Here's how you can maximize your career as an emotionally intelligent insurance professional.

Actively listen and empathize with your clients, which can help you to become client's trusted advisor. Clients who feel valued are more likely to purchase from you and renew their policies.

Focus on being a good listener. It's a little bit like throwing random technology at a problem and hoping it will stick. Understand what the ask is. Building rapport within a community is about listening and being present. It takes time, but emotional awareness will help you develop far greater intuition around where and how you can provide support. There isn't any greater reward than helping people on their own respective path.

Insurance is one of those unique industries where the joy of personal success is matched equally by the joy of helping others. What particular role are you playing? As an agent, a trusted advisor to the insured, being there where the customer wants to be met is critical. Sometimes it is on the end of a phone, other times it is responding in a timely fashion to an email or text. As am engineer or product specialist, understanding the ask is critical to delivering an impactful application or product. Take time to understanding your client's needs. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Focus on the mantra of continuous improvement and take a phased approach to building and delivering.

You are only as good as your mental state. Over worked, over stressed ultimately will take its toll on your profession career and personal life. To offer value to others, look after yourself and well being. If you are in a customer service role, make it a goal to understand the technology at your disposal. Look at your own internal workflows. Can you leverage automation to streamline some of your own repetitive and manual tasks? Ultimately, we are all in control of how we use our time. Make it as valuable and impactful as possible by focusing on the higher value tasks and leverage automation and/or virtual assistants to manage the workload.

How do we effectively resolve conflicts? There is no magic bullet, but there is perhaps no greater use of emotional intelligence than when it comes to conflict resolution. Most critical skill? Listening. As Nietzsche once said "There are no facts, only interpretations". The ability to listen is an essential piece of the puzzle when navigating disagreements or looking for common ground. A large part of exploring the InsurTech ecosystem is building relationships and frequently there are conversations that transcend a number of barriers. Change is a key driver of InsurTech and driving change across an industry that is perhaps somewhat unaccustomed to change requires patience, listening and a nuanced approach to communication.

Emotional intelligence serves as an extremely important tool for leaders to understand how each individual on their team requires different methods of training, how they are driven by differing motivations, and what methods of communication they might prefer. For example, by bringing out a teammates positive attributes in handling a certain situation may help to motivate certain individuals as it creates a clear direction of what they should work towards. Whilst to another individual, it may be taken as a manner of comparison and how they have performed poorly in comparison to the benchmark set by the other person. Hence, emotional intelligence plays a big role in figuring out how one should go about managing their team.

Emotional intelligence equips you with the ability to understand and manage your own emotions as well as those of your team members. As a leader, this skill set can enhance communication, foster trust, resolve conflicts effectively, and inspire motivation among team members. By being attuned to others' feelings and needs, you can adapt your leadership style to better support and empower your team, ultimately leading to improved collaboration and productivity.

Continuous learning allows you to expand your knowledge and skills, including those related to emotional intelligence. By actively seeking to understand emotions, develop empathy, and refine interpersonal communication, you can enhance your emotional intelligence over time. Exposure to new ideas, experiences, and perspectives through learning keeps your emotional intelligence flexible and adaptive, enabling you to respond more effectively to the emotions of yourself and others in various situations. For InsurTech, continuous learning is essential. Developing a deeper relationship with technology helps drive more effective communication around change and gives you the skillset to help team members on their own respective digital journey.

I believe that adopting a growth mindset is fundamental to personal growth and development. It’s important to embrace humility and maintain an open mind to continuously acquire knowledge, because it not only enhances value to clients, but also improves work processes. However, note that a growth mindset alone does not equate to growth agility! While having the right mindset is crucial, the ability to learn quickly and apply emotional intelligence to put new knowledge to use effectively and at the appropriate time is even more critical.