The Emotionally Intelligent Leader

Tilak held the position of Team Head, responsible for overseeing a team of 10 individuals. Their team had consistently excelled in the sales department. Both colleagues and team members held Tilak in high regard, appreciating the respect and care with which he treated them. His guidance and mentorship were consistently lauded by his teammates.

Shyam’s leadership style was different from Tilak's; he was strict and did not prioritize building connections with his team. Although team members described him as practical, he was not open to feedback and his team suffered from a decline in performance, leading some members to express their desire to switch teams.

Recognizing the need for a change, the manager advised Shyam to develop a stronger bond with his team members and seek guidance from Tilak, understanding the gravity of the situation he offered Shyam a transformative advice on Emotional Intelligence and how it would help him to win his team.

Tilak's Insights and Strategies for Building Emotional Intelligence

A person high in emotional intelligence may be realistic rather than optimistic and insecure rather than confident. Conversely, a person may be highly self-confident and optimistic but lack emotional intelligence. The danger lies in assuming that because a person is optimistic or confident, he or she is also emotionally intelligent, when, in fact, the presence of those traits will tell you nothing of the sort.

Seek Frank Feedback:?

Embrace feedback as a valuable tool for strengthening relationships, enhancing team performance, and improving leadership effectiveness. Rather than avoiding it, recognize that feedback can be a powerful asset in these areas.

Gauge Your Awareness:

?Self-awareness is the key emotional intelligence skill behind good leadership.? It’s often thought of as the ability to know how you’re feeling and why, and the impact your feelings have on your behavior. But it also involves a capacity to monitor and control those strong but subliminal biases that all of us harbor and that can skew our decision making.

Let Your Guard Down:?

The leader can use emotional intelligence to catalyze creative thinking by letting your guard down and be willing to embarrass themself by floating unformed—and even uninformed—ideas too.?

Balance the Load:

Emotional intelligence is powerful—which is precisely why it can be dangerous. For example, empathy is an extraordinary relationship-building tool, but it must be used skillfully or it can do serious damage to the person doing the empathizing.

Emotional intelligence is an essential quality for effective leadership, although it alone is not enough.? Emotional intelligence helps leaders to build relations with others , which without a doubt is one of the most important factors in being an effective leader. Not everyone can be emotionally intelligent, But the good news is that emotional intelligence can be learned and improved at any age.