It takes more than a commanding presence and a firm tone to be an effective leader. It takes the ability to read your employees and understand what motivates them. The latest studies in leadership development indicate that emotional Intelligence is one of the most important skill sets for leaders.
What Is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional Intelligence is the capacity to recognize, connect with and learn from your own and other people’s mental states. To manage a team this way, you must develop these five skills:
- Self-awareness.
- Self-regulation.
- Motivation.
- Empathy.
- Social Skills.
Self-Awareness
Self-aware people are grounded. They do not fly off the handle or overreact or even respond to provocation because they are clear about what needs to be done and how to do it. Self-aware people can keep open minds. They know their own strengths and weaknesses, and they stay focused, set boundaries, identify emotional triggers, trust their intuition and practice self-discipline.
All of these aspects of self-awareness are essential because they enable you to fulfill your role and provide effective leadership. For example, an open mind often results in more creativity in your group because the ideas and suggestions on the table come from more than one person. Keeping your strengths and weaknesses in mind helps you identify people who will complement your skill set, which results in a more balanced team. Staying focused and setting boundaries leads to effective leadership because it helps those reporting to you understand their responsibilities.
Knowing your emotional triggers is equally important because it helps you to recognize when your reactions are disproportionate or out of place. Relying on intuition is essential — any rigorous leadership development program will teach you to trust your education and your experience. Similarly, self-discipline is important because your team is going to follow your lead. If you deliver as promised, it will encourage them to do the same.
Self-Regulation and Motivation
Self-regulation refers to our ability to manage our time and control our emotions in order to reach our goals. When leaders self-regulate, they set powerful examples for those reporting to them.
Motivation is a key attribute of effective leadership. People reporting to motivated leaders pick up on their passion for success, at work and beyond, which, in turn, can inspire their own efforts and improve the overall strength of the team. Motivated team members do not need constant reminders to stay on task. They do not need constant exhortation to get the job done. Instead, they prioritize the team’s goals on their own.
A motivated team will also carry on in the face of setbacks, and they will work to accomplish their assignments even in the absence of their leader. A motivated team takes ownership of processes and outcomes, which means they will bring problems to your attention in a timely fashion.
Empathy
Franklin Covey, in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, says that in order to be understood, we must first seek to understand. To be an effective leader, a manager must be able to see a situation from an employee’s perspective. A manager must be capable of recognizing and understanding the feelings of employees, peers and customers. Without truly understanding another person’s perspective, there is no simple way to reach an agreement and move forward when problems arise.
Social Skills
What identifies a manager with good social skills is how he or she recognizes non-verbal cues. The people you speak with in the workplace may not tell you explicitly how they are feeling, but if you find yourself backed into a corner by someone with his or her arms firmly crossed, chances are he or she is annoyed. Recognizing cues like these this is the first step in resolving frustrations.
Informing your team how their work aligns with the company’s values and objectives is another important managerial approach. Your employees joined your company because something — most likely the company’s mission and its reputation — meshed with their own values. By keeping this link fresh in their minds, you are more likely to encourage ongoing satisfaction with the work they do for the company.
Regular interaction with your team is also important. If you want your team to relate to you, you need to take the time to know who they are. At the very least, you need to be visible, and you need to make a consistent and genuine effort to initiate conversations with the people you lead. The effort must be sincere; if you are only interested in your employees because you have to be, they will likely take your half-hearted efforts as insults.
A manager with strong leadership skills is valuable to an organization because he or she creates working environments that benefit both employees and upper management.
Sources:
https://hbr.org/2004/01/what-makes-a-leader
http://generalleadership.com/great-leaders-know-good-leaders-dont-self-regulation/
