The power of emotional intelligence in leadership

Often when we think of someone in leadership, we think of the hard skills, qualifications, and years of experience behind them that led to their growth and management position. While these are all needed to climb the corporate ladder, soft skills are an invaluable set of traits that great leaders possess. These are the skills that help them build strong relationships and teams. Emotional intelligence, specifically, is a high-value soft skill that sets extraordinary leaders apart from the rest. Below, we take a closer look at the power of emotional intelligence in leadership.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence is described as one’s capacity to recognise, understand, control and express your emotions. Emotional intelligence entails understanding and interpreting the emotions of others. This ability can be utilised to foster strong relationships in the workplace and positively impact both subordinates and fellow leaders, enabling them to achieve their maximum potential. Leaders who have a strong EQ are aware of the impact emotions can have and are equipped to handle interpersonal relationships with empathy. This is emphasised in the words of renowned poet and author Maya Angelou, who once said, “…people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Our emotions are a daily part of our lives. They affect our health and moods and are present at home and at work. Emotions affect how we respond to situations and how we react to challenges, conflicts, and opportunities that we face in the workplace. Emotionally intelligent leaders use this skill to adapt their style as needed and can accommodate, without compromise, the different personalities found in professional settings.

Why does emotional intelligence matter?

The debate about whether your emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) is more important than your IQ has been raging for years. Many argue that the former holds greater weight. But when you consider this soft skill and its importance in building relationships with people, it’s easy to see why it ranks higher for many people. In the workplace, and more so as a leader, a strong EQ can help you:

• Motivate others
• Resolve conflicts
• Reduce stress levels
• Build trust
• Nurture a collaborative culture and environment
• ?Improve communication

Emotional intelligence matters. It’s the bedrock of interpersonal relationships, and no (healthy) workplace can function without it.

What are the pillars of emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is often broken down into five key components:

1. Empathy is being able to read the room, walk in another’s shoes and hold space for their experience and feelings without your feelings and opinions getting in the way.
2. Effective communication or social skills describes your ability to recognise the different relationship dynamics in a team or organisation, balance them out, collaborate, influence, coach, and mentor others. You also need to communicate your vision clearly and concisely so that everyone understands and can run with it.
3. Self-awareness is the ability to know your emotions , strengths, and weaknesses and recognise the impact of these on individual performance and the strength and health of professional relationships.
4. Self-regulation is sometimes referred to as self-management, and it speaks to your ability to regulate and manage your emotions in calm and, particularly, stressful situations. You need to be able to keep your emotions in check and not fly off the handle when situations get sticky.
5. Motivation is needed when emotions dip, things don’t look good, and the will to take the next step isn’t present. This is when you need to be able to encourage, lift, and motivate yourself, your team and your organisation to keep going. And keep going still because you believe the tides will turn in your favour.

For a leader, knowing and understanding these components is one thing, but it’s how they apply them that makes a difference.

The role of emotional intelligence in leadership

Leadership is not just a position you hold.? it’s a set of traits and values you possess, the actions you take, and your virtues and behaviour that drive the impact, influence, and inspiration you have. Stephen Covey, a prominent author, said, “Leadership is a choice, not a position, and that true leaders have a moral authority well before a formal authority.” One of the standout qualities of a leader is emotional intelligence. And the power this has in their role.

How to improve your EQ for effective leadership

As a leader, you want to empathise with your team, customers or clients. To do this effectively, you need to increase your emotional intelligence quotient . We’ve put together a few tips to help you get started on your journey to being a powerful and impactful leader:

?Listen

An incorrect assumption that many people have is that the most important thing you’ll do as a leader is talk. Instead, a key skill to work on is the ability to listen and listen well. This doesn’t just mean hearing what your team or colleagues say, but it’s paying attention to their feelings, what they say, and don’t say and being able to reflect these back to them. People want to know that not only are they seen, but that they are heard and valued.

Get personal

This doesn’t mean you need to be in everyone’s personal business, but it goes deeper than this. Getting personal as a leader means you see your employees as individuals and recognise their efforts. Added to this, it’s being able to pick up when someone isn’t “their usual self” in their performance and caring enough to not simply scold but seek to understand the “why” behind the drop in performance. it’s seeing them and taking steps to help them overcome whatever challenges they are facing. Doing these builds trust and is the difference between your employees staying or looking for a new company.

Self-reflection

Leading powerfully from a place of emotional intelligence means understanding yourself, what drives you, what pushes your buttons, and so on. Your experiences inform your perspectives, and you need to be willing to learn how this impacts the way you see yourself, your team and your organisation. Self-reflection is an eye-opening exercise that will give you further insight into your decisions and how you lead as a result. Once you have identified your triggers, strengths, and weaknesses, you position yourself to lead with authority and wisdom, and because you’ll be leading from a genuine and informed place, you’ll make more effective decisions and have a greater impact.

Seek feedback

Feedback is not the easiest thing to do. With it comes the risk of hearing that you aren’t doing as well as you thought you were. If you ask for feedback from an authentic place and are open to hearing both good and bad reviews, you allow yourself to learn, a necessary skill for every leader to possess. You let your team know that you lead with honesty and truth and don’t expect them to do what you are unwilling to do. This helps reinforce relationships and gives you room to take steps to lead better based on what you’ve heard.

Alison has a range of courses you take to help you improve your emotional intelligence:

• Understanding Workplace Emotional Intelligence
• The Principles of Emotional Intelligence, Leadership and Coaching
• Diploma in Emotional Intelligence
• Develop Your Emotional Intelligence
• Introduction to Emotional Intelligence

People don’t leave companies, they leave leaders. In today's workplaces, emotional intelligence is a critical competency for anyone in a leadership position. Leaders with high emotional intelligence (EI) can emotionally connect with their team members, encourage and inspire them, and develop close bonds with them.

Emotional intelligence, unlike a hard skill, is intangible. Yet, for each of us, and especially leaders, emotional intelligence is the often-forgotten factor that will help you in becoming the kind of leader you dream of being.

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