Emotionally Intelligent Leader

EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT LEADER

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a key constituent to a leader’s productivity and satisfaction at workplace. Visionary organisations expect their leaders to understand and respect the feelings of all team members. Leading organisations often arrange bespoke leadership development training programs and workshops that very well prepares their skilled leaders to practice Emotionally Intelligent Leadership, and also helps them in carefully dealing with emotionally charged situations, so that they become emotionally intelligent leaders.

If you are someone who is interested in reading more about the role of Emotional Intelligence in leadership, and if you want to know what exactly is Emotionally Intelligent Leadership, then read further.

Should you be interested in knowing how to become emotionally intelligent leaders, so that you can strengthen your Emotional Intelligence skills and leadership skills by joining any of our classroom and/or online training programs, write to us on info@nlpcoach.in to request details.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence is defined as a person’s ability to understand and manage the emotions of self, as well as recognise and influence the emotions of others.

The term ‘Emotional Intelligence’ was first coined by John Mayer and Peter Salovey, in 1990, and was later popularised by Daniel Goleman.

What is Leadership?

Leadership in an organisation is the process of contributing towards the success of organisational goals by influencing people and the organisational culture to implement mutually agreed strategies and objectives, and channelising teams’ effort. 

What is Emotionally Intelligent Leadership?

Emotionally Intelligent Leadership is the intelligent use of emotions in becoming more effective transformational leaders. It is based on the blending of two critical constructs, namely Emotional Intelligence and Leadership. This blend of Emotional Intelligence and Leadership enables a person to explore this and put them into the Leadership quadrant of Emotionally Intelligent Leaders.

At its core, the Emotionally Intelligent Leadership theory claims that leadership is an intertwined relationship between the leader, the team (followers), and the situations (context). Emotionally Intelligent Leadership is thus a combination of various cognitive processes,  competencies, personality traits, and behaviours that interact together to help leaders in diagnosing issues, identifying appropriate action steps, and intervening as necessary to facilitate desired results in different situations.

Below mentioned are the competencies of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership-

• Emotional self-perception (the ability to identify emotions and their impact on self)
• Group savvy (the ability to interpret a situation and/or networks in an organisation)
• Environmental awareness (the ability to understand the environment of a situation)
• Honest self-understanding (the awareness of one’s strengths and limitations)
• Emotional self-control (the ability to consciously moderate one’s own emotions and reactions)
• Healthy self-esteem (having a balanced sense of self)
• Coaching (helping others to enhance their skills and abilities)
• Authenticity (being transparent and trustworthy)
• Optimism (being positive and hopeful)
• Empathy (understanding others from their perspective)
• Achievement (the drive to improve as per personal standards)
• Flexibility (being open as well as adaptive to changing situations)
• Initiative (wanting and seeking opportunities)
• Inspiration (motivating and moving others toward a shared vision)
• Influence (demonstrating skills of persuasion)
• Citizenship (recognising and fulfilling responsibility towards others and the group)
• Change agent (finding out and working with others toward the new directions)
• Developing relationships (building connections with people)
• Teamwork (working effectively with others in a group)
• Conflict management (identifying and resolving problems and issues with others)
• Capitalising on differences (building on assets that come from differences with others)

Why Emotionally Intelligent Leadership is important?

Emotional Intelligence Mastery for Leaders is in great demand in organizations. Organizational leaders handle various responsibilities to ensure that the team functions effectively at all times. For example, the leaders establish team objectives, design, implement and maintain the strategies to achieve the overall organisational objectives. Often leaders function as important change agents who enforce the organisational culture on the team because they are in the best position to facilitate cultural changes.  If you are interested to know more about how to improve emotional intelligence, then read this post as well.

With the use of Emotional Intelligence competencies, leaders are able to handle difficult situations smoothly, reduce their stress levels significantly, and manage the team performance effortlessly. Leaders with high emotional competencies are usually perceived as more efficient. Emotional Intelligence is therefore absolutely needed in leadership roles today.

The leaders now need to go beyond the consultative, co-operative and democratic styles. The autocratic style of leadership is no longer valued in organisations. The words “bold, brave and tough” are no longer sufficient to describe the traits of a leader driven by a strong sense of purpose and resolve. Emotionally Intelligent leaders are known to demonstrate a ‘people’ orientation, open-mindedness, extraordinary commitment, willingness to take on challenges, ethics & integrity, effective communication, dedication to personal growth, willingness to share and accept feedback, etc.

Clearly, the self-driven professionals who are looking to develop their competencies to grow as visionary leaders would definitely pay attention to improving their Emotional Intelligence skills. The transformational leaders must use coaching and mentoring to develop the full potential of their teams and all team members.

Who is Emotionally Intelligent Leader?

An Emotionally Intelligent Leader is someone who is able to identify, understand, interpret, and respond to the emotions of self as well as others in the context of a situation, for achieving desired results. An Emotionally Intelligent Leader is able to-

• understand and regulate self-emotions,
• intuitively grasp how others feel, and
• understand the emotional environment in work setting

Characteristics of an Emotionally Intelligent Leader?

Below mentioned are some of the characteristics of Emotionally Intelligent leaders:

• The Emotionally Intelligent Leaders embrace change. Leaders with high Emotional Intelligence are self-aware. They know what they do well and they are aware of what they need to learn more to overcome weaknesses, challenges, and changes
• They are empathetic. Additionally, they can easily connect and relate effectively with others’ emotions. Also, they have a genuine willingness to help people get through difficult times
• Emotionally Intelligent Leaders know how to manage their emotions, particularly in stressful situations, and maintain a positive outlook despite setbacks. They practice maintaining a healthy perspectives in professional and personal life, and they are quick to learn from mistakes
• Also, they focus on exploring possibilities without being judgmental of others.  They feel good about life, and do not get distracted by criticism or challenging situations and people.

Why Emotional Intelligence is needed in Leadership?

To get better outcomes and to achieve the organisational goals, a leader should be able to understand the pulse of the team members. Technical skills are just entry-level requirements in any profession. If you aspire to be in a leadership role, it is important that you work on building on your Emotional Intelligence skill-set. Here’s why-

• Emotional Intelligence helps leaders to successfully influence, coach and mentor teams, and collaborate well with others.
• Emotional Intelligence helps leaders in managing stress, delivering feedback and resolving conflicts effectively
• It helps leaders in identifying and dealing with the dynamics in play within groups.
• Leaders with high Emotional Intelligence are more likely to stay calm under pressure, and respond to co-workers with empathy.

Summary

Leaders set the pace of growth in an organisation. Leadership attributes are well captured in measures of Emotional Intelligence. Therefore, Emotional Intelligence has become a popular means of measure and developing effective leadership skills in workplace.

Emotionally Intelligent Leaders are found to be happier and more committed to their organisation. They often perform better in the workplace. Leaders who lack behind on emotional intelligence competencies tend to react and have a harder time keeping their impulses in check.

Emotionally Intelligent Leadership helps organisations and teams achieve greater success easily and quickly.

Emotional Intelligence allows leaders to positively affect their situation by creating an environment of open communication, greater empathy and enhanced trust.

By mastering Emotional Intelligence, leaders can continue to advance their career as well as the organisation.

In the past, various successful leaders, aspiring leaders, and experienced professionals who wanted to reach higher heights in their career have joined our Emotional Intelligence Coach Practitioner Program to boost their Emotional Intelligence skills / Emotional Quotient.

If you also want to dive deeper and benefit immensely from the insights on Emotional Intelligence, we would like to invite you to join our Emotional Intelligence Coach Practitioner Program. The program is accredited by International Coach Federation (ICF) under Continued Coach Education (CCE), and by International Association of Professional Coaches, Counselors, and Therapists (IAPCCT).

If you are an organisation interested in leveraging the emotional intelligence training in India to position your senior leaders and team for more organisational success, write to us on info@nlpcoach.in

Our Emotional Intelligence Coach Practitioner Program offers the much needed information, support, guidance as well as proven tools and techniques to the successful and motivated leaders so that they can enhance their Emotional Intelligence skills and become even more efficient and effective thought leaders at workplace.