Leadership is one of the most heavily tested skills during COVID-19. Research shows that emotional intelligence accounts for nearly 90% of what sets high performers leaders apart from those with similar technical skills and knowledge.
The four areas of emotional intelligence are:
- Knowing oneself
- Self-motivation and self-management
- Relationship leadership
- Social awareness and service orientation
What can I do for myself?
- Take an emotional intelligence assessment to identify your development needs - we can only effectively work with others if we get better at knowing ourselves, our thoughts, emotional reactions, and tendencies
- Manage stress and pressure effectively. Recognising our emotions like stress, anxiety, anger etc. takes their power away
- Admit mistakes and be open to feedback
- Mindfulness techniques can help manage emotions more effectively
What can I do for my colleagues?
- Recognise their fears with empathy to defuse them. Anger tends to stem from fear, which is best managed by labelling the fear, e.g. ‘We understand that it must be stressful and frustrating working from home right now.’
- Change the focus of team meetings from task focussed updates to checking everyone feels safe, has all the resources they need and by listening to fears and concerns
- Practice empathy - put yourself in the other person’s shoes, question, listen, observe and feedback
- Promote resilience – remind your team of the challenges that have been overcome previously
Emotional intelligence can be learnt, and developing it will only help you and your team’s success.
Click here to complete a FREE Emotional Intelligence Assessment Summary overview https://utransitionconsulting.com/contact-us/
Chrissie Coates, Managing Director, U Transition
