Emotional Intelligence Leadership

I recently shared an example of a leader, I’ll call her Faye, that built a lot of trust. Cultivating trust helped her build strong relationships. These relationships created an environment where people wanted to do their best and in fact, they did, they excelled.

Let’s look at her behaviors and actions:

Encouraged and promoted open communication

- Faye was honest and transparent and fostered that in return. You knew where she stood and what she expected. She shared her reasoning, thoughts and feelings. There were no hidden agendas or mixed messages. She created an environment where people truly felt they could express an opinion and it would be considered, even if it differed from hers. Faye asked for regular feedback and gave it freely, both complimentary and constructive. When she couldn’t take an action that was requested, she explained why and it made sense. She communicated clearly and thoroughly; the receiver really got the message that she intended.

Reliable and consistent

- Faye kept commitments and held herself and those she worked with accountable. She had high integrity. There were no surprises or broken promises. She was good at following-up. When she couldn’t take an action that was requested, she explained why and it made sense.

Respectful to all

-Faye was fair and had no hidden agendas. She really valued diversity. She enhanced people’s self-esteem.

Showed confidence in others

-Faye let people do their jobs by supporting them and getting out of their way. She invested in her team’s development, both individually and as a group. She coached and mentored. She advocated for her group and others. She shared leadership and she brought out the best in others.

Faye was and is a great leader and boss. And she still is one of the best leaders I know.

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A friend and business colleague phoned me and started the conversation after hello with, “we’re pretty good friends, right?” I immediately felt warmer and the warning light went on in my head. After I agreed, she went on to give me some feedback: she said that my sending an email offering help to a third party was “kinda taking over” (taking over her role as head of the non-profit volunteer organization we both belong to).

That came as a pretty big surprise, since that was not and is not my intention (there’s an example of the gap between intention and impact). After taking a breath, I apologized and explained that wasn’t what I wanted to do and I calmly asked her how she wanted me to change that going forward. She asked me to run things by her first and admitted that it might be cumbersome, but that was her preference (and she is the head of this organization). Ok, sure I can do that.

In the moment I composed the email and sent it, I was not thinking that my actions could be mis-interpreted. Since receiving the feedback, I am now much more conscious of how I will do things as they relate to this group and specifically to her, our leader.

Self management keeps me from making this any larger than it is. But I feel a bit annoyed (at least my self awareness is working some) at myself for not having thought about it more and the potential impact of my seemingly innocent actions. And I feel a bit irritated that what started out as a good gesture didn’t exactly turn out the way I thought.

Emotional intelligence as it happens.

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Yesterday I participated in an orientation for Community Cafés which are a series of guided conversations based on the Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework leadership development and parent partnership.

During one of the conversations, I brought up the idea of intention and impact and what can occur when the two are not aligned. A really interesting thing happened as we talked about this. Two of my co-participants , native Spanish speakers, said that the word intention does not exist in Spanish, so we started looking for alternatives in English to see if that would help further the discussion. We ran out of time and didn’t bring the conversation to real closure, but ended up having an “aha!” moment: even when we share a common language, we should not assume that we (the people engaged in the conversation) have or use the same definitions.

While not assuming may seem obvious, I’ve seen so many situations where people make the assumption that their use of a word is the same as the other person’s understanding of it and it when they don’t match there’s a misunderstanding. Certainly not what was intended. Then, when there are more languages involved, another, sometimes several layer(s) of complexity is/are introduced.

A little later, we witnessed someone’s actions having an un-intended impact. The scenario went something like this: there were four tables with four people per table. Each table was assigned a puzzle to complete. It wasn’t clear if each table had to find it’s own solution or if the solution was for all of the tables to collaborate and combine their efforts. One person thought he was helping us all achieve a common goal – he had the best of intentions as he went to three of the tables and took one of their pieces to add to the piece from our table. He did not make any announcement or explain what he was trying to do. Some of the other people on the other three tables thought he was being a bully and that he was stealing pieces to only benefit his team. They did not like his actions at all. When we debriefed the activity, his intentions became clear as he explained what he had been trying to do. Ah, and ruffled feathers were soothed.

If this can happen in an environment where partnerships were one of the key topics we were focusing on, you can see why this happens too frequently in everyday life.

As leaders, where do you have an opportunity to clarify your intentions? Before you act, and if need be, after too.

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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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