Building Emotional Intelligence

FountainBlue’s June 4 Front Line Managers’ Online meeting on the topic of ‘Building Emotional Intelligence’. My thanks also to our panelists for their participation. 

Our panelists were quite bullish on the need for emotional intelligence now and in the new realities of the new normal. 

Each panelist spoke passionately about the need to have a strong culture, the need to be self-aware, vulnerable and authentic in order to build your own emotional intelligence, and to help others to feel safe enough to grow their own.

They each provided poignant examples of the challenges they face day-to-day, and shared their best practices on how to best address these challenges, leveraging their emotional intelligence. A compilation of their best practices is below.

• Don’t make it personal. Keep the discussion around the data and the business objectives.
• Be collaborative and focus on team goals. Understanding the motivations of all parties and aligning everyone to shared goals will help keep that conversation productive.
• Ask questions, point to resources and provide support so that others choose to become more emotionally intelligent. 
• Help others be more successful when they choose to be more emotionally intelligent.
• Listen with your heart as well as with your ears. Hear what is said (the data) with what is meant (the emotions under the data which may not be stated verbally).
• Be empathetic – nobody knows the full story of the challenges and opportunities faced by others. Live as if we are ALL ONE, all on the same team, all aligned with intent and purpose.
• Make it OK to speak on previously ‘taboo’ topics around mental health. Make it safe enough for people to open up and ask for the support and services they need to better perform, to better thrive, bringing their best selves to work.

You can leverage emotional intelligence in many ways.

• Use your emotional intelligence to apply your learnings about how to work with people and situations to near scenarios and people.
• Use your emotional intelligence to embrace failures as learning opportunities. Support a culture where failure is accepted, and that all who fail, fail in a forward direction, bringing learning sessions with each failure.
• Use your emotional intelligence to learn (and teach) not just to be self-aware, but also to self-regulate. 
• Use your emotional intelligence to pivot to what’s new, what’s next, having confidence that you will be self-aware and self-disciplined enough to embrace the opportunities in the challenge.

Here are some formulas which have worked for our panelists.

• Vulnerability leads to trust leads to relationships leads to improved results (productivity/contracts).
• Emotional Intelligence expands exponentially as more and more people adopt the practice.

We conclude by noting that in this next normal, change will continue wreak havoc on your work, and on your emotions – and problem in more complex and complicated ways. Choose to be emotionally intelligent and self-aware enough to embrace the change, and courageous and disciplined enough to self-regulate and help others to do the same.

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