Emotional Intelligence Leadership

As a leader, how do you measure the value of your investment of energy, expertise and time…as a volunteer? Recently, I had a conversation about volunteering. One of the things that surfaced was that the person didn’t feel that she was getting what she expected from her contribution. And she felt what she was giving wasn’t appreciated.

Giving more than what is received may not meet be what you signed up for. Then again, as a leader, you are probably familiar with that situation. In fact, an informal poll of a small group of women business owners, my friends and peers, showed that they all think that a leader goes beyond what is expected, gives the extra something and that sets the tone and example for others. And there are many things that a leader receives in return for this investment: feeling that you are making a positive difference, building relationships, learning, developing others, and having fun among them.

If you are a leader, someone who others look to for guidance and direction, someone who has influence and gets things done through others, think about your gift of energy, expertise, and time as a volunteer and…how you measure your investment.

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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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Why is trust such an important part of being a leader? Without it, almost nothing else matters. It is a basic trademark of good leadership.

This makes me recall a former boss. He had technical business savvy, but very little emotional intelligence. He lead by fear, not by cultivating trust. He bullied lots of people (this was before companies really paid attention to professional and civil treatment for all) . He did not care about building relationships. And forget about developing employees. It’s almost as though he had a “chew ‘em up and spit ‘em out” philosophy. People would shake in their boots when he was around. He did not admit mistakes and was good at blaming others. While his “get results through fear” had short-term impact, it could not carry the long-term business results the corporation expected. Trust was non-existent. No one wanted to go the extra mile. Turnover was at an all-time high. And in the end, he was terminated.

It was a great learning experience. One that showed clearly what not to do.

In contrast, another former supervisor invested in relationships and earning people’s trust. She was honest and transparent. She had high integrity and you knew where she stood and what she expected. There were no hidden agendas. She created an environment where people truly felt they could express an opinion and it would be considered, even if it differed from hers. It was safe, so people had more courage and took more (good) risks. She kept commitments. She asked for regular feedback and was good at following-up. When she couldn’t take an action that was requested, she explained why and it made sense. She communicated clearly and thoroughly; in other words, the receiver really got the message that she intended. She 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. People excelled on her team and high performers from other departments wanted to work with her. People willingly gave more than was expected and had fun doing it. We’re talking lots of optimal performance. In the end, she was promoted, several times, to the highest executive level.

It was a great learning experience. It made me want to be that kind of leader because I experienced first-hand what it was like to work with someone like that. I was motivated to do my best and then reach further, to improve from there. It was invigorating and rewarding, not just for me but for people I interacted with also.

Most leaders fall somewhere in between these two examples. And most good leaders do some of the things outlined in the second story above, some of the time.

Here’s my challenge to leaders: what difference would you see in performance and then business results if you did all of the things to build and nurture trust, all of the time? If you don’t think it’s worth the investment, I guarantee you are not maximizing your team’s output, getting the best business results and for sure you are not getting optimal performance.

Try it and let me know…

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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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Genuine human connection is at the heart of emotional intelligence (EI). Leaders more than ever need to connect to those they are leading. And perhaps more critical is that people, employees, volunteers need to feel connected to their leaders. They do that, we do that through human connection. Face-to-face.

Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to get rid of your PDA. I am suggesting that if you are wanting to improve your EI or are in need of developing emotional intelligence, you opt for a face-to- face conversation more than every-so-often. Leadership is many things. One is the art of getting things done, usually for a positive business result, through other people. While there are other ways to get results, one of the best ways is by building relationships. Studies show that one of the things employees want from their work environment is a positive relationship with their supervisor.  When that is a given, it’s fine to use your PDA to send a quick request and receive a timely response. But if your primary form of communicating is via a hand-held device, and you don’t already have a strong positive relationship, it’s time to put it down, walk around the corner and say hello.

Don’t sacrifice a relationship for what initially appears to be a more efficient way to get things done. The long run ROI just isn’t there. If however, you invest in building relationships through genuine human connections and then use your BlackBerry wisely, your efforts will pay off.

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