Module 10 – Emotional Intelligence

So how did you get on thinking about leadership styles, your styles and styles of others? Did you have just one predominant style, or did you find yourself actually adapting different styles for different situations? Well, we know that it’s important to do that. But how do you find the ability to be able to do that easily and quickly?

Well, it’s all through being highly, emotionally intelligent. Now emotional intelligence was another important part of Daniel Goleman’s work. In fact, it is the work he became originally famous for. And he talked a lot about EQ rather than IQ. EQ being emotional quotient, rather than the intelligence quotient.

EQ is all about highly being self -aware, but also aware of the situations in which we go in, we work, in which we are leading. Today, we’ll just look at what EQ is and understand that and I’ll ask you to think and reflect about where your strengths and possibly your weaknesses lie as far as emotional intelligence is concerned and what your emotional quotient might be. So you read it in the text and I’ll let you read it in full, but I’ll just have a quick count to three so that you’ve got some sort of orientation before you read it.

So there’s four areas that Daniel Goleman has defined. The first two relate to you. First of all, the self-awareness. There’s an awareness of your emotions and being able to gauge accurately what your thoughts and feelings are. So that’s one of the reasons why I’ve been asking in the last few days to check in with what you feel, how you think. Because being self-aware is really, really important for you as a leader, being able to gauge accurately how you’re thinking, how you’re feeling. And also, it’s also about having that inner self-confidence, that conviction that you’re doing the right thing and able to project that to your team.

So self-awareness is fundamentally important. But allied to that is the ability to manage yourself. Self-management, the ability to control yourself, to be trustworthy and display trustworthiness. To be conscientious, and diligent, in everything that you do, to be adaptable, flexible according to changing needs.

Achieve and orientated, always trying to achieve more, doing the right thing and doing more of it. And initiative, the ability to see something needing resolving, an issue needing resolving, and then the fact that you simply take initiative and get on and do it. That’s about managing yourself and your actions. So self-awareness and self-control.

Then it’s about understanding the situation that you’re moving in to. Social awareness, being able to feel what the social setting is and being able to display empathy for the people there, so gauging it and then being able to match the setting, match the feelings of the people.
There’s also be a bit of organizational context, so it’s not just the feelings but understanding the bigger picture, and also having that service orientation towards that group. And then all the social skills, having been aware of the social setting, you then have the ability to be able match yourself to that setting. Are you able to do, display visionary leadership? Creating this clear picture of where we’re taking the team. Are you able to influence people so that they, especially senior decision-makers, are able to listen to you and to make the decisions that you want and are your people willing to come with you. It’s also about developing others, being aware that others need to be brought on and they’d be more positive, more gauged if they are.

The ability to communicate, which we’ve spoken about, being a catalyst for change, being able to resolve conflict, and being able to work in a team setting, and to be able to work collaboratively. So emotional quotient, emotional intelligence, then is about understanding yourself, understanding the social situation, the social setting, being able to manage yourself in relation to the challenge you find and then having the skills to adapt to the situation.

So today, read the material, understand it and reflect on what your strengths and weaknesses as far as emotional intelligence is concerned. And then tomorrow, we’ll look at how you might develop this.