Growing Your Emotional Intelligence

FountainBlue’s July 1 Front Line Managers Online program on the topic of ‘Growing Your Emotional Intelligence’. Please join me in thanking our panelists. 

• as a Business Leader – Sheri Simmons, Philips
• as an HR Leader – Roxanne Dos Santos, Samsung Research America
• as a People Leader – Susan Norton, BOLD
• as a Product Leader – Ashwini Lahane, Freshworks

Our EQ panel represented a range of organizations and roles, but had much in common:

• They humbly navigated their career up, down and sideways, always looking to learn and grow and become a larger and better version of themselves.
• They are highly aware of their impact on others, and leverage their power and influence for the greater good, driving bottom line results while also developing their people.

Our panelists spoke extensively about Daniel Goleman’s five components of emotional intelligence, as profiled in his Sept 2005 book entitled Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.

• Emotional self awareness: Knowing what one is feeling at any given time and understanding the impact those moods have on others is a foundational quality of emotional intelligence. Staying attuned to your feelings and sensitive to how others are responding to what you’re thinking, saying or doing will help develop EQ.
• Self-regulation: Putting up filters to control, redirect or otherwise manage one’s emotions supports one’s emotional intelligence. In addition, anticipating consequences before acting on impulse helps ensure smooth interactions and communications and build relationships and rapport.
• Empathy: Awareness of and respect for the the emotions and feelings of others is another core EQ quality. This other-centeredness helps build understanding and connections between people, even when they are very different.
• Social skills: Leveraging EQ skills can help manage relationships, inspire, empower and engage others to participate in the larger cause. 
• Motivation: Leaders with high emotional intelligence can better achieve goals, enjoy the learning process and persevere in the face of obstacles, and mobilize those they touch to do the same.

Below is a compilation of advice on best practices for growing emotional intelligence:

Stretch Yourself

• Embrace challenges as learning opportunities and grow from each experience.
• Have the courage to invite and accept feedback, and the fortitude to grow and learn from it.
• Manage your ego, which may not respond well to the thoughts, words and actions of others. 
• Be aware and manage the triggers and buttons which may not bring out the best in yourself, and lead to less than desirable responses to others.
• Know when to Endure, when to Engage, when to Embrace the challenging situations (and people) in front of you. 
• Challenge yourself about your perspective, about your pace, about your areas of focus, about the processes adopted, about the scale you’re striving for.
• Do what you need to do to keep centered and balanced, including journaling, meditating, reflection, education, etc.,

Challenge Others to Also Grow

• Have the compassion and grace to support others as they also navigate challenges during these times of great change.
• Help others to feel safe and supported while raising the bar for them, and providing them with the resources and support to feel engaged, empowered and successful. 
• Be direct with your feelings, but in a non-emotional way. Try this formula when you face people not-like-you, ‘When you do X, it makes me feel Y. Could you do Z instead?’ 

Grow the Team and Organization

• Proactively manage your own emotions so that you can optimize for a productive and constructive response and relationships with the team and the organization. 
• Help your team tie passion to purpose and collaboratively drive toward measurable outcomes.

The bottom line is that your EQ will always be more important than your IQ, and growing your EQ will grow yourself and all you touch.

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