to read the currents of organisational life, build decision networks and navigate politics;

service orientation, which is recognising and meeting customers needs.

Relationship Management

The Social cluster of Relationship Management is comprised of seven competencies;

visionary leadership, which is inspiring and guiding groups and individuals;

developing others, which is the propensity to strengthen and support the abilities of others through feedback and guidance;

influence, which is the ability to exercise a wide range of persuasive strategies with integrity, and also includes listening and sending clear, convincing and well-tuned messages;

change catalyst, which is the proficiency in initiating new ideas and leading people in a new direction;

conflict management, which is resolving disagreements and collaboratively developing resolutions; building bonds, which is building and maintaining relationships with others;

teamwork and collaboration, which is the promotion of cooperation and building of teams.

The Emotionally Intelligent Organisation

The Emotionally Intelligent Organisation i.e. an organisation with a high number of emotionally intelligent leaders, managers and critical professionals stands to be at the forefront of organisational practice and performance, and is more likely to be an employer of choice.

Research also supports the view that competence in Emotional Intelligence accounts for over 90% of the difference between ineffective leaders and effective leadership performance.

Effective leadership improves business performance and provides organisations with a competitive advantage.

Becoming an EI organisation

The decision to become an emotionally intelligent organisation needs to be based on an organisational strategy to improve business performance.

To implement this strategy you first need to define what the core capabilities your business requires to achieve its vision, values and business strategies which includes Emotional Intelligence clusters and competencies. You will also need to identify the more specific competency profiles for positions within the organisation.

This capability framework and competency profiles, then forms the basis for your performance management system in conjunction with your Key Performance Indicators. The performance management system then becomes a mechanism for driving and achieving changes in the workplace.

The framework can also be used to support recruitment and selection and other cultural development strategies, thus ensuring a more appropriate match of people and organization goals.  The next stage is to grow the emotional intelligence competencies through specific development programs reflecting the organisation’s capability framework.

If you do not have a “core” capability framework for your staff, there are still benefits in introducing Emotional Intelligence development programs. These are seen primarily through improved leadership and interpersonal relationships and as a result improved business performance.

Growing Emotional Intelligence

Growing your EI competencies is not easy or quick, as it takes perseverance in the process of critical self-reflection, commitment to improvement and of course behavioural practice.

Transformational Learning

When you grow your Emotional Intelligence, it is called transformational learning, as this growth comes from using critical self-reflection.

So, what is critical self-reflection? Most people would be familiar with reflection, which is the analysis of one’s beliefs. We also have critical reflection, which is the analysis of the assumptions on which our beliefs are built. But the area we are most interested in is Critical Self-Reflection, which is the analysis of the way we pose problems to ourselves and of our own structure of assumptions that we use as a reference for interpreting our experiences.

Effective critical self-reflection requires you to question yourself and the assumptions you make on an ongoing basis. This can be demonstrated through the three (3) why? Test, that is where you ask “Why” down three levels from the item you are analysing.

For example, I have been asked to present a workshop to one hundred people on a subject I know very well, and I have said no.

(1) Why did I say no? Because I would not feel comfortable doing it.

(2) Why do you feel uncomfortable about doing it? Because I might look incompetent.

(3) Why do you feel you would look incompetent? Because people in the audience may know more than I do.

The answer to this question is based on assumptions, and we need to challenge these assumptions to check their validity. If the assumptions are invalid and we change that assumption and therefore our perspective then transformational learning has occurred.

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