The best EI training? Real-life experiences.
Daniel Goleman
Director of Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence Online Courses and Senior Consultant at Goleman Consulting Group
Degrees in themselves do not guarantee any growth in emotionally intelligent leadership ability. Emotional Intelligence competencies develop in the midst of life. There are a wide variety of situations in which this can occur.
When Johnson & Johnson did an internal study of the way their best leaders had developed their strengths, they found that people had begun to build these abilities early in life. An outstanding team leader, for instance, said she began to develop this strength in middle school, when she acted as an assistant coach on the girls’ field hockey team.
So many of the situations you name could provide this kind of natural strength building. Living in another culture, for instance, can be a great way to develop more cognitive empathy, where we understand other people’s mental models – how they see the world. This competence makes us better communicators: we know how to put things so people understand.
Tough criticism, my colleague Richard Boyatzis has found, is not a good way to help people build strengths. The reason is that it activates centers in the brain for negative emotion that can shut down learning.
The same goes for too much positive reinforcement – unconditional positive feedback is far less effective than honest, nonjudgmental feedback, which lets people stay on track and know what to keep doing and what to change.
Mentors can be great, particularly if they are positive role models. You can use the things you admire about them as goals for yourself.
If you’re having trouble identifying particular situations that might help you grow your EI leadership competencies, I recommend the work by Richard Boyatzis to help give you a jump start.
Finally, let’s see what we can learn from one another. List some of your real-life EI training experiences in the comments section.
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Emotional Intelligence author, Daniel Goleman lectures frequently to business audiences, professional groups and on college campuses. A psychologist who for many years reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times, Dr. Goleman previously was a visiting faculty member at Harvard.
Dr. Goleman’s most recent books are The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights and Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence – Selected Writings. (More Than Sound). Goleman’s latest project, Leadership: A Master Class, is his first-ever comprehensive video series that examines the best practices of top-performing executives.
Experienced executive human resources professional. Passionate about people and business.
10 年I recall a time being under incredible pressure in an employment dispute. This guy was yelling at me and he his finger in my face and all I wanted was for him to get out of my face so I could "fix things" and get the operation back on track. In amongst his tirade I heard him say "I can't believe this company treats people like this". I asked him "like what?". What followed was a very powerful conversation where we managed to connect two different perspectives and get to the facts. The facts were we were both trying to do what was right for people (& the business) we just had really different approaches. Lesson learned - listen, discuss, act.
*Starting Customer Conversations Specialist, *Keynote Speaker, *Promoting women's sense of self-worth, their ability to determine their own work choices. I help people build Self Confidence!
10 年I learn everyday in training and working closely with people. I love it!
Multidiscipline Maintenance Engineer
10 年Only in the last few months have I started learning about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Toxity . Understanding and being able to recognise the characteristics of these people has prevented me from taking acquisitions personally. I now view them as damaged individuals that need our help rather than people who are nasty unpleasant characters (to put it very mildly). One of my motivations to learn more about this disorder is because this level of understanding has not been addressed in a number of Industry leadership courses and workshops I have attended. I found the focus is on teaching tools but without acknowledging and addressing the real world issues. i.e. those hard facts most of us want to avoid talking about, particularly in organisations and close knit teams for fear of making a situation worse. My other motivation is because I hope to develop with friends an effective experiential leadership program that results in long term behavioural change across the spectrum of the leadership issues all of us face in life. Whether it is developing our own confidence to deal with difficult situations and people or indeed helping the damaged individuals understand their effect on others. A tall order I know. I always liked a challenge!
Higher Education Educator & Trainer
11 年I know that mentoring is the way to serve humanity. I think people behave the way they think they should to protect themselves from feeling at odds with their self-perception. If the self-perception is static, their behavior can be one-dimensional. Yes, it takes working at it, if there is no exploration of the self, there is no human development.