2022: The Year for More Emotional Intelligence

I’m delighted to share with you matters close to my heart, ideas that I find stimulating, and some practical tips and leads that you might find useful. At the heart, of course, you’ll find emotional intelligence. But my interests also go far beyond; you’ll get a taste of that range here. PLUS news you can put to use in your life or work – or in both.?Please join me each month.

Let's dive in...

First, an announcement...

Season Three of First Person Plural Launches in Early March!

First Person Plural: EI & Beyond?is a podcast about us, the systems we’re a part of, and how we create an emotionally intelligent future. Brought to you by?me, Key Step Media , and EI Coach, Elizabeth Solomon , this podcast goes beyond the theory of emotional intelligence, presenting an array of stories which will inspire you to lead with more mindfulness, resilience, and a deepened awareness of the systems we work, live, and create in.? Previous guests have included Amishi Jha , Modupe Akinola , and Rebecca Henderson (among others)!

Catch up on previous episodes by going to our?Episode Notes or by listening in on one of these platforms:

Apple Podcasts // Spotify // Overcast // Stitcher

Onward...

Emotional Intelligence #1 Criterion for NYC Mayor

Emotional intelligence turns out to be the Number One criterion New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams looks for in his top officials. At the same time he downplays more common qualifications like academic achievement and experience in government. Why??

“If you’re emotionally intelligent, you can better understand what people are going through,” Adams told the New York Times .

“If you don’t understand going through COVID, losing your home, living in a shelter, maybe losing your job, going through a health care crisis, if you don’t empathize with that person, you will never give them they services they need,” he added.

The importance Adams places on emotional intelligence as a measure of job candidates, the Times article points out, reflects his experience growing up Black in a working-class neighborhood in Queens, and climbing a career ladder from being police captain to state senator, and eventually Mayor-elect.

Adams’ definition of ‘emotional intelligence’ aligns with my own.

He names managing one’s emotions and handling oneself well in whatever situation a person encounters. He sees such ‘people skills’ as more important than, say, an Ivy League college degree, or academic intelligence in general.

I think both cognitive abilities and emotional intelligence matter for effective leadership, and I wince when people exaggerate the import of emotional intelligence.

The other day I saw online the idea that emotional intelligence accounts for “80% of success.” Not so.

For most positions, especially leadership, the relevant cognitive or technical skill set is a threshold ability – one you need to get and keep the position. But what makes someone a standout in that position is due in large part to emotional intelligence.

A growing body of research now strongly supports the benefits for any organization of having emotionally intelligent leaders and employees.?

But it’s not always easy to spot emotional intelligence in a job candidate – after all, they’re trying to look their best. I recommend interviewing in confidence people they work with now or have worked with in the past.

Adams is not alone in recognizing how much emotional intelligence matters for leadership.? Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank, made a similar point about emotional intelligence. He was talking about what to look for when promoting or hiring, and put it this way: “Would you want your kid to work for this person?”

Next up...

My dear friend and colleague, George Kohlrieser , is a world-renowned Psychologist and IMD Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior, known for his outstanding work in hostage negotiation. If you want to learn the negotiation strategies, skills and tactics required to build better working relationships and achieve desired workplace outcomes, join George in WOBI's upcoming learning program. There will be time for Q&A sessions with George himself.

I will also be interviewing George on Season 3 of First Person Plural . Keep your eyes out for that episode coming this Spring!

And now...

Correction: the misconception that emotional intelligence equates to just being “nice”. Wrong!?

There’s a stereotype floating around that being emotionally intelligent means you are ‘nice’: always cheerful, harmonious with everyone, not making waves.

I disagree.

Always going along to get along can be the wrong reaction, depending on circumstances.

Susan David of Harvard Medical School’s Institute of Coaching calls this the “tyranny of positivity,” seeing only pleasant emotions as good; she notes that this can mean being rigidly positive even in the face of obvious problems.

For instance, if there’s an ethical lapse, or someone voices racism, or a co-worker’s rudeness harms another, the emotionally intelligent response would not be silence, but rather speaking up to call attention to the problem – even if that creates a ripple of hard feeling.

This brings to mind the work of Ervin Staub, in his important book The Roots of Evil . As a child Staub was saved from the Nazis by Swedish ambassador Raoul Wallenberg, and went on to research the social dynamics of evil-doing.?

He found that one of the ways people seemed to condone wrong-doing was by their failure to speak up.

In companies this commonly takes the form of side-lining anyone with a different perspective or reservations. While that may make a team seem harmonious, it actually suppresses the creative spirit. A healthy organization – and an emotionally intelligent leader – would welcome fresh points of view, even if uncomfortable.

And hard conversations can unearth feelings that have been repressed but need to be aired if subsurface tensions are to be resolved.

Openness about feelings can be a sign of organizational health.

There’s a helpful distinction between being nice and being kind. ‘Nice’ means being agreeable, pleasing people. But kindness differs: it’s being helpful to someone else, even if that means not being agreeable. The drive for kindness comes from wanting to help, while the driver for niceness comes down to being liked.?

I vote for kindness.

To close...

To truly work with empathy, an organization needs to base product and services designs on an in-depth understanding of customer needs. This level of effort is part of the culture at Google, which?Dr. Matthew Lippincott ?and I discussed in an interview with?Ruchika Sikri , former Head of Well-being Learning Strategy and CultureDev for Google, and now the Managing Partner of?Wisdom Ventures .?