Written by: Asha Ghosh, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
In recent years, Emotional Intelligence (EI) has become an important discussion point when it comes to leadership. EI is now considered a fundamental skill that leaders must possess to successfully handle the diverse demands of a modern workforce and its stakeholders. This article shares 5 ways to boost your own emotional intelligence as a leader that I have successfully used with my own coaching clients.
What Is leadership emotional intelligence?
When I coach leaders in their development of EI, we start by developing an understanding of what an emotionally intelligent leader has the capacity to achieve. There are two distinct skills: awareness and regulation.
Emotional Awareness - High EI leaders have awareness, or the ability to read their own emotions and recognise the impact they have on themselves and their performance.
Combining this with an ability to also understand the emotions of others, what underpins EI is the capacity to understand both personal and social awareness of emotions.
Emotional Regulation - Leaders with high EI also have the capacity to regulate emotions in themselves and others. Those who are well-versed in this competency know how to guide and motivate themselves and their team. They have also developed a wide range of skills, tactics, and initiatives that help them inspire and lead people in new directions, ensuring they are building a sense of togetherness that stimulates collaboration, even when it is challenging or there is disagreement. Put simply, when coaching leaders to enhance their EI capabilities, I work on developing skills to read their own and other people's emotional signals better, and to react more appropriately to those signals. Leadership in this instance moves beyond hierarchy and technical knowledge to an emphasis on a more intentional and purposeful leader who is able to inspire, facilitate cooperation and collaboration, and empower teams toward success.
5 Ways to boost emotional intelligence
EI can be developed; the power to ignite performance in your career and personal life is within you. The key is building self-confidence in understanding emotions, learning to exercise empathy and exhibit positivity, while honing social skills, and, importantly, keeping your impulses in check. Building this capacity has the potential to accelerate success in all aspects of your life. Here are 5 ways to increase your EI straightaway:
1. Do not try to control emotions
Attempting to master emotional intelligence does not mean managing or manipulating our emotions, or trying to control the emotions of others. The most valuable thing about EI is the capability to understand, empathise, and relate, rather than manage and control. Control doesn't build mutually beneficial and dependable relationships. So our first step in building EI is to resist the need to suppress emotions or feelings. Instead, to build EI skills, you need to get comfortable with experiencing emotions. This simple act is powerful and is the foundation for EI development.
2. Observe emotions (without judgment)
The next step is to deepen your awareness by observing the emotion(s). I will caveat this by saying that I’m not talking about controlling emotions; they are often impossible to truly control, we are not always conscious of them, they are not always logical, they can be challenging, and they appear faster than our minds can reason. By observing, I mean noticing the emotion, being curious about it, holding the emotion as it appears. However, it does mean we may need to fight our instinct to judge the emotion or to listen to our inner monologue that says it would be better to be happier, more powerful, or more confident. Instead, make it a point to suspend your judgment and simply appreciate the emotion, the energy, the sensation in your body, the thoughts that appear; allow it to emerge and feel it fully (this can be rather daunting, but stick with it).
3. Give emotions a label
Emotions are complex. Research suggests we have 5 basic emotions – happy, sad, anger, fear, surprise – but there is more to it. If you experience fear, do you feel anxious, panicked, nervous, worried? These labels describe a scale of emotions related to fear. Conversely, if you are sad, what does it relate to – perhaps loss, or guilt, or embarrassment? Neuroscience studies have highlighted the value of labelling emotions for reducing stress levels, while giving us new insight that helps enable personal development. If you are unsure how to label emotions, the Plutnick Wheel of Emotions is helpful tool. The 5 basic emotions are found in the middle with an array of descriptive words associated. I've found that using the wheel with clients helps them connect the emotion with other words, which opens up a different, often far deeper understanding of their experience.
4. Listen to the emotional story
Generally, emotions lead to storytelling. Our inner monologue kicks in and constructs stories about what we did wrong, who else is to blame,or how we need to fix it. Our self-talk distracts us from the emotion and may even try to suppress it. It's helpful to assume that every story or thought we experience is not a fact. By listening to your thoughts, you can start identifying what is a story related to the experience of the emotion,what is helpful, and what is unhelpful. In a recent conversation with a client, they described how their inner monologue was firstly to criticise for not knowing enough, followed by planning different scenarios for how they might react if things did go wrong. They labelled their story “The Doom Strategist: a playbook of how to mitigate my failings”. By listening to your story, you are building skills to separate your thoughts from feelings. This can highlight triggers for self-attacking thoughts and how they sabotage your mood and lower your self-esteem. When you recognise that you are listening to the story, I encourage you to turn your attention away from your thoughts and focus on your physical body and sensation, and allow the emotion to flow. This can be quite scary, but truthfully, by letting go of the attached emotional story, the emotion could be quite fleeting.
5. Building EI using compassion
There are always situations when emotions become too difficult to control. When this happens, we can help ourselves by practicing kindness and compassion. Instead of blaming ourselves for the reaction, use comforting words that understand and validate the difficulty you’re experiencing. It may feel odd to say phrases such as "I'm really feeling a lot right now" or "I'm incredibly scared", but expressing the challenge in this way helps break the pattern of negative self-talk. We can also try motivating ourselves by saying something like "I'm trying my best" or "We're all doing our best in this situation". By changing the language, we can help reduce the intensity of our feelings. It is still possible to be disappointed by a situation without judging or blaming ourselves or anyone else.
What Is the Key to Understanding How to Develop Leadership Emotional Intelligence?
As humans, we unwittingly default into a pre-programmed cycle of thinking and behaviour. As our emotions emerge, so do our stories, which amplify what we’re feeling, which limits our capacity to react. Following these 5 steps opens up opportunities to build new patterns of behaviour that positively impact how we react to situations and associated emotions.
It is important to keep in mind the paradoxical notion that the less we try to manipulate our emotions, the better chance we have to control them with the skills we are building in these 5 steps. However, there may be moments where we feel unable to manage our intense feelings, and if that happens, it's important to remain with the emotions and be as compassionate toward our current situation as we can.
For further reading on how I have coached leaders to develop their emotional intelligence check out my recent blogs on developing leadership and EI.
Asha Ghosh, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
My coaching programmes have already enabled senior professional women globally to unlock new levels of potential in themselves and their teams. Resulting in these professionals being able to lead, inspire and make bold decisions that not only support business objectives, but also allow leaders to find satisfaction within their home life, all underpinned by promoting a proactive approach to personal well-being.
