Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably heard about emotional intelligence. However, you may not know exactly what it means or what the true definition of the term is, let alone, why it would be important in leadership. Emotional Intelligence is defined as the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, as well as recognize and influence the emotions of those around you. And, it’s actually a fairly new concept or term rising up in 1990 and becoming more popular throughout the years, especially in the past decade.
Several studies have shown in the past decade that the most effective leaders have high EQ’s or Emotional Intelligence. When a lot of people hear this, they think, “Well, what about your IQ or your talent or training or technical skills?” And you might be thinking the same thing as you read this as well. I get it. That’s all important as well when you are first starting out to qualify for a job and even for a leadership position. The reality is that emotional intelligence is how you grow and evolve though, even as a leader.
In my opinion, your EQ dictates in a lot of ways the advancement of your journey as a leader. Why do I believe this to be true? (And trust me, I am not alone on this opinion). Because if you have a high EQ, it has been proven that you are more likely to handle conflict well, remain calm in stressful situations, think logically through an emotional experience, and react to your colleagues and team with empathy. Yes, I am bringing up empathy again, but empathy is the water of life to leadership. EQ is the food to nourish you for your leadership role.
That is why I am going to spend the next few blog and podcast episodes breaking EQ down for you and telling you exactly how you can become an emotionally intelligent leader. It is a popular opinion that there are four core competencies of emotional intelligence: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Social Skills or what is also referred to as Relationship Management by some. I’ve written and spoke about a few of these topics, but I am going to get deep into what they mean for you as a leader and how each one of these core competencies will enable you to increase your EQ and set you up to become a successful leader.
In my opinion, empathy is vital to leadership. It is an absolute nonnegotiable and if you are struggling with empathy then working on your EQ will help either way. Some of us are natural empaths but need to learn boundaries. Others lack the ability naturally for empathy. Again, in my opinion, I do believe that you can work to become empathetic, and I do believe that you can work to improve your emotional intelligence. (Of course, you can go back through my blog and podcast series on empathy for a refresher on empathy too)!
Being a leader means you are always learning, and you will always be growing as none of us know it all and we never will. In my opinion, I think that is rather exciting and that is what draws me to leadership. So, drink up your lesson empathy and get ready to learn about the four pillars of the food of leadership, emotional intelligence.
