Article Overview
Leadership nowadays is tricky.
Gone are the days when a leader is someone with that stern look on the face and always seems like it’s all business. Now, that kind of a leader would most certainly intimidate and, then, turn off the rest of the team. This could result in being less motivated to work and be less productive.
Studies show that there’s one thing that team members look for in a leader and that is emotional intelligence or EQ.
Table of Contents
- What is EQ?
- How Does EQ Impact Your Leadership Skills?
- 3 Tips On How EQ Can Make You A More Effective Leader
- Emotional Intelligence Sets You Apart From Competitors
- Emotional Intelligence Helps You Create and Lead Better Teams
- Emotional Intelligence Makes You a Better Boss
- Conclusion
Emotional intelligence or EQ is a person’s ability to recognize, manage, and control his emotions or feelings and to those around him.
This is one skill a leader should have since leadership is not just about one’s knowledge or seniority; nor is it about the power and position you hold.
Instead, it is using that power and position to lift the rest of the team – especially on an emotional level – to bring out the best in them, their work, and the rest of the company.
A leader who doesn’t know how to recognize his emotions and his ‘tendencies’ will never know how to manage employees. Worse, a leader who does not recognize the emotions of his team would make him insensitive and, sometimes, rude.
Imagine a leader who doesn’t care what others would feel or a leader who easily lashes out on all or any member of the team when something goes wrong. Would you work for that person? Surely not.
Emotional intelligence helps an individual improve his leadership skill by knowing how to handle tense situations, pressure from inside and outside of the company, and conflict between members.
More so, a leader with high EQ can effectively motivate and encourage the rest of the team.
EQ, then, sets a positive reaction-response from everyone which could greatly affect the team’s attitude, mindset, and performance.
According to American psychologist Daniel Goleman, there are 5 key elements of emotional intelligence and these are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.
These key elements are a strong basis on how EQ can make you a better leader.
Here are 3 tips on how you can use EQ to your advantage and improve your leadership skills.
A leader who knows how to motivate a team can use that as a tool to steer everyone to success.
Emotional intelligence helps in recognizing the strengths of every member and use it to the advantage in reaching the company’s goals. It also helps recognize the weaknesses of each one and could be a great reference point for workshops and seminars to help address them.
When you’re a leader who can do that, you can easily be different from the rest of your competitors. You can be compassionate and open to the rest of the team while still being respectful. Then, it would be easier to convert the positivity into productivity that could up your game within the industry competition.
It would be easier to create and lead better teams when you have a high EQ. This means that one should also be self-aware and self-regulating to set an example for the rest of the team.
Leadership should not only be about telling the rest what to do. It also builds from the mentality that whatever rules you set, you should be the first to do them.
Setting a great example around the workplace can help influence and affect the rest to do the same. Teams find it easier to follow and take orders from a leader who knows how to discipline himself.
A leader’s awareness of himself and knows how to regulate his emotions especially in dealing with the team can make him more likable, believable, and respectable.
Once you get these out from your members, it would be easier to manage them creating better harmony in the workplace.
With all that’s been said above, a leader with great social skills is the icing on the cake.
Social skills are important among the team. This helps you do better in conflict management within members of the team. It would be easier to mediate and settle the conflict this way you can have more success working with everyone’s emotions – especially when the conflict gets pretty intense.
Your social skills can also help you relate to the rest of the team. This means that your emotional intelligence would help you be drawn closer to everyone not just in the working environment but outside of it as well.
A higher EQ makes you an exceptional leader, one, who has a deeper understanding of his employees’ needs and concerns. It makes you a leader who has earned the respect and trust of his workers, someone who’s capable of crafting an exceptional workplace culture.