Do you wish to become more effective and impactful in your leadership role? Harness the power of emotional intelligence to become a better leader who is loved and respected by all.
The importance of Emotional intelligence (EQ) in determining a leader’s success and effectiveness has long been recognized in research.
However, leaders themselves are beginning to recognize the importance of emotional intelligence (EQ) as well.
What Are Emotions?
Emotions are a reaction to thoughts, events, or experiences which bring up feelings such as happiness, sadness, anger, worry, or fear.
Emotions tell us what we are feeling inside, whether we are having a great moment and feeling happy or excited, or having a difficult moment and feeling stressed, sad or angry.
So an essential ability for leaders is understanding the range of emotions people have and how these emotions manifest.
Leaders must be able to distinguish between these emotions, both negative and positive. These range from sadness, anger, fear, and envy on the negative side to relief, enjoyment, love, and pride on the positive side.
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is a person’s ability to identify, understand, and manage their emotions and the emotions of others.
It is the ability to recognize and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others and use this information to guide behavior.
A leader’s ability to effectively manage themselves and their relationships is what makes them emotionally intelligent.
Emotional intelligent leaders can motivate and boost the morale of their subordinates, and ultimately enhance their satisfaction and produce better results.
This positively impacts the overall organizational performance.
That’s because the emotional state of the leader influences the entire team, department, or organization.
It is also important to mention that emotions are contagious.
For instance, when we are around someone who is always smiling, cheerful, and optimistic, the positive emotions rub off on us.
In contrast, being around someone who is in a bad mood can weigh us down.
Great leaders know the importance of keeping their own emotions in balance.
They also recognize the importance of helping others manage their negative emotions so they don’t infect the team or the organization.
Leadership has a lot to do with whether employees have positive or negative feelings about their work lives.
Research into the factors affecting mood in the workplace shows that almost everything that affects workers’ moods is under the leaders’ control.
This means that the mood of the leader affects team performance. which is why leaders need a high degree of emotional intelligence.
They have to regulate their own emotions to remain positive and hopeful and help pull others towards them.
The 4 Components of Emotional Intelligence
- Self-awareness
- Self-management
- Social awareness
- Relationship management
It is necessary to know that EQ is a skill that can be learned, strengthened, and developed by anyone.
1. Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the foundation of all other competencies.
Self-awareness is understanding your own emotions, values, strengths, and weaknesses and how they affect your life in general.
Accurate self-awareness means setting clear goals that fit in with your core values.
Self-reflection is an important part, and self-aware leaders will consider what they need to improve.
They must realize when they are making mistakes and be humble enough to admit them.
Self-awareness also means that a leader must understand and recognize how others perceive their behavior.
2. Self-management
Self-management is the ability to stop reactive behavior in real-time. It is simply about emotional self-control.
For instance, a leader with good self-control does not have a sudden aggressive outburst.
If they do get angry, they know exactly how to control their anger. They also get angry for a good reason, at the right place and at the right time.
Self-management skill helps leaders stay hopeful and positive despite the challenges, setbacks, and failures.
3. Social awareness
Social awareness has empathy as a cornerstone.
Through empathy, a leader understands how others feel, how they perceive things, and how they are affected by different events.
Social awareness also means understanding social settings such as networks and hierarchies.
As part of understanding the social settings, a leader knows what their stakeholders need and expect from them.
4. Relationship management
Relationship management is the ability to connect with others and build positive relationships.
Leaders with high EQ recognize the impact of their actions and behaviors on others, so they treat people with kindness, respect, compassion, and sensitivity.
It involves influencing and developing others, bonding and handling conflicts, and interactions between people and teams.
With a strong relationship management ability, a leader can figure out how to inspire people and get them to come together to achieve a common goal.
Relationship between These 4 Competencies
As you would imagine, the four competencies connect and depend on each other.
If a leader lacks self-awareness, it becomes difficult to be genuinely empathetic or understand how their behavior impacts others.
Also, relationship management would be challenging if a leader lacks self-management.
Conclusion
Strong emotional intelligence is essential to becoming good at leadership.
It allows leaders to respect and begin to see their followers as human beings with feelings, ideas, and opinions of their own.
They promote teamwork and collaboration, as well as resolve conflicts, and sometimes even before the conflict gets to the surface.
Leaders use emotional intelligence to help subordinates grow and develop, see and enhance their self-image and their feeling of self-worth.
They also help followers meet their needs and achieve personal and organizational goals.
Great leaders use the power of emotions to inspire change and influence people towards something great.
What is your opinion?
Now it is time to get your thoughts.
As a leader or a leader-to-be, what other ways do you think emotional intelligence can enhance leadership?
Please comment below.
This article was contributed by Godwin Amanyi
