The five categories of EQ

If leadership is situational, then the ability to read a situation (and the people in it) is a critical skill for any project manager to develop.

Emotional intelligence (or EQ) is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you. 

People with a high degree of emotional intelligence know what they’re feeling, what their emotions mean, and how these emotions can affect other people. 

For leaders, having emotional intelligence is essential for success. 

After all, who is more likely to succeed – a leader who shouts at his team when he’s under stress, or a leader who stays in control, and calmly assesses the situation?

According to Daniel Goleman , an American psychologist who helped to popularise emotional intelligence, there are five key elements to it:

Self-awareness

The ability to recognize an emotion as it happens is the key to your EQ.

Developing self-awareness requires tuning in to your true feelings – if you evaluate your emotions, you can manage them.

The major elements of self-awareness are:

• Emotional awareness. Your ability to recognize your own emotions and their effects.
• Self-confidence. Sureness about your self-worth and capabilities.

Self-regulation

 You often have little control over when you experience emotions.

You can, however, have some say in how long an emotion will last by using a number of techniques to alleviate negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, or mild depression.

A few of these techniques include recasting a situation in a more positive light, taking a long walk, and meditation or prayer.

Self-regulation involves

• Self-control. Managing disruptive impulses.
• Trustworthiness. Maintaining standards of honesty and integrity.
• Conscientiousness. Taking responsibility for your own performance.
• Adaptability. Handling change with flexibility.
• Innovation. Being open to new ideas.

Motivation

To motivate yourself for any achievement requires clear goals and a positive attitude.

Although you may have a predisposition to either a positive or a negative attitude, you can with effort and practice learn to think more positively.

If you catch negative thoughts as they occur, you can reframe them in more positive terms, which will help you achieve your goals.

Motivation is made up of:

• Achievement drive. Your constant striving to improve or to meet a standard of excellence.
• Commitment. Aligning with the goals of the group or organization.
• Initiative. Readying yourself to act on opportunities.
• Optimism. Pursuing goals persistently despite obstacles and setbacks.

Empathy

The ability to recognize how people feel is important to success in your life and career.

The more skillful you are at discerning the feelings behind others’ signals, the better you can control the signals you send them.

An empathetic person excels at:

• Service orientation. Anticipating, recognizing, and meeting clients’ needs.
• Developing others. Sensing what others need to progress and bolstering their abilities.
• Leveraging diversity. Cultivating opportunities through diverse people.
• Political awareness. Reading a group’s emotional currents and power relationships.
• Understanding others. Discerning the feelings behind the needs and wants of others.

Social skills

Developing good interpersonal skills is tantamount to success in your life and career.

In today’s always-connected world, everyone has immediate access to technical knowledge.

Thus, people skills are even more important now because you must possess a high EQ to better understand, empathize and negotiate with others in a global economy.

Among the most useful skills are:

• Influence. Wielding effective persuasion tactics.
• Communication. Sending clear messages.
• Leadership. Inspiring and guiding groups and people.
• Change catalyst. Initiating or managing change.
• Conflict management. Understanding, negotiating and resolving disagreements.
• Building bonds. Nurturing instrumental relationships.
• Collaboration and cooperation. Working with others toward shared goals.
• Team capabilities. Creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals.

Source: PsychCentral

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Exercising your EQ

So, how can you increase your emotional intelligence

If you’re self-aware, you always know how you feel, and you know how your emotions and your actions can affect the people around you.

Being self-aware when you’re in a leadership position also means having a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses, and it means behaving with humility.

So, what can you do to improve your self-awareness?

• Keep a journal – Journals help you improve your self-awareness. If you spend just a few minutes each day writing down your thoughts, this can move you to a higher degree of self-awareness.
• Slow down – When you experience anger or other strong emotions, slow down to examine why. Remember, no matter what the situation, you can always choose how you react to it.

Leaders who regulate themselves effectively rarely verbally attack others, make rushed or emotional decisions, stereotype people, or compromise their values. 

Self-regulation is all about staying in control.

This element of emotional intelligence, according to Goleman, also covers a leader’s flexibility and commitment to personal accountability.

So, how can you improve your ability to self-regulate?

• Know your values – Do you have a clear idea of where you absolutely will not compromise? Do you know what values are most important to you? Spend some time examining your “code of ethics.” If you know what’s most important to you, then you probably won’t have to think twice when you face a moral or ethical decision – you’ll make the right choice.
• Hold yourself accountable – If you blame others when something goes wrong, stop. Make a commitment to admit to your mistakes and to face the consequences, whatever they are. You’ll probably sleep better at night and quickly earn the respect of those around you.
• Practice being calm – The next time you’re in a challenging situation, be very aware of how you act. Do you relieve your stress by shouting at someone else? Practice deep breathing exercises to calm yourself. Also, try to write down all the negative things you want to say, then rip it up and throw it away. Expressing these emotions on paper (and not showing them to anyone!) is better than speaking them aloud to your team. Moreover, this helps you challenge your reactions to ensure they’re fair.

Self-motivated leaders work consistently toward their goals, and they have extremely high standards for the quality of their work.

How can you improve your motivation?

• Re-examine why you’re doing your job – It’s easy to forget what you really love about your career. So, take some time to remember why you wanted this job. Starting at the root often helps you look at your situation in a new way.
• Be hopeful and find something good – Motivated leaders are usually optimistic, no matter what problems they face. Adopting this mindset might take practice, but it’s well worth the effort.
  Every time you face a challenge or even a failure, try to find at least one good thing about the situation. It might be something small, like a new contact, or something with long-term effects, like an important lesson learned.

For leaders, having empathy is critical to managing a successful team or organization. 

Leaders with empathy can put themselves in someone else’s situation. 

They help develop the people on their team, challenge others acting unfairly, give constructive feedback, and listen to those who need it.

If you want to earn the respect and loyalty of your team, then show them you care by being empathic.

How can you improve your empathy?

• Put yourself in someone else’s position – It’s easy to support your own point of view. After all, it’s yours! But take the time to look at situations from other people’s perspectives. 
• Pay attention to body language – Perhaps when you listen to someone, you cross your arms, move your feet back and forth, or bite your lip. This body language tells others how you really feel about a situation, and the message you’re giving isn’t positive! Learning to read body language can be a real asset in a leadership role because you’ll be better able to determine how someone truly feels. This gives you the opportunity to respond appropriately.
• Respond to feelings – You ask the team to work late… again. And although they agree, you can feel their disappointment. So, respond by addressing these feelings. Tell them you appreciate how willing they are to work extra hours, and that you’re just as frustrated about working late. If possible, figure out a way for future late nights to be less of an issue (for example, by giving Monday mornings off).

Leaders who do well in the social skills element of emotional intelligence are great communicators. 

They’re just as open to hearing bad news as good news, and they’re experts at getting their team to support them and be excited about a new mission or project.

Leaders who have good social skills are also good at managing change and resolving conflicts diplomatically. 

They’re rarely satisfied with leaving things as they are, but they don’t sit back and make everyone else do the work; they set an example with their own behavior.

So, how can you build social skills?

• Learn conflict resolution – Leaders must know how to resolve conflicts between their team members, customers, or vendors. We will look at conflict resolution in the next few topics.
• Improve your communication skills – How well do you communicate? Did you attempt the communication style self-assessment tool in Unit 4? It will help you answer this question and give useful feedback on what you can do to improve.
• Learn how to praise others – As a leader, you can inspire the loyalty of your team simply by giving praise when it’s earned. Learning how to praise others is a fine art, but well worth the effort.

To be effective, leaders must understand how their emotions and actions affect the people around them. 

The better a leader relates to and works with others, the more successful they will be.