While we emphasize the need for technical skills in the corporate world, we should be careful to point out that technical skills can only get you entry to a job. Your next level demands soft skills like communication, emotional intelligence, and leadership. If you are eyeing a leadership role, you must learn emotional intelligence. Seventy-one percent of employers value emotional intelligence over technical skills while evaluating potential employees. Leaders scaling high in EQ are high achievers, masters at conflict resolution, ambitious, and empathetic. They have mastered emotional intelligence by learning self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
4 Components of Emotional Intelligence
Self Awareness
It is the ability to know your emotions and what triggered them. 95% of people claim to be self-aware but studies show that 10% to 15% of us are aware. The majority of us live on autopilot. We, unknowingly, follow the demands of our subconscious mind. Information and memories stored in our long-term memory control our lives.
Lack of self-awareness is the reason for major problems for individuals and companies. People scoring low in self-awareness are reactive to life events. Circumstances in life dictate how they behave and treat others.
A leader unaware of himself can hardly create an effective team. He cannot motivate or inspire his people. He is most likely defensive, especially when positively criticized. A lack of self-awareness brings friction to the team.
Leaders can become self-aware by evaluating themselves by doing a SWOT analysis. This way, they will know their strength and weakness. They will understand the value they bring to the team and the emotions that trigger. The analysis develops the leader’s individual character and professional skills.
Self-management
Self-awareness can only be effective when self-management is done well. With self-awareness, we know our emotions and with self-management, we know what to do with them. Self-management can dubbed as self-control. It is the ability to effectively use emotions.
As leaders we need self-management in 4 key situations: when we are extremely happy or sad, when we lose focus, and when boredom kicks in. It is difficult to make critical decisions when we are too happy or too sad. We must learn to balance dopamine and serotonin hormones.
Leaders must also learn to focus on work when emotions are all over. A world of distractions demands a leader who has mastered focus amid all noise. He must know how to starve his distraction. When boredom kicks in he must master the art of review and reflection to keep himself excited and motivated.
Leaders with poor self-management are reactive and defensive. They have a victim mentality. They cannot learn amid challenges. They are a problem for themselves and also the company. Leaders must know what triggers their emotions and control them once triggered.
Social Awareness
Self-awareness and social awareness are intrinsic. Social awareness is extrinsic. If a leader has mastered the intrinsic emotional intelligence component, he will easily navigate the extrinsic. Social awareness is the ability to understand a room’s atmosphere. He must be able to know how people are feeling without speaking.
Leaders read the room by observing nonverbal cues. Our faces, body movements, and eye contact communicate more than our mouths can ever. Nonverbal cues tell the leader how people feel about a subject when people are speaking a different story. Reading the room helps the leader to amplify the mood, calm a situation, and decode a difficult follower.
A leader can communicate effectively and be empathetic by reading the atmosphere. He can leverage the mood in the room to display his expertise in dealing with people. A leader’s level of social awareness reveals his ability to be empathetic.
Relationship management
Relationships are a natural progression whenever people come together. Leaders must know that responsibility lines are too weak to stop people from having relationships. Instead, they understand relationships to inspire, mentor, influence, coach and create high-performance teams.
They must also know the nature of relationships among their teammates. This information helps him to address issues and resolve conflicts.
Leaders must embrace integrity. It is a key element for effective relationship management. Followers will follow, obey, and get inspired by a leader they trust. Integrity makes a leader’s work easy. He sabotages his credibility, ruins relationships, divides the team, creates rebellion, and discourages the team when he leans on one side during a conflict.
If a leader wants to inspire the team continuously, he must regularly ask tough questions. This way, he earns the respect and trust.
Without emotional intelligence, a leader will struggle to work with his people. He will also struggle to develop personally and professionally. All leaders must first master self-awareness and self-management, which are the intrinsic components of emotional management. With that, they can easily navigate extrinsic emotional intelligence components. They will understand how to deal with people in social situations and manage relationships.
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