Emotional Intelligence

By Jeff Green (Perth, Western Australia, WA October 2006)

I recently attended a discussion on Leadership Selection. It was agreed that one of the strongest skill sets of a leader is, their ability to self motivate, their self awareness, their self regulation and their ability to influence others. These qualities are known as Emotional Intelligence. According to Daniel Goleman, Author of Vital Lies, Simple Truths, these skills are more important to business success then academic learning. By the way, we identified the strongest trait of effective leaders is having a vision that translates into sharing success and working for the common good. In other words, taking your staff, shareholders, suppliers and customers to the top with you!

Self Motivation

The desire to succeed and be at the top of the tree motivates most people. High performers work within the interests of the business, but the reality is we are not robots that only live to serve. As people we crave self fulfillment, to me this is the power of self motivation. Have I done my best, did I achieve my goals, did I learn something new, did I make someone's day and did I enjoy myself; these are the questions I ask myself each day. The secret to self motivation is that you have to love what you do. No matter what job I have had, there was always some part of it I loved, I was motivated to get the "no so good" parts of the job done so I could enjoy the part I loved!

Being Self Aware

People who are self aware analyse their feelings and understand why they react in certain ways. For example, they know that anger caused by an incident in one situation can carry over to another situation and end up in a negative spiral, to avoid this, they manage the anger. One way I use to manage anger is to rationalise the cause of the anger. By rationalise I mean that I analyse why the anger occurred and how it could have been avoided. In most cases anger is justified but by planning how you are going to react rather then reacting, will generally result in a more positive outcome, this is another lesson from assertive parenting.

To get a measure of your self awareness, ask yourself these questions.

Am I aware of my limitations?
Do I take the time to analyse my strengths and weaknesses?
Do I play to my strengths and seek to develop skills in the areas where I am not strong?
Do I know which times of the day I am able to do my best work?
Do I take a break when I feel faded and lack motivation?
Do I delegate tasks to staff when I know they will get a better result then me?
Do I reserve important tasks for the time when I am most alert?
Am I able to see how my behaviour (positive and negative) affects others?
Do I understand my Moods and control disruptive behaviour?

If you ask yourself these questions you are self aware. If not, well do you asked yourself "what am I doing here?"

Self regulation

Self regulation Is the ability to accept and manage your feelings. It goes hand in hand with self awareness. This is one of the hardest but most powerful qualities to master. When you watch truly effective managers, you will notice that they seldom react to a situation immediately and often when pressed for a decision say “I will get back to you shortly” or “this is to important to rush”. Emotionally intelligent people regulate their reactions; one technique is to develop the notion that losing your temper (losing control) in public is an absolute no no.

This is not as silly as it sounds, subconsciously we are conditioned to accept that losing your temper is natural and a normal part of life. Our parents did it, they even lashed out physically at times, and you see it all the time with harassed mothers in supermarkets. You see it on TV, people kicking over coffee tables and attacking each other. Western society seems to encourage the public display of emotions, the Latin cultures are masters of it. On the other hand the Asian culture is the opposite, I worked for a company where the senior management team was Chinese, they would visibility bring themselves down from an emotional level, take a deep breath and sigh loudly, then deal with the situation in an analytical and controlled manner. The Japanese will bow and nod their heads as the westerner rants and shouts abuse, it is very bad manners to raise your voice or become emotional in most Asian cultures, except for senior executives that have failed the company, they will publicly cry and ask for forgiveness on TV, but that is an exception.

So you may need to do some work on your attitude to develope self control and practice limiting your reaction. Try it on the way home, in the traffic or on the train, when you get home, especially with the kids, they will get really confused when they press your button and nothing happens. I have seen my children run and hide because I just looked at them, thinking how should I react, instead of reacting in the usual fashion!

One other thing is self talk, when you have a difficult situation coming up be aware of your nerves and the “fight or flight” reaction. Call on memories of past success to stimulate the confidence to deal with the situation. Tell yourself “I have dealt with this successfully before, this time will be no different”. Tell yourself you are a winner. Examine what you have learnt from your mistakes. Believe that there is no such thing as failure, every experience has a positive outcome, and we become smarter and stronger every day.

Influencing Skills

The people that influence our lives are people that we respect, they are generally knowledgeable, intelligent but above all they have the ability to see the right course of action and they are confident in their abilities to resolve conflict. By definition they are leaders.

Most of the jobs we do require influencing skills, getting support, getting referrals and building relationships are all done by influence. Yet we seldom take time to consider how we influence people. There is a temptation to see it as some trickery, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, or a mystic skill used by cult leaders and con men. In reality it is simply the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and see what it is they want. It is all about the benefits.

You could use threats, intimidation or manipulation and you may sometimes succeed in forcing people to do what you want but you will not earn their respect, they may fear you but that is not the same as respect. You simply will not win their support. People are far more willing to support you if they feel their views have been taken into account. If you take time to understand the impact to them, they will feel appreciated.

Let’s take the role of a manager, implementing cultural change within an organisation. New systems or processes will have many benefits to the company, the management and staff. The influencer will look at 3 overlapping zones, You, Me and the Organisation. They look at what will change, how will it be different, the impact and what are the benefits for each zone.

For example they will be looking at what the benefits are and how to present these so people will see them for what they are. Let’s say the new systems will require staff to spend more time entering data about what they do, they will probably see this as onerous and of no benefit to them. They need to understand what the benefit is to them, it is not usually enough for them to know that the company will benefit or even that if the company benefits they benefit from better job security or even pay rises.

Look for the benefits around what it is they will want. For example spending more time doing the jobs they like or making the job easier. Then present the changes as a way of enabling these things. “By entering this data you will enable management to plan better and make production more efficient, this will prevent rework and production changes making your job easier, saving you time and making the work more enjoyable”.

To be an influencer you require a combination of interpersonal, communication and presentation skills, but more than anything you need to understand what other people are feeling.