PERSPECTIVES ON EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE from EDI Leadership Development Program
-EQ vs. IQ at Workplace: The reality in our current workplace
shows, rather sharply, the disconnect between EQ and IQ. Think about the
company that you currently work for. Were you primarily hired based on your cognitive
skills and technical capabilities or your interpersonal capabilities, or simply
people skills? The truth of the matter is pedigree and track records outlined
in your resume has a lot to do with your IQ. What you may not know is that IQ
is a threshold competence. You need it, but it isn’t what makes you a star
performer. What truly propels you to be a star performer originates from your
people and interpersonal capabilities (EQ). I wonder how many people have fully
appreciated this fact and have embraced developing themselves as an EQ leader.
oHere
are two books that are worth the $$ if you are seriously interested in honing your
EQ:
-Power of Storytelling: People are naturally hardwired for stories. If
you think about the so-called greatest figures that made a dent in this
universe, all of them had a compelling story to tell. These are very stories
that stick in our mind. I witness such power of storytelling at the first EDI
session. Each of the stories by Jamila our guest speaker were punctuated with
such authenticity, vulnerability. I found myself absolutely engrossed in her superlative
performance of weaving stories into the tapestry of emotional intelligence captivating
each person in the room.
The
secret ingredient of such powerful stories stems its ability to galvanize
people to “act” - break the old time
habit, to initiate new changes for growth and development, and to embrace a
calculated and healthy risk in our decision making process. At least, Jamila
inspired me to uncover the tip of the self-awareness iceberg through this my
sobering reflections and writings.
Ryan Lobo is a filmmaker and photographer. In 2009 Ryan spoke about what he calls "compassionate storytelling" with photography to the TED conference, to a standing ovation. Click to see the following video clip to see how he delivers his compelling story.
I cannot conceal the growing fascination on the subject of leadership. Leadership, at its core, is inherently ambiguous. The beauty of leadership, in fact, originates from ambiguity. The leadership guru Warren Bennis is right when he remarked "Leadership is a lot like beauty; it's hard to define but you know it when you see it."
For the past few years, I've declared myself as a student of leadership -- one who continuously thinks, learns and applies key leadership principles in my daily life. One of the most positive realizations through this exercise has been a heightened sense of self-awareness - knowing, analyzing, evaluating, and appreciating my God-given talents, strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, I have cultivated a coherent worldview of who I am, what I stand for, and what I live for.
I'd like share a book on Emotional Intelligence that I read last year with a good friend of mine, Bob Wang. In essence, this book served as an ice-axe that has broken the frozen sea within me. A leading psychologist Daniel Goleman - author of his masterpiece "Primal Leadership." provides a ground-breaking perspective on the subject of leadership. He argues that the fundamental task of leaders is to prime good feelings in those they lead. That is, leaders create resonance - a reservoir of positivity that frees the best in people. Great leaders are more than strategy, vision or powerful ideas. The reality is that much more primal; they work through the emotions.
Goleman proposes that the four dimensions of EI - self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management are the vehicle of primal leadership. Here, I'd like to share a list of EI dimensions and competencies that I found rather intriguing. I hope you this will be a food for thought and provide useful take aways.
A good exercise on developing Emotional Intelligence is to identify the top two dimensions to which your capability is the highest. Also, write down the top five competencies you consider your strengths. Also, select the top five competencies you'd like to develop throughout the course of your life. Lastly, think of some specific, practical ways to harness and cultivate these competencies.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE DOMAINS AND ASSOCIATED COMPETENCIES
PERSONAL COMPETENCE: SELF-AWARENESS
• Emotional self-awareness:
o Leaders are attuned to their inner signals, recognizing how their feelings affect them and their job performance
o Attuned to their guiding values and can often intuition the best course of action
o Candid and authentic, and speak openly about their emotions or with conviction about vision
• Accurate self-assessment:
o Know their limitations and strengths and exhibit a sense of humor about themselves.
o Exhibit a gracefulness in learning where they need to improve
o Welcome constructive criticism and feedback
o Enables leaders to know when to ask for help and where to focus in cultivating new leadership strengths
• Self-confidence
o Know their abilities with accuracy and allow leaders to play their strengths
o Welcome difficult assignment
o Such leaders often have a sense of presence, a self-assurance that lets them stand out in a group
SELF-MANAGEMENT • Self-control:
o Find ways to manage their disturbing emotions and impulses and even to channel them in useful ways
o Stay clam and clear-headed under high stress or during a crisis
• Transparency:
o Live their values
o Allow integrity through authentic openness to others about feelings, beliefs, and actions
o Openly admit mistakes or faults, and confront unethical behavior in others rather turn blind eye
• Adaptability:
o Juggle multiple demands without losing their focus or energy
o Comfortable with the inevitable ambiguities of organizational life
o Flexible in adapting to new challenges, nimble in adjusting to fluid change
• Achievement:
o Higher personal standards that drive them to constantly seek performance improvements
o Pragmatic, setting measureable but challenging goals
o Continual learning and teaching ways to do better
• Initiative:
o Seize opportunities or create them rather than simply waiting
o Does not hesitate to cut through red tape, or even bend the rules when necessary to create better possibilities for the future
• Optimism:
o See others positively, expecting the best of them
o Their “glass half-full” outlook leads them to expect that changes in the future will be for the better
SOCIAL COMPETENCE: SOCIAL AWARENESS
• Empathy:
o Attune to wide range of emotional signals, letting them sense the felt, but unspoken, emotions in a person or group
o Listen attentively and can grasp the other person’s perspective.
o Makes a leader able to get along well with people of diverse backgrounds or from other cultures
• Organizational awareness:
o Politically astute, able to detect crucial social networks and read key power relationships
o Understand the political forces at work in an organization, as well as the guiding values and unspoken rules that operate among people there
• Service:
o Foster an emotional climate so that people directly in touch customer will keep the relationship on the right track
o Monitor customer or client satisfaction carefully to ensure they are getting what they need.
o Make themselves available as needed
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
• Inspiration:
o Create resonance and move people with a compelling vision or shared mission
o Embody what they ask of others, and are able to articulate a shared mission in a way that inspires others to follow
o Offer a sense of common purpose beyond the day-to-day tasks, making work exciting
• Influence:
o Finding just the right appeal for a given listener to knowing how to build buy-in from key people and a network of support for an initiative.
o Persuasive and engaging when they address a group
• Developing others:
o Show a genuine interest in those they are helping along, understanding their goals, strengths, and weaknesses
o Give timely and constructive feedback and are natural mentors or coaches
• Change catalyst:
o Able to recognize the need for the change, challenge the status quo, and champion the new order.
o Strong advocates for the change eve in the face of opposition, making the argument for it compellingly
o Find practical ways to overcome barriers to change
• Conflict management:
o Able to draw out all parties, understand the differing perspectives,
o Find a common ideal that everyone can endorse
o Surface the conflict acknowledge the feelings and views of all sides, and then redirect the energy toward a shared ideal
• Teamwork and collaboration:
o Generate an atmosphere of friendly collegiality and are themselves models of respective, helpfulness and cooperation
o Draw others into active, enthusiastic commitment to the collective effort, and build spirit and identity.
o Spend time forging and cementing close relationships beyond mere work obligations
P.S. Here's a 10-minute short clip on EI from Dr. Goleman. Enjoy!
