To start with, emotional intelligence is already established to be important and integral in your work and personal relationships with people. Emotional intelligence is the capacity to recognize and effectively control, use and manage emotions in ourselves and other people.
In recent times, emotional intelligence has gained more grounds in management and leadership training seminars in recent times. Emotional intelligence also goes a long way in conflict resolution or management in the workplace. To become a successful leader, control of emotions goes a long way and it is a high determinant of how much of a leader you are.
Nobody would want to be the kind of leader that transfers aggression at the sight of the slightest issues that comes up, instead a leader who analyzes a situation before eventually getting the right attitude to handle the situation in a much professional way. Emotional intelligence and the path to leadership work hand in hand to bring out or determine if you are a good leader or not.
A great leader not only gets a hold of his emotions but should also be able to analyze, understand and influence the emotions of others around him. Naturally individuals with a perfect grab on emotional intelligence are subconsciously aware of what they are feeling, what their emotions are probably signaling and the consequences or how their emotions affect others. How can you possibly develop and enhance your role as a leader with emotional intelligence? So, what are elements of emotional intelligence?
Self-awareness
Clearly like the name self-awareness could be traced or narrowed down to you having an understanding of yourself first. The self-aware feeling definitely gives you the luxury to know how you feel exactly, it gives you a rough sketch of how your emotions through your actions can possibly affect you or the people around you.
As a leader the attributes of being self-aware gives you a clearer description of what your strengths are and the weaknesses you need to work on. Self-awareness definitely subjects you even as a leader to humility and respect. I would run a quick check on how to improve your self-awareness.
- Always keep a journal: it would not hurt to take some time off frequently to write down your thoughts, feelings, emotions and the likes all in a book. This can head you straight to be aware of your emotions and you are certainly on the right track to getting emotional intelligence.
- Calm yourself down: following any emotion you go through, it is always best to calm down, take a chill pill before you react to issues that trigger a certain feeling or emotion. Certain times when you pass through an emotion, it is best to calm down and find out why or the reason behind the feeling at first. Regardless of the situation at hand, how you react to situations is always your choice.
Self-regulation
What does regulation simply mean? Taking control of something, being in charge or direct and managing something. To be a great leader, always avoid taking decisions out of pressure, sentiments, emotions.
Most times it is best to apply the former point of calming down before actually making a decision following a certain action. Great leaders come with a souvenir of personal accountability to everything or every reaction. Improving your ability to self-regulate yourself you have to be aware of what your values really are.
After a discovery and acknowledgement of your values, then you can make decisions on morals or ethics without a doubt that you are making the right decision. Personal accountability is quite important, when you put yourself on a form of check and balance by yourself.
Be committed and disciplined enough to acknowledge when you make a mistake instead of blaming others for your irrational decisions or actions. Personal accountability comes in handy as it brings you down to make a decision and decide what to do to correct or move past the mistake.
Self-motivation
When you as a leader are constantly motivated, it subconsciously rubs off on others and keeps everyone including you working consistently to a certain goal. It gives a sense or feeling of a high standard to the quality and emission of their output or their work.
Try as much as possible to be sure and constantly remind yourself of why you initially took up that particular role. When unhappiness or an overwhelming sensation covers your emotions up about your job, then it is best you actually slow down and reminisce on why you wanted the job in the first place. Picking up an issue from the beginning helps you discover what probably went wrong and how to solve it.
Empathy
A popular saying is that only the one who wears a shoe, knows where the shoe pinches or tightens him. An understanding of this gives you the chance to actually show empathy and a total understanding of other people’s emotions and worries.
A leader with empathy is always loved and respected by his team, this brings up the phrase a man of the people. This helps the leader develop the not so doing wells on his team, challenge those that are probably not acting entirely fair and give constructive criticism and feedback to those who need it on the team.
A leader puts himself in someone else’s position to understand and have an insight of the challenges the particular person goes through to carry out a task. Try to be attentive or observant of body languages of your team mates. Empathy would not entirely be complete if a leader does not react well after understanding the feelings. It is right to respond or react in the best way to the emotions of your team.
Social Skills
There is definitely no introvert in leadership. Leaders are always very great at communicating with their teams. A good leader who listens to bad information or criticism is as well open to listen to good news.
Social skills are definitely what makes you a leader in the sense that this is what would bring support to your team to make you a leader initially. Leaders with social skills have a better handle on conflict resolutions between clients, team mates and the likes.
Communicating either written or unwritten forms should be a lot above average to actually be a great leader with emotional intelligence. As well as criticizing when your team does not do well, don’t be stingy or reluctant to praise your team when they certainly do well.