Emotional Intelligence Leadership

Jennifer Cheavens, PhD and assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University is doing very interesting work on hope.  This makes me more hopeful than I already am…especially for leaders and their teams. Dr. Cheavens asserts that research has shown that those of us with lots of hope do very well in life in all sorts of areas. Prior to knowing this, that was my sense, but now there’s evidence.

Dr Cheavens and her colleagues differentiate hope from optimism; they define hope as goal-oriented thinking. It is therefore active. There are two components, pathways and agency. “Pathways thinking reflects your ability to come up with lots of different ways to get what you want in the future. Agency is the amount of energy, will or motivation you bring to those routes.” A person can be high in both pathways and agency, low in one or the other or low in both.

Stated this way, hope sounds like creative problem-solving to meet a goal, the very actions required of leaders and their teams to achieve business results. And an excellent tie-back to self awareness and emotional intelligence (EI).

Noting this, it may be useful for leaders and the individuals on their teams to consider where they are on the hope scale. And if needed, work to move one’s placement further up the scale.

Dr, Cheavens recommends asking these three questions which will give you an idea of where you are on the hope scale:

-Do I believe I can get the things I want in my life?
-Do I think I can come up with ways to get what I want?
-Do I think those ways are things I can actually do?

For a leader and a workplace team, the questions might be something like the following:

-Do we believe we can get the things we want in this project/assignment?
-Do we think we can come up with ways to get what we want?
-Do we think those ways are things we can actually do?

How do you increase hope? Dr. Cheavens suggests articulating very specific goals, and to move toward a goal rather than away from a problem, as that is more energizing. These apply to an individual on a personal level and in the professional arena. Use positive self-talk and good self-care. Good advice in any situation. Generate lots of pathways to reach the goal. This is brainstorming, a familiar tool to leaders and teams. Visually make a map of “I am/we are here” as a starting point with the goal on the other end and include the pathways and obstacles. Ramp-up support, find advocates and allies. Again, this makes good sense in the personal and professional spheres.

Now that there is evidence that hope really can make a difference, I am hopeful that leaders and teams take action to increase their hope.

How hopeful are you?

http://www.more.com/2024/7577-a-plan-to-make-your

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Don’t let your emotions get in the way of your leadership or bottom line business results will suffer.

A business owner, my client, was mad. He felt disrespected by an employee. He knew he had to address the behavior, because if he didn’t, his silence would condone what the employee did and in the end it would negatively affect business.

This leader knows that what he permits, he promotes.

First thing first. He had to get control of his emotions. By self managing, he could he maintain his leadership based on integrity and set a good example. We all get mad, upset, frustrated. How you manage those emotions impacts your leadership.  Calm down and focus. That’s what he did. Then he had to get all the facts (there was evidence of wrong doing, but more facts were needed) and then determine next steps on how to discuss the inappropriate behavior with the employee.

Don’t let you emotions get in the way of your leadership. And be clear on what you permit because that is what you promote.

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Too often I meet leaders who have the view that being successful and getting business results is primarily about being task oriented.

I disagree.

Being successful in getting business results is combining all the elements of Emotional Intelligence with focusing on achieving the business goals and objectives. Today, being a leader means paying attention and putting energy and effort into relationships and nurturing relationship management. By now I hope you recognize that even though you may want to do everything yourself, it just is not possible. That’s where relationships matter. If you hope to accomplish all the priorities, you need to collaborate with those in your team and influence them in a positive way to meet those demands.

In order to do this, think about how much of your effort as a leader is on relationships. How much emphasis do you put on tasks? Rough numbers, I say you should spend 70% give or take a little on relationship building and maintaining those relationships.

How do you start spending 70% of your energy on relationships? Start with learning about EI and yourself. Then once you have an idea about where your EI competencies are, you can develop a plan to strengthen and refine them.

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In the past,  I have been told that I trust too much. Hmm. That made me stop and think about the relativity of trust.

While my inclination to trust has not changed much since that feedback, I have become more aware of the whole arena of trust. I now notice what happens in interactions, with regard to trust, particularly in leadership relationships. That is, the relationships that leaders have with those they are leading and how trust plays a critical part in them.

Trust means different things to different people. An employee feels that his leader does not trust him because she asked him to consider his frame of mind and timing before having a sensitive discussion with another manager. She, the leader, does have a lot of trust in this employee, yet cautions him because she knows more than meets the eye. They are talking with each other to clarify expectations, goals and the dance of the relationship and its impact on business results. This can be quite complex. It could be that she does not completely trust his judgment in this instance, but still trusts him overall. Eventually, the way this leader and employee handle this discussion and their next steps says a lot about the trust they share.

My perspective is while trust works best when it is reciprocated, sometimes you need to show you trust before the other party trusts you. And trust is a moving target. Idealism and realism have some part in this as well.  I may trust too much compared to Joe or Jane, but not trust as much as Sarah or Scott.

Since my view is to use emotional intelligence to build and sustain high performance relationships toward achieving the best business results, I coach believing that trust and EI are absolutely necessary for the leader and those s/he  works with for long-term success.

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Leaders! You have to pay attention to how to maximize your time and energy. If you aren’t already making the most of how you spend your energy, you’re wasting precious resources and you may be on your way to derailment or burnout.

One of the hallmarks of leadership is getting great business results through and with others and not trying to do it all yourself. Given that there’s always more to achieve, you need to rely on each individual on your team to do her/his part. The sum of everyone’s efforts needs to be 1+1=5 or better.

Emotional intelligence research shows that people want to do their best work, to perform at their optimal level when they work in a setting that enables them to do just that. What does that environment look like?

For starters, there’s a lot of trust. Up, down and sideways.

Yes, people can do a good job when it doesn’t exist, but for long-term, sustainable, excellent outcomes, trust must be part of the emotional climate. And integrity goes with trust.

Leaders often ask me how to cultivate trust. It’s simple but not necessarily easy. You build mutually trusting relationships one interaction at a time. Some then ask, “isn’t that a huge investment of time and energy?” I go back to how the leader is spending his time in the first place. If you want 1+1=5, use your time wisely. That includes building better, more effective relationships based on trust.

Every single interaction is an opportunity to build trust. And it’s a two-way street. If we really think about this, even our simplest human connections take on a different meaning.

In thinking about how to build trust, how do you start to feel that another person is trustworthy? Most often someone who earns out trust does so by being honest and open, truthful. I don’t mean brutally honest with no regard for the other person’s feelings. I’m referring to the person who can present the truth in a helpful way, using their emotional intelligence to read their own emotions and that of the other person or group and respond appropriately. This person keeps confidences. Their actions and behaviors match what they say. You know, they walk their talk. And he doesn’t do things for personal gain. He admits his mistakes or missteps and learns from them.

Trust develops over time, little by little. And can be instantly dissolved.

I’ll be talking more about trust, how to cultivate it, and what not to do over the next few posts.

And as always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.

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Look around at who is a great leader. Chances are they combine technical knowledge, business savvy and emotional intelligence.

You can’t escape the fact that as leaders, having social awareness which is part of being socially competent, a fundamental of emotional intelligence, is a must for extraordinary long-term business results and success. Here are the top three reasons leaders need to be socially aware:

1) It’s a small world, getting smaller by the minute.

2) You can’t be a success in leadership on your own.

3) People do business with people they know and like.

Let’s look at reason number one: it’s a small world getting smaller. It is so clear and yet we don’t think about it that much. I’m talking about how connected we are. Every week, sometimes daily,  I find that degrees of separation are decreasing. The fellow I met at a networking breakfast knows a colleague down the hall; a friend plays softball with my real estate agent; my neighbor does business with my former boss.  Friends and associates in London, Berlin, Hong Kong and Honolulu meet via LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and soon start doing business together and referring one another.

As the world gets smaller, leaders need to continue to create connections and community. Without a community or several, you are an island. And since leadership is about getting amazing results through and with other people, you can’t go it alone, reason number two leaders need to be socially aware. Imagine a series of interlocking circles. The circles can represent individuals or communities. The spaces where they overlap are where relationships that nurture business and leadership success lie.

This in turn relates to reason number three why leaders need to be socially aware: we like to do business with people we know and like. It’s the same the world over (and remember, that world is getting smaller).

Ok, so you know the WHY you as a leader need to be socially aware. The How to become socially aware is next. Stay tuned.

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 Leadership Principle 1: Know Yourself continued: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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I work with very smart leaders. Many are at the top of their organization. They are great at getting business results. Most are still refining how to get even better results through those that work with them.

And yet only a handful really know themselves and have a high level of self awareness.

Leadership Principle One is Know Yourself. You must connect with yourself on the fundamentals before you can do that with others effectively. You  must be a student of yourself to be an effective leader. And if you hope to get better results through those that you work with, you need to nurture your emotional intelligence and become an emotionally intelligent leader.

Know yourself, re-connect with yourself by reflecting on and answering these simple self assessment questions:

-What ten characteristics/qualities distinguish you, make you stand out?

-What are your top five values and how do those show up in your life? How do your top values influence what you do and how you do it?

-How emotionally intelligent are you? Daniel Goleman defines Emotional Intelligence as: …the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.  See www.haygroup.com/tl/EI/Quiz.aspx for a mini EI self assessment.

When you have a clearer understanding of yourself, use that information to help you make better future choices and decisions. That may include reviewing past decisions and doing a post mortem, asking a mentor for his/her input and engaging in leadership coaching.

Stay tuned for more on knowing yourself.

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There are a number of things these days that might keep you from having a good night’s sleep. I’m sure you have your own list or could easily come up with one.

Something happened to a friend recently that hit me squarely in the gut. I found out that this friend and her child had their lives turned upside down by domestic violence and were homeless for a time. I was shocked. I didn’t know what to think.  Being sensitive to the fairly common gap between intention and impact, I acted. I reached out as best I could given the sketchy details and was about to offer them a place to stay when she  explained they are now in a program for families in their situation. She and her child are OK for now.

In the space of about two hours, my emotions ran the range. I also realized that there are parts of my life that have been very sheltered. This got me thinking about personal leadership and everything that goes into that, how that influences how we show up, what actions we do or do not take, what lens we see the wordl through and what keeps leaders up at night.

It made me reflect on what is important vs. what is urgent vs. what gets in the way by our own doing or external circumstances. And it was a timely reminder that though there are many things that we say are important, we better do a personal check-in to make sure we are on track. On track with what is aligned with our own personal leadership. In fact, a daily self-check-in can do wonders for  our personal leadership and integrity,  which in turn affects business results and what keeps us up at night.

What keeps YOU up at night?

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Intention and Impact. Is there a gap there? Are your leadership intentions and the impact of your words and actions aligned? Most of us think our intentions are clear, transparent, until something goes wrong, not as well as we thought it would or business results suffer. Leaders, especially those who have self-clarity (clarity in our own mind exists), tend to assume that the impact of what we do will follow our clear-as-a-bell intention. Certainly, it’s clear because it’s clear-as-a-bell in my own mind.

• Have you ever been misunderstood?
• Was it because what you said or did was mis-interpreted, it missed the mark?
• Have you found yourself having to explain, maybe apologize to repair a relationship?
• Did you have to do double work to straighten things out?

Stop. Back-up. Establish clarity from the beginning. I recommend actually using the words, “my intention is…” These three simple words can prevent a lot of headaches, problems and hurt feelings. They can prevent a simple change effort from going bad.

This works in personal relationships too. Use the three words, “my intention is…” and they will save you from having to use a whole lot of extra words on the other end. Make alignment of your leadership intention and impact one of your strengths and your team will be that much further ahead in achieving your goals.

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