Yasmina Rauber
There’s a wonderful quote from Winston Churchill’s mother that I often revisit. Reflecting on a dinner she attended with Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone, both vying to be UK’s next Prime Minister, she reportedly said:
“When I left the dining room after sitting next to Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But when I sat next to Disraeli, I left feeling that I was the cleverest woman.”
To me, this small interaction with Disraeli shows the clear distinction between someone who is not a leader and someone who is a great leader. While both men were equally witty, educated, and capable, Disraeli had a certain spark to this being that set him apart as the perfect leader simply by helping her to feel understood and appreciated.
As a corporate trainer, I have encountered all sorts of leaders. However, the strongest leaders and the most inspiring and influential managers all possessed the same skill that Disraeli possessed and showcased during that dinner: emotional intelligence.
To unpack this, let’s first begin with leadership. Ask yourself, what does the perfect leader look like to you? Take a minute to really visualize them, and note down a few characteristics that help to define them.
Perhaps you picture someone confident and trustworthy. Maybe you picture someone cool, calm, and collected no matter how rough the seas are, or perhaps the perfect leader for you is someone who is approachable and makes informed decisions.
All of these characteristics, and most likely everything you noted down, are symptoms of emotional intelligence. Sharp suits and a strong handshake are impressive, but above all, emotional intelligence is what makes a manager and leader better at their job.
The Importance Of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence at its core is the ability to understand and manage emotions. This understanding relates to more than just your own emotions, it also extends to understanding the emotions of those around you. People with a higher understanding of emotional intelligence are better at identifying what they’re feeling, what this means, and how their emotional state affects those around them. Emotional intelligence is less like mind-reading, and more of an awareness of how their well-being and behavior can sway the space.
For leaders, strong emotional intelligence is essential for success—for both the leader themselves and the success of their team. As a leader, your emotional intelligence is what influences your self-awareness, objectivity, and my favorite, equality within your workplace and team.
According to Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., and author of the New York Times bestseller Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, there are five key elements to emotional intelligence:
- Self-awareness
- Self-regulation
- Motivation
- Empathy
- Social skills
The more that you, as a leader, manage each of these areas, the higher your emotional intelligence. Let’s look at each element in more detail.
1. Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotions and thoughts. When you’re self-aware, you have no trouble identifying what emotions are bubbling to the surface. For example, if it’s a time of high stress at work, you are aware that you often respond to stress with anxiety, and that sometimes this can make you come across as brisk or agitated. In addition to identifying your emotions, you are also keenly aware that these emotions and your subsequent actions affect the people around you. As a leader, self-awareness also includes having a better understanding of your own strengths, and weaknesses, and it allows you to better set and achieve goals and create a workplace that is inclusive and sustainable.
The best way to improve your self-awareness, in my experience, is to keep a journal. While some may overlook a journal as a way of furthering their career, a journal helps build your self-awareness. If journaling is not part of your daily routine, this is your sign to start. You can build this habit by ensuring that every night before going to bed, you write down a few sentences or words that capture how you feel about the day gone by. Remember; consistency is key.
2. Self-Regulation
For self-regulation, I always ask my clients to reflect back on their own professional experiences, and if they ever had a manager or leader who acted irrationally, impulsively, or unpredictably. An emotionally charged environment is usually buzzing with unresolved conflict, often leaving you silent for fear of incurring the wrath of a temperamental manager. I then ask: how easy was it to trust this person, and how did you find working with them? Did working in an emotionally charged environment help you to grow as a person, or did it limit your potential?
A leader who can regulate themselves doesn’t verbally attack others or make spur-of-moment decisions. As a corporate trainer, I believe that respecting the boundaries of your team is paramount to their happiness, and this in turn requires self-regulation. For example, if a team member is off the clock, self-regulation will help you to respect this and avoid bombarding them with last-minute emails. You can find out more about how you can ensure the happiness of your team through boundary setting in my article here.
The first step to self-regulation is knowing your values, and understanding where you refuse to compromise. In a way, you’re setting your own personal code of ethics to avoid making the wrong decisions or feeling pressured.
Self-regulation also requires accountability, which can be the hardest to implement. I find the easiest way to begin building this skill is to commit yourself to admit to your mistake next time something goes wrong—and something will go wrong eventually because we’re human! Face the music, and maintain your calm composure. Your team will respect you so much more for it.
3. Motivation
Is there anything more inspiring than seeing someone who is motivated with clear goals? Motivation is highly underrated in the professional realm and often gets overshadowed by ambition. However, motivation comes from a desire to improve oneself rather than climb the corporate ladder, which is far more fulfilling, beneficial, and inspiring in the long term.
Begin by examining your role, and rediscovering why you love what you do, and whether something needs to change. This reflection can help to realign your goals, or, if you haven’t yet defined them, begin sketching out what your goals for yourself look like.
Motivation doesn’t necessarily mean waking up before dawn and partaking in an exhausting gym class every morning. Instead, it means identifying what you want in life and finding the drive to build up to that goal. If a pre-dawn workout is in your life plan, then a 5 am class makes sense. If perhaps, getting better sleep is in your plan, then it might not be for you.
Above all, your motivation should come from a place of optimism and joy. As a leader, you should be setting a good example to your team about capturing happiness and doing what you love. The more motivated and positive you are, the easier high-stress moments will be to face.
4. Empathy
As a leader, empathy plays a huge role in managing your team and ensuring the success of every individual. Empathy allows leaders to put themselves in the shoes of others: helping to develop skills, challenging those who are negatively affecting others or behaving unfairly, and reaching out to those who may be struggling. I also find that empathy helps a leader to provide the right kind of constructive criticism, navigating the conversation in a way that ensures your team member has a positive takeaway rather than feeling attacked.
So, how can you, as a leader, become more empathetic?
It’s rather simple: take a moment to consider how you would feel in the same situation. While you may not have the same reaction as someone else, it does help to build your awareness of the situation. Would you also be irritated by the tone of an email? How would you feel if your work were critiqued? What would you do if you felt burnout, and why would you react that way?
If empathy is something you struggle to master, I find that looking at body language is a good place to start. Did your team member slump in disappointment when you shared their feedback? Were they fidgeting and looking anxious throughout the day? Do they give off positive energy, or is there something amiss in their demeanor? Let your instincts be your guide on this one, and where possible, simply set aside time to ask your team member the all-important question: are you okay, and if not, what can I do to help?
5. Social Skills
Last but not least, social skills.
A leader with great social skills will be great at communicating—the two go hand in hand. They find it easy to speak with their team, support them, and find the right words to inspire or motivate them at every turn. Social skills are, in particular, paramount in diplomatically resolving conflicts so that everyone feels heard, seen, and understood.
As you’ve probably guessed, at the heart of good social skills is conflict resolution. Begin by asking yourself, how do you approach an issue at work, and what do you do to mediate it? A leader must know how to resolve issues between team members, vendors, managers, and even customers, in a way that doesn’t result in more problems.
Conflict resolution and navigating these tricky moments require good communication. Communication is, in my opinion, one of those skills we never stop developing. I find the best way to get better at communicating is to understand what you want to say before you say it (self-awareness will help you here). Write down the key points you want to address, and why these points are important. I find that a dot-point list of key points helps me to ensure I say everything I want to say, without going off on a tangent.
Of course, being a leader isn’t just mediating conflict. Praise, compliments, and recognition are crucial. Again, you can use notes to ensure you hit every beat. If someone in your team does well, make sure they know you appreciate it. After all, who doesn’t flourish and grow as a person when their hard work is acknowledged?
Are you looking to build your emotional intelligence? Discover how you can become a better leader for your team with my Leadership Training course. From setting healthy boundaries to improving your communication skills, learn everything you need to become a positive, inspiring leader, and wake up feeling ready for the day.
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YASMINA RAUBER of YAS COACHING
My mission is to guide women to gain true confidence, career clarity, and leadership success. As a corporate trainer, I educate businesses on equality and inclusivity and support them every step of the way as they journey into a new business paradigm where gender biases are a thing of the past. Discover more about my journey, my mission and values, my certifications, and how I coach management and leadership
