Category: Leadership
Audience: Leaders
Overview: Emotional intelligence involves developing four key skills, which can be challenging, but are essential for effective leadership and personal growth.
By: Cynthia Kyriazis, Chief Experience Officer, The Culture Think Tank
There are 4 skills involved in becoming an emotionally intelligent person. These skills include the ability to perceive, reason, understand, and manage your emotions. Even ONE of these skills can be challenging to develop. But the payoff can be enormous.
Emotional intelligence (EI). It’s consistently noted or referenced in business literature, articles, podcasts, interviews, etc. Heard about it, read about it, reflected on it and have discussed it. So I decided to refresh some of my learnings around it.
This post – 7 Habits of Emotionally Intelligent People – tells us there are 4 skills involved in becoming emotionally intelligent.
These skills include the ability to perceive, reason, understand, and manage your emotions. Even ONE of these skills can be challenging to develop. But the payoff can be enormous. Successfully learning and using EI on a day-to-day basis is the key to leading a happy and productive life at work and at home.
However, I went on this journey not only for my own learning but because some of the leaders I work with use and develop this skill…and some do not.
I’m not a person formally schooled in metrics or algorithms. The ones that produce the data from the metrics we work with.
My field has always involved behaviors and outcomes. So, I began to reflect on the behaviors of two types of CEOs.
The CEOs who reference EI in a discussion have learned and consistently practice using it. Their reflections take a certain amount of ownership around what they’re doing that’s working, what isn’t, and what can be done about it. These leaders tend to be open, sharing, and focused on developing and improving relationships throughout their organization at all levels.
The CEOs who do not reference or discuss EI have their own reasons for why things happen. Sometimes I hear assumptions crop up. But frequently I hear bias. And bias either prevents or hinders a realistic discussion about possible root causes of the data uncovered in their company culture. It can be so subtle, it’s not recognized. So part of my job is to share things we need to talk about and EI becomes a key player in this discussion.
Don’t get me wrong. We ALL have biases. And they are frequently unrealized.
We live in our heads much of the time and sometimes without asking for or receiving another viewpoint.
And then something comes along in the form of a discussion, a disagreement, an indisputable result that may not be anticipated or pleasant and we have to look beyond what we think.
My suggestion: Be open.
Ask yourself if EI is one of the things you need to look at as an option to improve your own skillset and growth.
And if still in doubt, take a minute to look at this clip from Ted Lasso. Beautiful.
Cynthia Kyriazis is the Chief Experience Officer at The Culture Think Tank. Her experience includes executive coaching, consulting, and training. Book a 15-minute chat to discuss your people, performance or profit challenges.
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