You know why this subject is coming up? Because the way you feel about me shouldn’t affect the quality of support you give me in terms of our role relationships. But the truth is, more often than not, feelings get in the way of work. How we feel about ourselves, and about our colleagues affects, actually let me say dictates, the way we work with, or against each other. When we’re friendly, phone calls, emails and other points of contact are received and responded to positively, and work flows with a satisfying efficiency. When there is animosity, the cold shoulder in the elevator translates into an unanswered phone-call, an ignored email, a skipped meeting, a missed deadline, and ultimately, a (failed) compromised assignment. With the diversity of human needs, world-views, perceptions and levels of maturity in the c-suite, we are naturally going to experience a range of emotions on a daily basis, all of which escalate (or not) in the face of work-place issues. And our delivery on the job is typically representative of those emotions. This is why this subject is coming up.
Colloquially, we say managing your feelings, but at work, in leadership roles especially, it sounds more appropriate to use the term, emotional intelligence. Some of the basic human emotions we are likely to experience to varying degrees include belonging, anger, anxiety, contempt, hostility, repulsion, fear, embarrassment, expectation, excitement, contentment, disappointment, sadness, surprise, amusement, guilt/shame, pride, rejection, and relief, overwhelm, and more; and, each of them affects how we present ourselves and engage, how we adjust, cope and co-exist with others in the environment. This is where our cliques (and various other coping behaviours) come in. But we’re just going to focus on outlining what emotional intelligence is this week.
Emotional intelligence in the workplace is one of the most critical leadership skills, because it helps us understand and manage our emotions around clients and colleagues. We have probably all experienced some of the volatility of the working environment, with all that pressure, rivalry, and the occasional tantrum. Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence theory recognizes five components of EQ: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. According to him, these five elements all contribute to promoting emotional intelligence in the workplace.
Based on the emotional intelligence theory outlined above, it is clear coaching is a worthwhile and necessary investment in building your team. The information yielded by coaching tools is very useful in describing the individual as well as the team profile, such that self-awareness, opportunity for self-regulation, determining what motivates one, and if team assessments were done and debriefed as a team, the information also helps the leadership team develop some degree of empathy, which improves their inclination to trust and collaborate better as a team, and greatly improves their ability to make better decisions. Consider executive coaching for your team to improve emotional intelligence in your c-suite.
