Emotional Intelligence In Action – It Makes The Difference
The best leaders have a healthy balance of Intellectual Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence. Being in the lead with a high intellect can take you so far, but it’s your Emotional Intelligence in action that takes you further. It’s what brings people to choose willingly to follow you.
What is Emotional Intelligence (EI)?
In short, EI is the extent to which you are aware of and in control of your mood, mindset and behaviour and as a result the impact that these have on other people. It certainly can be developed and with practice is the most powerful of leadership qualities.
Let’s bring it alive with an example:
Situation
Just before a weekly meeting with your team you are told that some negative client feedback has come in on the performance of part of your area of responsibility. It seems similar to feedback from last month and that lessons may not have been learned from last time.
Bad Outcome – Without EIIA
- Your frustration levels shoot up.
- You have a growing sense of agitation and impatience and fire off a curt note to the supervisor for that area to meet with you later.
- Your frustration, agitation and impatience come unchecked with you into the team meeting.
- The team sense a leader in a dark mood through your body language, voice and evident distraction from the purpose of the meeting. Without having checked in on yourself, you have set a negative tone.
- People pick up on that tone in what becomes a fractious meeting that goes off track and leaves everyone who attended dissatisfied.
Good Outcome – With EIIA
- Your frustration levels shoot up.
- Aware of this, you pause, recognising the feeling. Realising the supervisor receiving the feedback may feel the same, you decide to go to see them later.
- Before going into the team meeting you reset your mood to calm and you feel the frustration subsiding.
- The team sense a leader ready for the meeting and tuned in to its purpose. Having thought quickly about it and regulated yourself you have set a constructive tone.
- People respond to that tone in what becomes an open, focused meeting that achieves its purpose and leaves everyone who attended satisfied.
After the meeting you investigate the negative feedback only to find that there had been a misunderstanding. There was no new feedback, just a repeat of what came in last month and had already been dealt with successfully by the area’s supervisor. It turns out that your frustration had been misplaced. Not a problem with EIIA. Big problem without it!
Why Emotional Intelligence Matters in Leadership
The scenario above is one example of EI in Action making a difference in leadership and how it has a decisive influence on outcomes. Perhaps the main point is that the influence of EI in Action (or EI not in action) on leadership matters in leadership pretty well all the time. It is at the core of profound throughout this is a day-to day, in day-out not an occasional thing., in that case through how the leader In short, it is often the decisive factor in producing good outcomes like these:
Bad Outcome – Without EIIA
- Your frustration levels shoot up.
- Mistrust – in yourself…in you…in others
- Evident mood swings, with people distracted by uncertainty over which version of their leader will show up today
- People deciding to look for a new job
- Working against each other
- A disjointed team with an absence of cohesion, anything goes!
Good Outcome – With EIIA
- Trust – in yourself…in you…in others
- In control of your mood, with people focused to do their work, reassured by the consistency of their leader
- People choosing to follow you
- Shared purpose
- Effective teamwork, cohesive and clear on what we are about.
On the Actif4 Leadership Programme we dig deep into what brings such outcomes about. Emotional Intelligence (EI) is woven into them all and is fundamental to effective leadership. With attention, each one of us can grow our EI, whether from a low level, or to take it further from a high base.
In our graduates’ own words
Here are extracts from their testimonials that give an insight to the outcomes that Actif4’s focus on Emotional Intelligence produces:
“Encourages trust amongst team members, risk taking, frank conversations and a great team spirit!”
“Driven significant personal development in leading consciously and consistently. The skills learnt through the course allowed me to become more present as a leader and aware that the actions I take can be used to create energy and harness energy in others.”
“Gotten me to take a step back and understand that the same things we accomplish day to day can be done with such a different style; one that puts the business first, encourages trust amongst team members, risk taking, frank conversations and a great team spirit!”
“I have learned a significant amount that has helped me transition into a leadership role much more effectively. Using the models and concepts explored in Actif4 are helping me to not only be more proactive and considered in supporting my colleagues, but are helping to turn what are currently conscious actions into long-term habits, helping me become a more effective, well rounded, leader in the business.”
“Spending time considering what good leadership looks like was super-valuable.”
“I am very proud of my growth as a leader I have made over the course of the A4LP program. The lessons I learned have made me a better leader, enabling me to successfully deliver a very complex and strategically important project. Attending the course with my peers has brought me closer to them and has helped us all form much more effective working relationships that has really supercharged all of our work. Even more importantly the impact has been compounded, as our teams have noted the improved working relationships among us and they are also working much more closely together as a result.”