In Becoming A Better Leader With Emotional Intelligence

For a while, I thought great leaders are great simply because of their high intellect and superior technical skills. But truth to be told, more is needed to be able to lead effectively.

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Yes, you do need to be smart and technically skilled, but great leaders are great because they are always calm and in control no matter how dire the situation is. They seem to have this uncanny ability to make the right decisions most of the time. They are also somebody who could charm their way around people and always have the correct words to say at the correct time.

In other words, great leaders are great because they have a high degree of Emotional Intelligence.

This article here breaks down what emotional intelligence is about, how it can help make better leaders, and how you can develop your EQ so that you too can be a better leader.

What Is Emotional Intelligence

Also known as Emotional Quotient or “EQ”, Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions as well as those of the people around you.

The five critical skills that contribute to Emotional Intelligence are:

Leaders with a high level of EQ exhibits the following traits and behaviours:

• They are unpretentious and humble. They also take accountability for their actions and decisions.
• They genuinely appreciate feedback on performances and are constantly seeking ways to improve.
• They are eager to achieve. They see challenges as opportunities rather than threats and accept them with constructive optimism instead of avoiding them or deflecting them to somebody else.
• They remain calm and rational even when put in a highly stressful situation.
• They have excellent people and social skills. They also prefer to collaborate instead of competing, and they are great at managing change and resolving conflicts.
• They inspire growth and development in the people they work with either through coaching or through motivation.

How Emotional Intelligence Can Make Better Leaders

In 1973, Henry Mintzberg first suggested that effective managers have ten different roles to play.

Managers enjoy a position of power and status with the formal authority vested upon them. This allows managers to build interpersonal relations and gain access to much-needed information to make decisions for the unit or the company they are managing.

All of Mitzberg’s 10 Managerial Roles should apply to leaders since they are essentially managers of the unit or organisation in which they are leading.

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Consider the case of a Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of a car manufacturing company who builds a network of relationships within and outside his organisation (Interpersonal role). This network of relationships includes his Chief Executive Officer, other senior executives in the company, his subordinates, the company’s directors and shareholders, CFOs and executives of other companies, regulators, consultants, bankers, etc.

Using his network of relationships, the CFO can gather a vast amount of formal and informal information (Informational Role) which could help him strategize and make informed decisions for his unit, the Finance Department, as well as for the company as a whole (Decisional Role) — whether it is to support or argue against the business case for building a new plant in South East Asia, or taking up a 10-year loan to acquire a competitor, or to implement a new Finance ERP system in the organisation.

Imagine the difficulty of carrying out these roles without having a good level of EQ in the CFO:

• Lack of self-awareness — The CFO may not be able to honestly assess the skills and capabilities of his unit or the organisation before embarking on a new project that may make or break his team or the company.
• Lack of self-regulation — The CFO may make impulsive decisions to pursue short-term gains that may hurt the Finance Department or the organisation in the long term. E.g., Implementing a cheaper ERP system to meet the budget but not necessarily meeting the needs and requirements of the organisation. Moreover, leaders who are not able to self-regulate their emotions are also prone to outbursts which can lead to a stressful working environment and a highly demoralized workforce.
• Lack of motivation — The CFO may not be able to deliver projects on time as he lacks drive or passion to complete them or is unable to motivate his team to work towards that common goal. His lack of motivation may also affect his ability to obtain buy-ins from his peers and superiors that could ensure the successful execution of his projects.
• Lack of empathy — The CFO may not be able to anticipate, understand or accept the differing views and concerns of the many different stakeholders that may have varying interests in the Finance Department and the company. Leaders without the ability to empathize are also less likely to build strong, collaborative bonds with others.
• Lack of social skills — The CFO may not be able to manage change and resolve conflicts diplomatically when he embarks on projects that have an organisational-wide impact. Leaders with low social skills are also more likely to shy away from conflicts, thus resulting in a costly waste of time, resources and opportunities for the company when deadlines are constantly missed, employees are resigning or always absent, and stakeholders are losing confidence in the success of the company.

How To Develop Emotional Intelligence in Leaders

It is said that EQ levels should increase as you age. It is called “maturity”. Thankfully, research has demonstrated that Emotional Intelligence can also be developed and improved without needing to grow too old.

It only requires steadfast determination, constant practice, and a lot of honest feedback from the different groups of people you are working with.

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At the individual level:

1. Keeping a mood journal to track and evaluate your day-to-day mood and emotions helps in improving your self-awareness and self-regulation. It involves having an introspective view and understanding of how you are feeling and why. This understanding of your own emotions can help you identify the events that may trigger emotional discomfort that may lead you to react impulsively.
2. Perform a personal SWOT analysis (internal Strengths and Weaknesses, as well as external Opportunities and Threats) on your Emotional Intelligence level. With help from your superiors, colleagues and friends, identify which area is weak or requiring improvements — e.g., ability to listen without interrupting, the ability to hearing ideas that are different from yours, or the ability to present a report to senior management.
3. Ask a colleague or a hired coach to let you know when you are failing to demonstrate the ability that you want to improve on. Replay the incident and practice to respond in a better manner.
4. Observe how other leaders do it and imitate their behaviour as much as you can.
5. At the end of a meeting that you have just participated actively or chaired, ask those in attendance to critique your ability to communicate and empathise during the meeting.
6. Learn to manage your emotions in stressful situations. Practice being calm through deep breathing techniques, taking a walk, or calling a friend so that you can respond better. Also good to make it a habit to practice mindfulness through regular meditation.
7. Motivate yourself by connecting your personal goals with your career-related ones. Base your long-term goals on what you want to do and why you want to do it. Then, set SMART targets (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) to measure your achievements. Make sure that your long-term goals are established with smaller milestones so that you can celebrate the small wins along the way.
8. While understanding that no human being is perfect, not taking any responsibility for your own actions or decisions is not right either. Owning up to your own mistakes improves self-regulation by helping you to recognize your faults and learning from them so that you don’t repeat them in the future.
9. Practice optimism when facing a challenge or failure by finding at least one good thing about the situation. Viewing difficult situations as opportunities for lessons learnt instead of stress factors or threats should help you find that optimism easily.
10. Improve empathy through active listening. This means listening without interrupting or planning on what and how you will respond next. Instead, try to understand the other person’s point of view by asking follow-up questions and noticing their body language. Similarly, you should keep your body language in check as well to avoid sending wrong messages to the other person.
11. Aim to respond to feelings and non-verbal cues even when it is uncomfortable to do so. An employee may reluctantly agree to work late tonight to complete an assignment that is due tomorrow. Addressing his disappointment or reluctance allows the employee an opportunity to express his concerns so that a solution can be worked out together.
12. Work on building self-confidence to help you feel much at ease when talking to people. Start with a small group with which you are familiar (e.g., meetings with your immediate colleagues). Then work upwards towards a larger group with higher seniority (e.g., presentations with the company’s Board of Directors) and less familiarity (e.g., public conferences).
13. Positive feedback is a powerful tool to inspire loyalty and build stronger bonds with people. Learn to dish out sincere compliments when they are due and accept them with grace when they are given.
14. Do not shy away from conflicts or arguments. Learn how to deal with them effectively instead, whether as a party to the conflict or as a mediator.

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At the organisational level:

1. Organisations must first acknowledge that a brief seminar or a how-to manual will not help improve Emotional Intelligence in their employees overnight. Organisations must understand that EQ is developed over time through deliberate and concerted effort from the individual.
2. Encourage all employees to improve on their EQ levels by putting in place formal and informal mechanisms such as:

• Integrating optional EQ-related targets in employees’ annual performance reviews and rewarding them when their EQ targets are met.
• Allowing regular 360° feedback reviews for individuals to evaluate their performance and then compare that against the feedback given by their superiors, peers, and subordinates.
• Developing coaching / mentoring programs where employees can seek guidance and support from peers, supervisors and subject matter experts.
• Organising EQ-related workshops and activities — e.g., social skills and communication workshops, after-work yoga or meditation sessions, monthly Toastmasters meetups, etc.

Conclusion

Leaders are not born. A high degree of emotional intelligence is not a God-given gift that was bestowed upon when a baby is born.

On the contrary, EQ can be developed and improved even at a later stage of adulthood. It will not be easy. In fact, it is a long-term journey, and like IQ, there is no shortcut for this.

I believe, however, that with a passionate and sincere will to be better, anyone can put in the time and effort needed to improve their EQ and be great leaders, be it at the workplace or elsewhere.

No, leaders are not born. They are made.