Success Secrets and Stories
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Success Secrets and Stories
Harnessing Emotional Intelligence for Leadership Excellence
Unlock the secrets to becoming a more effective leader by mastering emotional intelligence. Learn how to harness the power of self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills to transform your leadership style. Discover how emotional intelligence can be just as crucial as technical knowledge for managers and leaders striving for success. We break down these components and demonstrate their essential role in fostering a harmonious and productive work environment through vivid real-world examples and practical insights.
Join us as we share the inspiring journey of Janet Carroll Miller, whose exceptional emotional intelligence traits allowed her to successfully navigate complex workplace dynamics as a former HR leader. We also delve into the practical wisdom from "Emotional Intelligence 2.0" by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, revealing a valuable four-core EQ system to boost your skills in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. This episode is your guide to enhancing your emotional intelligence, providing strategies to stand out in today’s competitive landscape and elevate your leadership capabilities.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Welcome to our podcast Success in Christmas Stories. I'm your host, john Wondoloski, and I'm here with my co-host and friend.
Speaker 1:Greg, paul, greg, hey, everybody yeah.
Speaker 2:So today yeah, give that drummer a chance to get his last note in there. We wanted to talk about a subject that is something we've talked about in the past, but it is something that is very important. It's called emotional intelligence, and there is so much more. That meets the eye to the subject itself, and for me it's the skills, the self-awareness comes to mind first, but there is so much more. Let's get into the heart of it.
Speaker 2:Emotional intelligence for managers is kind of an important starting point for them to understand not only how it's applied, but it goes without saying that managers need to possess a certain amount of intelligence, general intelligence in terms of being effective leaders. This intelligence is beyond technical or even industry-related knowledge and understanding. Typically, intelligence is a definition of having or showing the ability to learn, understand and solve problems. It can also mean having a good judgment or sound approach in terms of how you apply yourself as a manager or a leader. There are other types of intelligence, but the most important for an effective manager is what is referred to as emotional intelligence. People with high emotional intelligence, or EI, can identify how they are feeling, how those around them are feeling, and how the emotions impact the behavior and, in turn, other people. It is a harder issue to manage the emotions of other people if you can't somehow control someone's feelings or their behaviors. But if you can identify the emotions behind their behavior, you'll have a better understanding of where they're coming from and how best to interact with them. So what is emotional intelligence? So what is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage both your own emotions and to understand the emotions of people around you. That definition is from the Mental Health of America Society and they're trying to help in terms of defining mental health in America's workplace and wellness center.
Speaker 2:The psychologist Daniel Goldman identified five key personal and interpersonal skills involved in emotional intelligence and why EQ is just as important as IQ when it comes to success. Five key points are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. So what does emotional intelligence look like? Well, there's a company called ThinkPsych and they did a wonderful job of describing it, and I'm going to try to do the best I can to show a visual image and give you the blow-by-blow of how it's actually designed.
Speaker 2:They have a wheel of five different components Social skills being able to create and maintain healthy relationships. The next part of the wheel is self-awareness Again, the knowledge of one's own thoughts, feelings and motivations. Next on the wheel is self-regulation, the ability to regulate emotions and actions in a variety of environments. Empathy, which I think is the most important element, is the capacity to emphasize and appreciate each other's perspectives. And the last being decision-making the ability to make responsible choices and to accept their outcome. Kind of reminds me of the MBR element of taking responsibility, whether we like it or not. Greg, why don't you help us out with the next part?
Speaker 1:Thanks, John. So we'll take a little deeper dive on those elements, the components of emotional intelligence and this information comes from Student Insights, the Five Elements of Emotional Intelligence, and the author was ICAEW Insights Magazine. It was published in April of 2021. So, as John mentioned, let's start off with self-awareness. Self-awareness is about recognizing and understanding your emotions, what you're feeling and why you're feeling that way, as well as appreciating how they affect those around you. It's a basis of good intuition and decision-making, helping you to instinctively make the right choices for you in all aspects of your life. The next one is self-regulation. Once you've mastered emotional awareness, the next step is managing those emotions, particularly the negative ones, effectively. Always treat others with respect and try to stay in control. If you have a tendency to emotional outbursts, practice being calm, Step back and take a deep breath. It is important to stay true to your values and hold yourself personally accountable for any mistakes. The next one is motivation, and John has mentioned we've talked about this particular element in other contexts, but still about being responsible. Motivation is about your drive to improve and achieve, setting high standards for yourself, working consistently towards your goals. Take the initiative, Be ready to act on opportunities as they come along and practice being assertive. Motivation is also about optimism and resilience and finding the positive in a situation, even or especially when things don't go well.
Speaker 1:The next piece is empathy. We definitely have talked about this in some podcast episodes. A key interpersonal skill, empathy, is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and see a situation from their perspective not just yours, but from their perspective. As well as having an awareness of those others' feelings, it's important to acknowledge them and respond to them, even if you don't agree with them. Respecting diversity and inclusion is a vital aspect of empathy, as is communication. Pay close attention to what you and others say, whether verbally or through body language. Finally, social skills. Often described as a people person and I was in human resources and that was my nickname, I think, for many years those who are socially skilled are adept at dealing with others. They are trustworthy team players and confident communicators as good at listening to other people as they are at speaking themselves. Go both ways. They also make great leaders inspiring, motivating colleagues, managing change and resolving conflict effectively, and giving praise where it's due. So what are some signs of good emotional intelligence, John? Can you help us with that?
Speaker 2:Sure. So, looking for good emotional intelligence, there's the repetitive element of self-awareness, being able to recognize and manage emotions, and I think this is a reinforcement of what we've talked about the empathy. To be able to understand other people's feelings and knowing the strengths and weaknesses, to understand what is good in terms of what you're able to do and what you're not good at. And so many of you see these training programs tell you how to improve the things that you're bad at. Training programs tell you how to improve the things that you're bad at. To be perfectly honest, the twist of that is to emphasize the things that you're good at and expand on it. It's much wiser, to be perfectly honest, emotional vocabulary is being able to adequately identify your emotions as they occur, and probably the one that I have been told that I have to be careful of is seeking perfection. We're not perfect. To accept who you are and to understand to pursue that progress rather than perfection, those are all key elements of somebody who understands emotional intelligence.
Speaker 2:Another good sign is to let go of mistakes Sometimes, to accept them as failure is part of what you do in terms of order to be successful. Whenever I think about letting go of mistakes, I keep on thinking about Edison and the thousands of times that he didn't create something until he had the one successful experiment. The light bulb is my favorite, but he had more examples of how not to make a light bulb, just to stay with the context. Being able to distance yourself from mistakes without forgetting them that's a nice, nice way to phrase it. Control over your thoughts, to be able to assert control over your mental state and be able to work on your train of thought.
Speaker 2:Next is the interesting element of not holding a grudge Simply understanding what it is in terms of a trigger and a stress response. There's no advantage of holding a grudge. Other signs is being able to accept criticism, responsibility and move on even if there is a mistake, to say no when it is needed To share your feelings and to help in terms of solving problems. The key there is to listen and not to be judgmental. The most important component of that is to listen. So, greg, maybe you can give us a couple examples of emotional intelligence, and people have demonstrated that emotional intelligence.
Speaker 1:Thanks, john. So we've got several folks here that seem to be strong leaders great examples of demonstrating high emotional intelligence. Strong leaders create examples of demonstrating high emotional intelligence. First one on the list is a former CEO of PepsiCo, indra Nooyah, known for her strong listening skills and her open communication style. The next we've talked about him many times Nelson Mandela, and he is cited for his ability to unite people despite difficult circumstances. His ability to unite people despite difficult circumstances. Abraham Lincoln for navigating complex political situations and demonstrating empathy along the way. And finally, our current CEO of Microsoft, satya Nadella, who is responsible for his ability to adapt and embrace change while fostering a positive team environment.
Speaker 2:John, and they all show signs of emotional intelligence and having that skill set. But there are other ways to assess EI and a couple of those are like self-reporting questionnaires, where individuals get to answer questions about their emotional tendencies and behaviors, and those questions help them in terms of evaluating their EQ. Ability-based tests Participants complete tasks that are designed to assess their ability to perceive, understand and manage emotions, much like the msceit miss that. The next tool is the 360 degree feedback, and we've talked about the 360 degree in our past, but it is a wonderful way of gathering feedback from colleagues, supervisors and subordinates to get a holistic view of an individual emotional intelligence and how you conduct yourself. Then there's behavioral observations observing someone's interactions with others in real-time situations to assess their EI, their emotional intelligence. So, greg, there's other popular tools to assess emotional intelligence. Why don't we go over that?
Speaker 1:list. Thanks, john. So here's a few popular tools the Mayer-Solovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, known as MSCEIT. It's widely recognized as an ability-based test measuring different aspects of emotional intelligence. Another tool, bar-on Emotional Quotient Inventory, also known as EQ-I. It's a self-report questionnaire assessing emotional intelligence across various domains. And then, finally, emotion and Social Competency Inventory, asci, a multi-rater assessment used in workplaces to measure emotional intelligence. And, of course, when you have these, you need folks that can diagram the results to give folks understanding what they need to do differently, john, to give folks understanding what they need to do differently.
Speaker 2:John. So emotional intelligence is an element of being able to manage yourself and to understand where you fit into the process, and for me, the process is management by responsibility. You're responsible to be able to understand your EQ, your emotional intelligence, and if these words don't ring a bell, it's something that you really need to look into. Now, greg, you have an example of somebody that was in the industry that demonstrated a high emotional intelligence approach. Maybe you can expand a little bit about someone's story of applying those skills.
Speaker 1:Thanks, John. Yeah, I'd be happy to. My example is from a former boss, my first leader in human resources. Her name was Janet Carroll Miller and she had some very key emotional intelligence traits. You have to think about this I'm coming from operations and order distribution and things like that into a sit-down desk job inside and things are very, very different.
Speaker 1:But her key traits were, first, empathy, recognizing how others felt and taking it into account with their actions, especially with if you can imagine employee relations issues. So she absolutely could feel what people were feeling and felt like she'd walked in their shoes before and apply that in situations. Emotional vocabulary the words she spoke mattered to her, so she chose them wisely when speaking to others and her tone was always on point. And finally, knowing your strengths and weaknesses. She knew she was not perfect, but there were some things she was really good at. She leveraged her professional strengths to the max, like reading people. She was really good at reading people, assessing talent, quite good at that. And then she found ways to cover her opportunities for development, and sometimes the opportunity for development was just loud voice. She just got it done with a quiet voice.
Speaker 2:John, when you said emotional vocabulary, sometimes I notice people who have this talent. They'll use pauses in their conversation. They'll search for the right words, not just speak for the sake of hearing their voice. They're very deliberate in terms of how they're speaking. Did you notice that with Janet?
Speaker 1:Yes, she was that way also, by folding in body language and how she would look and sit in his chair and whatever. And I used to, I get it before she had these really big glasses, but how she would use those big glasses to help emphasize a point or a thought, but in a gentle way.
Speaker 2:And focus on you while she's looking at you hot but in a gentle way and focus on you while she's looking at you, she's moving the glasses and you're getting that reinforcement that you're being listened to. Those are all elements of people who know how to use this skill set. So I had the opportunity to actually hear somebody talk about emotional intelligence and it was the authors of the Emotional Intelligence 2.0, the book, and we had two of the authors. Forgive my memory, I don't remember which one of the two, but there's Travis Brambury, gina Graves, patrick Lincioni.
Speaker 1:Thank, you and Black Sue.
Speaker 2:Awesome, man, if it wasn't for your help, I'm telling you, but I had. I had two of them in the room and they were explaining this new book that they had just generated and it's a great book. I I still have it, I'm looking at it as we speak, and it's emotional intelligence. Eq is too often overlooked in favor of IQ. In this book, it was a guide to show how to boost your EQ and why you should know and care about it in the first place. The other part that they were talking about in their promo of the book is that in today's fast-paced world of competitive workplace, turbulent economy conditions, each of us are searching for an effective tool that helps us manage, adapt and be more successful in communication. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 delivers on the step-by-step guide to increase your emotional intelligence using a four-core EQ system in order to try to evaluate self-awareness, self-management, social awareness very important social awareness we're going to be talking about that in a future podcast and relationship of management itself interactive management to exceed your goals and to achieve your full potential. Now the part that I think is most amazing about this book since I had the chance to speak to the authors at the beginning is I thought it was an excellent book, but whenever you get people that are recommending the book, and you have the Dalai Lama that likes the book, or Steve Kovny that likes the book, or Newsweek that likes the book, you're clearly doing something right in terms of trying to send a message. I can't endorse this book more. I think it's a wonderful way to try to capsulize what Greg and I are trying to share with you and have something physically in your hand that does a great job of representing it. So, hopefully, this summary is helpful and if you like what you've heard, yeah, my book is available at Amazon and Barnes Noble. Building your Leadership Toolbox.
Speaker 2:The podcast is what you're listening to right now, thank you. It's also available on other popular podcast formats like Apple, google and Spotify. A lot of what Greg and I talk about is relating our lessons and the things that we've learned to the MBR program, which is really Dr Durst's program, and if you want to learn more about Dr Durst, it's successgrowthacademycom. If you want to contact us, you can contact us on wwwauthorjawcom. Music has been brought to you by my grandson, yeah, so we want to hear from you. We learn from you all the time Different things that we have done to change our context and subjects, and we have found it truly helpful. So when you get a chance, drop us a line. Well, greg, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, john, as always.
Speaker 2:And next time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.