Sunday, March 4, 2018

PRIMAL INTELLIGENCE

Part One: The Power of Emotional Intelligence
        
    The real magic of great leaders isn’t in what they do, but rather in how they do it. Understanding the emotional tones in the workplace is what separates the best leaders from the average leaders. The leaders who understand emotions are better able to build higher morale, more motivation and a deeper commitment among their workers, which creates better retention of talent and better results on the productivity side. All of these positive factors add up to positive profits.
            The bottom line is that followers are always looking to leaders for emotional support and empathy. When leaders drive out invisible toxic emotions and drive in positive emotions it is called resonance in this book. And when leaders drive emotions towards the negative it’s called dissonance. Everyone watches the boss. People take their cues from the boss. So the boss better be aware of the emotional tone that he or she is setting.
            People want to work with leaders who have some emotional intelligences and are able to exude upbeat feelings. Creating this positive upbeat atmosphere is how emotionally intelligent leaders are able to retain talented people.
            One of the oldest laws of psychology is that anything beyond a moderate level of anxiety and worry erodes mental abilities and makes us less emotionally intelligent. Thus, leaders who spread bad moods are bad for business because employees are likely to quit. And the ones who stay, can’t be at their best or even think at their best. So, once again poor emotional leaders are bad for business. But, you want to know what is good for business? Good mood spreaders who are emotionally intelligent leaders. They are good for business because of many reasons. However, here is just one of those reasons: every 1% increase in the service climate creates a 2% increase in revenue.
            We can no longer afford to believe that just because a very intelligent person was put into a leadership position that it will automatically make everything okay. Einstein once said, “We should take care not to make the intellect our God. It has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve.” Good intellect can serve. Good emotional intelligence can lead. Now imagine what the two of them can do together.
            There is no fixed formula for great leadership and it’s not innate. We aren’t born with it. That really is good news, and so is this next part too. The emotional intelligence necessary for great leadership can be learned. Furthermore, there is no one set path to great leadership. As the old maxim goes, there are many roads to Rome.
            However, if one hopes to become a great leader someday, studies have shown that it helps to have at least one competency from each of the four fundamental areas of emotional intelligence. These four domains consist of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
            Self-awareness consist of things like knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses. People who are self-aware have a ‘gut-sense’ to guide their decision-making process. They self-manage, which means they have self-control, have integrity, are flexible and are optimistic. These people are usually also self-starters, and achievers.
            Social awareness is having empathy or understanding the perspectives of others. It’s having the ability to read the currents and the politics of a particular situation and environment. As well as, recognizing and meeting customer needs.
            Relationship management is being able to motivate people with a compelling vision and then being able to persuade them to move forward and do it. It’s developing others. It’s resolving conflict. And it’s also being able to go in a new direction while maintaining friendships, and being a good team player.

            So as this book, Primal Leadership mentioned earlier, if you have at least one competency from each of the four domains of emotional intelligence you’re in a pretty good place to be a good leader someday.
Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.