Chances are, you’ve encountered both great leaders and mediocre ones across the course of your career. While technical skills, experience, and knowledge all contribute to people reaching management level, none of these things guarantee that they’ll be a success once they get there.
So, what is it that sets some people apart and makes them inspirational leaders who effortlessly motivate their teams?
One answer is emotional intelligence. A phrase that was originally coined by John Mayer and Peter Salovey in 1990, emotional intelligence is now considered a highly desirable characteristic in the workplace.
Over 70% of employers value emotional intelligence above IQ when hiring new employees. And it is also one of the best predictors of performance in the workplace – when researchers compared it with 33 other workplace skills, they found that emotional intelligence explained success 58% of the time.
As a result, 75%?of Fortune 500 companies encourage their employees to develop their emotional intelligence through training.
Also known as EQ, emotional intelligence is clearly a vital skill for any manager. The good news is that this is something you can learn.
Some people will inherently have a higher level of emotional intelligence, just as some people are naturally better at throwing a ball than others. However, just as we can strengthen our throwing arms, we can also all improve our emotional intelligence through regular practice.
This is part one of a two-part article on emotional intelligence. In this post, we’ll look at emotional intelligence in more detail. We’ll explore the different components that make an emotionally intelligent person and why these are useful in the workplace.
In our next article, we’ll discuss some ways you can increase your own emotional intelligence; becoming a better and more effective leader in the process.
What Is Emotional Intelligence and Why Does It Matter in the Workplace?
Emotional intelligence is all about understanding your own emotions and those of others. It helps us act (and react) thoughtfully, manage our stress levels, and build strong relationships with others.
As we’ve already seen, emotional intelligence can make a huge difference in our success as leaders and managers. 90% of top performers are highly emotionally intelligent – something that holds true across different sectors and job types.
The term emotional intelligence may have originally been coined by Mayer and Salovey, but much of its popularity as a concept comes from the work of psychologist Daniel Goleman.
Goleman has identified four main pillars that make up emotional intelligence. If we want to improve our leadership skills, it is these four areas we need to concentrate on.
1. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is a measure of how well you can recognize your own emotions, strengths, and weaknesses.
If your self-awareness is high, you’ll be able to identify your emotions easily and recognize the effect they have on your actions and how you treat the people around you. Unfortunately, most of us are less self-aware than we think we are (which is telling in its own right!)
Research by Tasha Eurich revealed that 95% of people consider themselves self-aware, but only 10-15% of us actually are.
This is a problem because being self-aware is a great attribute to bring to the workplace. It has even been?found that 92% of leaders with high levels of self-awareness have teams that are highly motivated and perform well.
2. Self-Management
Being aware of our emotions, triggers, strengths, and weaknesses is just the beginning of the story. To be emotionally intelligent, we also need to be able to control our reactions and regulate our emotions effectively.
This is particularly important when we’re faced with challenges and stressful situations. Having a high degree of self-management allows us to take a step back from our initial emotional response and prevents us from reacting impulsively.
Leaders with strong self-management skills are better able to cope with stress, make clear-headed decisions, and navigate conflict. They can stay flexible and adapt to changing situations, keeping their eyes on the goal. And they approach challenges with positivity, always seeing the best in people and situations.
3. Social Awareness
If self-awareness is all about being in tune with your own emotions, social awareness takes this same skill outward to give you the ability to understand the emotions and actions of others.
People who have strong social awareness are good at picking up on the unspoken nuances in how individuals and groups interact. They have high levels of empathy and can identify how other people are feeling without being told. In other words, they can read the room easily.
Social awareness also helps us understand the dynamics of a particular group. It gives us the ability to recognize who in the group is a decision-maker, who motivates other people, and who might drag morale down.
In the workplace, social awareness helps us build connections, collaborate effectively, and nip conflict in the bud. It’s a particularly valuable skill for managers, who can get the most from their teams when they understand the emotions, motivations, and values of the people they lead.
4. Relationship Management
The final component of emotional intelligence is the ability to manage relationships well. This is, of course, an essential part of being an effective leader. Your success depends on your ability to motivate, inspire, and engage your team.
Leaders with strong relationship management skills understand what it takes to build strong, cohesive teams. They are trusted and respected by their direct reports. They know how to motivate people to perform well, how to communicate effectively, and how to get the best from their team members.
Being great at relationship management also means we’re able to address conflicts effectively. Instead of allowing things to fester, managers who are skilled in this area can address disagreements with tact, understand all sides of an argument, and encourage opposing parties to find common ground.
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While there is much more to EQ that can be discussed, these four main areas are the pillars of being able to build strong connections with your team and manage relationships successfully. Thankfully, EQ can be developed and honed into a powerful tool you can leverage. In the next article, we’ll dig into some techniques that can be used to quickly increase your own EQ.