The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in a Leader

Like a machine, a successful business hinges on its moving parts working together. If employees are the cogs, leaders are the oil. Leaders make sure teams work together so the cogs turn and the machine works.

What makes a good leader?

It takes skill and experience but there’s an essential ingredient to successful leadership that is often overlooked: emotional intelligence.

What Does ‘Emotional Intelligence’ Mean?

In a nutshell, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage one’s emotions as well as the emotions of others. It’s to know what you’re feeling, and how those feelings might affect those around you. It’s choosing to respond with intention rather than react with emotion.

Does this sound like you? Let’s explore the hallmarks of emotional intelligence so you can decide.

Self-Awareness. To be self-aware, you must know how you feel emotionally as well as how your emotions and actions affect others. As a self-aware person, you should have a pretty clear idea of what your strengths and weaknesses are.

Self-Regulation. Being able to self-regulate means you can retain control over your emotions regardless of the situation. You are less likely to verbally assault others, and make decisions, or form opinions in the heat of the moment.

Empathy. Using empathy allows you to put yourself in the position of another. Instead of judging others, you take the time to think about another’s position and where they might be coming from.

Social Skills. Emotional intelligence helps you hone social skills like communication, open-mindedness, and conflict resolution. This makes you a better motivator and supporter in relationships.

Motivation. Being self-motivated means you’re able to work consistently toward your goals. Motivated people always strive to produce high standards of work.

Social-Awareness. Having social awareness is being able to read a room and understand the emotions of the people inside. You’re good at collaborating with others because you pick up on the group dynamics and know how to navigate the field effectively.

At this point, you might be thinking — “the business world doesn’t run on ‘feelings’. What does all this have to do with leadership? Our answer — everything.

Having emotional intelligence as a leader helps you:

1. Go Beyond IQ

Being a successful leader goes beyond having a high IQ or skill set. You can have all the technical talents under the sun, and still, be a terrible leader. How? Because human beings are more than walking CVs.

People have emotions, and those emotions are bound to spill into the workplace from time to time. Being a leader requires you to ‘manage’ humans and this means managing emotion.

2. Make the Right Moves

The father of IQ, Albert Einstein once said, “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid”. Being a leader with zero emotional intelligence means you’re more likely to misread situations. This will ultimately lead to you making the wrong calls.

So many things can go wrong when leaders don’t use emotional intelligence. You could mistake an employee for having a tough time for them being incompetent. You could make an employee feel attacked when they’re meant to be getting constructive criticism. The list is infinite!

Using emotional intelligence to communicate feedback and make decisions is imperative. Leaders who do so are better at getting employees to buy into adjustments in companies. They can motivate employees who are fearful or stubborn to embrace the change, instead of fighting it.

3. Avoid Toxic Work Environments

Knowing the connotations of the word ‘toxic’, we doubt that’s something you’d want for your workplace environment. No one wants to work in a place that feels poisonous to their health or happiness, regardless of the professional perks.

Leaders need to neutralize toxicity by helping staff communicate their grievances in a healthy way. Leaders that boost morale, mediate conflict, and provide support bind organizations together. It fosters a positive workplace culture with teams that work with, and not against, each other. This is impossible without a modicum of emotional intelligence.

4. Decrease Stress and Increase Motivation

An absence of emotional intelligence in leadership impacts a business as a whole. It affects productivity, performance, and profit margins until a business begins to fall apart. If you want your business to be one of integrity, the behavior needs to start at the top and trickle down to all levels of your organization.

Emotionally intelligent leaders can manage and work well on teams. This is because they are better at communicating and more willing to provide space for people to contribute. This means they’re less likely to be control freaks and will make their staff feel uncomfortable sharing their ideas.

The more comfortable your people feel expressing themselves, the more creativity they’ll add. This means you’ll have more diversity of thought with which to innovate. Your teams will be more productive, feel trusted, and will be less likely to miss work, under-deliver, dis-engage, or leave.

In Conclusion — Don’t Pick Resumes

The business world needs to revamp its idea of ‘qualified for the job’. Skills, experience, and knowledge are important, but useless if the person who possesses them can’t connect with people.

When you look for someone to be a leader in your organization, choose someone with emotional intelligence. They are the ones who will represent your brand in the best light possible, making your employees feel truly valued.

Originally posted on: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-emotional-intelligence-leader-edward-dalton/?published=t&trackingId=m7tblnM%2BSrmoUbc0LAjWSg%3D%3D