A man walks into a room of his peers, huffing and puffing and talking about how terrible his day is going. There is no silver lining. Instead, his words, attitude and energy suck the life out of the room. This previously jovial room deflated in only a few minutes. This man, low on the emotional intelligence scale, didn’t notice the effect he had on ten other people.
Today, I want to talk about what emotional intelligence (EQ) is and why it’s important for leaders and individual contributors to cultivate.
What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is a set of emotional and social skills that govern how well we express ourselves and how we perceive things. There are five elements that determine how strong our emotional intelligence skills are and where there’s room for improvement.
The five scales of emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is measured with five scales and 15 sub-scales; this is called the EQ-i 2.0 Model of Emotional Intelligence and we use this assessment to help WIL Empowered clients create their strategy for success.
The five measurement scales of emotional intelligence are:
- Self-perception – How do you regard yourself? How are you actualizing? How much emotional self-awareness do you have right now?
- Self-expression – How do you express yourself emotionally? How do your assertiveness and independence show up?
- Interpersonal connection – How do you build connections? Do you focus on the transactional or are you really interested in building relationships? How empathetic are you?
- Decision making – How do you solve problems? How many perspectives do you capture when making a major decision? Are you asking the right questions? How many decisions are made by impulse?
- Stress management – How optimistic are you? How flexible is your thinking? How easy is it for you to shift from doom-and-gloom into possibility thinking?
Why emotional intelligence is important
Emotional intelligence is a set of skills that helps us develop and maintain our social relationships and cope with challenges and obstacles. When we use emotional intelligence in an effective and meaningful way, it can increase our overall happiness with who we are and how we relate in the world.
And at work, emotional intelligence is 27% to 45% of job success. It’s not cognitive intelligence or IQ; even if you’re the smartest person in the room, so much of your success is related to your emotional intelligence skills. This is why wise leaders and future leaders take emotional intelligence seriously.
And the good news is … it’s almost never too late to boost your emotional intelligence.
Can you really increase your emotional intelligence? Yes!
Did you know that IQ peaks around the time we turn 17-years-old?
Though our “smarts” are set in our teenage years, fortunately, our emotional intelligence is not. We continue to develop our emotional intelligence into our 50s and beyond. When we use our experiences, failures, feedback, relationships and environments to grow as individuals and leaders, we also expand in those five scales of emotional intelligence.
Story time: Leaders and emotional intelligence
When you express yourself so that other people perceive you as hearing and understanding them, you project an essential relationship-building message. The message is, “I value our relationship.” So simple yet so profound and meaningful.
Not everyone is born with these relational skills. But most people can develop them once they become aware of the need to do so.
The leader who deflated the entire room in under two minutes
After the man went into a meeting with his team and deflated the room with alarming efficiency, I called him to talk about the event. I asked what was going on and he said he had a few major things happen to him right before that session. Of course, as an executive coach, I empathized with him. It’s tough to leave life at the door. But I also pushed him to explore his role as a leader. What coping mechanisms can he put in place to temper volatile emotions? How can he show up for his team without making his bad day their bad day? And how can he become more aware of how his self-expression affects other people?
It's essential for leaders to cultivate this self-awareness. It can be hard to do this on your own which is why working with an executive coach is so helpful. Executive coaches help leaders see things they were previously unable or unwilling to see.
The new leader who lashed out and got the same in return
One of my clients found herself in a situation where emotional intelligence was running low. A new leader at work called her out in front of everyone—twice! He was new and didn’t know what was going on, but he expressed himself in an unhelpful way. This led to my client getting defensive and lashing back, which resulted in the new leader getting upset. These vicious cycles can be avoided when leaders learn to regulate their emotions, stress response and self-expression, which are all components of emotional intelligence.
The aloof boss, the bombshell and the reframe
My client told me that when she gave her two weeks’ notice, her boss was aloof about receiving her resignation. Shortly after, he told her, “We’re closing your division and terminating everyone tomorrow.” After hearing this news, my client called me, said she was devastated for her team and not in the right head space for our call. I told her that’s why we needed to have that call—and we did.
In that call, we talked about how to reframe her approach to the situation. Yes, the news is devastating, but it wasn’t about her team’s skills, qualifications or capability. As a leader, how could she help her team rise and see the potential of the situation? How could she help them as they move into the next part of their careers? How can she help them explore the possibilities of getting even better jobs?
I checked in on my client after she had to break the news to her team. She said the conversation went way better than she expected; she let her team vent and then helped them shift into possibility thinking.
This last example shows me that even with ample emotional intelligence, people still need to recognize their own stress triggers before they can choose to get back into a more positive space. (This is why I love the Energy Leadership Index (ELI) Assessment; it really helps people understand their stress response and how to shift unhelpful reactions into helpful ones.)
Why emotional intelligence matters for leaders and organizations
Emotional intelligence capacity can make or break an organization. Without emotional intelligence skills, leaders and individual contributors are more likely to have performance issues, be dismissive towards colleagues and demonstrate a lack of self-regulation (for example, saying things without thinking about the consequences).
Testing for emotional intelligence is a great way to help current and future leaders grow into their true potential. If your internal pipeline were full of strong candidates who had high levels of emotional intelligence, what possibilities would the future hold?
If you’d like to increase emotional intelligence at an individual and/or organizational level, don’t hesitate to reach out to me for a meet-and-greet discovery call. At WIL Empowered, we conduct emotional intelligence assessments for individuals and leadership teams and create customized coaching workshops to address opportunities to expand organizational EQ capacity.
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Hi, I’m Vicki Bradley, an executive coach in Toronto and the Founder and CEO of Women in Leadership Empowered.
I work with women pursuing success in executive leadership roles and the presidents and CEOs who understand that strong businesses are built with strong, diverse leadership.
WIL Empowered is a group coaching program where we focus on all four aspects of leadership development through coaching, networking, peer-to-peer mentoring and developing soft skills. Our mission is to help women develop the skills, motivation and accountability required to succeed in their business and personal lives.
Take our five-minute leadership quiz to discover where your leadership skills are now and where you’d like them to be this time next year.
To learn more about WIL Empowered, visit our website at WILempowered.com or reach out to Vicki@wilempowered.com for a discovery call.