Emotional Intelligence: Myths, Methods, and Benefits

We explore Emotional Intelligence and its role in organizational leadership. Is it critical to leadership or is it just hype? Is it innate to a person’s personality or can it be a developed leadership trait?

Transcript

Dr. D.  0:06  
Hello, and welcome to the realm. I'm Dr. D, I bring the strategy.

Dr. K  0:10  
I'm Dr. K, I bring the psychology, we are business psychologists and your guides to the executive realm where we bring strategy and psychology together

Dr. D.  0:19  
so you can bring your best to your C suite, your teams and to your customers. Today we're talking about emotional intelligence. Is it really as important in leadership? And is it innate to a person's personality? Or can it be developed as a leadership trait? Let's get to work. So, Dr. K, before we get into the discussion, what's emotional intelligence? What is it?

Dr. K  0:40  
The ability to be able to identify emotions, and it doesn't mean that it's just identifying someone else's emotion, it's identifying your own emotions, knowing what is triggering these emotions, how to deal with them appropriately, how to deal with someone else's emotions appropriately, and having a space to be non judgmental, and a little bit more empathetic.

Dr. D.  1:05  
Emotional intelligence is one of those things that have emerged into the into the business scene. I remember it kind of becoming really big and popular in the early mid 2000s. And I know that Daniel Goleman, was a psychologist that popularized it lots of different names, right emotional intelligence, EI; emotional intelligence quotient, EIQ; or EQ, emotional quotient, I guess it would be kind of taking a play off of that IQ. What I really remember was that book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 coming into the business world, and then there being lots of trainings around this and this assessment that you would take, and he would go through the training and you would take it again, and you would feel better because your emotional intelligence score went up, it was really big for a while

Dr. K  1:47  
and it still is big if people want they want to believe that business is how it used to be you come in, you do the work. And then you leave Business is business Work is work home is home, however it is with the way the world is changing. And people coming in and believing that people have their true selves or their authentic selves. And we're bringing in corporate social responsibility, all these changes, bringing emotional intelligence to the forefront, I believe that it did have a huge arching element where it was the big the big thing in business, emotional intelligence, do all these things. And it kind of faded away too, with the Me too. And Black Lives Matter and the political world. Emotional Intelligence needs to be better understood, so that we can have roof social skills, more motivation, all of these things that are incorporated within emotional intelligence.

Dr. D.  2:40  
Some of the research studies that I've looked at showed servant leadership is a big buzzword in business today. It's something that I kind of tend to believe in any way that a leader works for his or her team, and that they're really there to support and enable their capabilities. So that so that they can support their mission better. So if I'm supporting my team, I'm really supporting their mission and therefore supporting my mission. I'm enabling that mission. So I'm not necessarily a big fan of the title servant leadership. But you know, I like the concept. I like the I like the thought, and it's been demonstrated in research, high emotional intelligence traits, some of the five traits of emotional intelligence, many of those constructs are positively correlated with servant leadership. They're also tied with humility. So somebody who has a has a tendency towards narcissism tends to not score very high on emotional intelligence scales. When there is true narcissism, sociopathy in the workplace tend to score really low in emotional intelligence constructs. Now, I'm saying these constructs because I'm separating the idea of emotional intelligence from that emotional intelligence 2.0 book that a lot of people use in business that are facilitated and a lot of emotional intelligence trainings, because there are a number of ways to measure the constructs of emotional intelligence and even emotional intelligence in itself that is different than that emotional intelligence 2.0 book that people have been exposed to

Dr. K  4:07  
with emotional intelligence. I think it scares people. I think people when they hear the emotional part, they think crying and yelling, and we're going to

Dr. D.  4:17  
Kumbaya, in a circle holding hands.

Dr. K  4:20  
Yes, yes. And that's not it's it's actually using an intelligence to understand what is going on. And as you brought up, there's the five constructs and those five constructs within emotional intelligence doesn't say in there, we're gonna cry and we're gonna hold hands and you know, that's not what it's saying. It's it's being aware. It's being able to control yourself to motivate yourself. All these different things come in with emotional intelligence. My belief is if people can try to work on being less fearful around the word emotional, their ability if they are not already having innate skills with them. Emotional intelligence, their ability to improve their emotional intelligence will be so much easier if they can take away you know, get away from that fear or that uncomfortableness the word emotional.

Dr. D.  5:13  
Yeah, I think is people walking in. HR sets up an emotional intelligence training that everybody is required to go to it sends this a consent this kind of cringy feeling of Oh, no, what is this thing? You know? Is it psychology du jour, what's on the menu this week.

Dr. K  5:31  
and eye-rolling?

Dr. D.  5:32  
Yeah, some eye-rolling. And people who don't really want to be touchy feely at work, that sends the shiver of people are going to walk into the training, very guarded. But when you really get underneath the hood, you talked about the five constructs. And those five constructs are really pretty rational. When you think about it. There's your own self awareness. How do you perceive your own emotions? Do you recognize your emotional state? Do you recognize the emotional state of people around you? Do you have the ability to self regulate? If you get upset about something? Do you lash out immediately? Or do you kind of hold it back and let it or do you just kind of let things roll off your back? There's the motivation. What motivates you at work? For me, that's called mission. We talk about mission all the time, empathy, it's just the ability to recognize other people's emotions, and then social skills, do you apply that recognition of other people's emotions, it's reading the room and recognizing and responding appropriately. So when you think about the constructs in totality, that's pretty, pretty rational. It's just bundled in this phrase that can send people down the wrong mental path. Totally

Dr. K  6:38  
agree. I've worked with emotional intelligence just with clients or at least their skills within it, because clients will bring up as you call it, the psychology does your they'll bring up you know, do I have the emotional intelligence or I don't have it in this that I bring up? Well, do you recognize when someone said, Yeah, I do. Okay, you have a level of emotional intelligence? Do you beat that person up when they're sad? No, I asked them how they're doing or what's going on. Again, you have a level of emotional intelligence. For the most part, I believe everyone has the ability to have a level and improve their level of emotional intelligence.

Dr. D.  7:15  
As I'm speaking to a clinician, I'm going to speak broadly and you can correct me if I say this wrong. There are real mental conditions where people don't have the ability to recognize the emotional state of others or even within themselves. There's sociopathy there psychopathy, those are there are people at work, there are high functioning sociopath in the workplace, it's been proven in research over and over again, there are high functioning psychopaths in workplace that don't have the ability to recognize emotion. I think you're absolutely right. Most everyone has the ability to tap in and evaluate their emotions and evaluate emotions and others, certainly psychologically healthy people at work, where I think what you're talking about is self confidence. People always want to do better or do more or think that they could be contributing in a in a more sensitive way or in a more emotionally supportive way. And I think that's great. And I think that's what's really beneficial out of emotional intelligence research and and training environment that's created within an organization is that you're really developing a common language to say, Hey, you know what, I don't like the way you handled such insight, I wish you would have approached me or person acts in a slightly more thoughtful way. maybe ask more questions, maybe asked how they were doing first, before you jumped into what you were upset about? Or hey, did you recognize that you lashed out at that person? I think those kinds of conversations can be healthy and good. And what you can take away from emotional intelligence training is a common language to be able to approach those more sensitive types of issues.

Dr. K  8:47  
Absolutely. Because I know people you know, again, get nervous around emotional intelligence bringing in psychology, what have you, it's what does a level of higher emotional intelligence bring to the table individually, as well as for the organization? You know, it's important for people to know that if you have and it doesn't mean that you have to have this high high level of EQ. It's just having improvement as you talked about the the five constructs being more aware your emotion, someone else's being able to regulate the motivation and empathy. What people need to think about is is why why would I want to have a better level? Why would I want to have a higher level of emotional intelligence? Well, for individuals, it brings on higher career success. If you have better interpersonal skills, people are going to go Yeah, that that person's great to work with it also can bring about just the relationships within the business. If you have a higher level of emotional intelligence, you can use that to be curious.

Dr. D.  9:48  
It's really about keeping your own cool when other people around them are losing theirs and being able to manage other people's level of emotion. No investment to the benefit of the organization, whether that's cooling other people down, or if you're in a heated negotiation with another party pushing the right buttons at the right time to maintain that advantage. But it all starts with this idea of maintaining a level of coolness and that coolness, you have to be able to recognize when you're about to lose it, or might be thinking about it in the wrong way. Or if somebody has pushed your button, can you step away from that and be able to evaluate control and then respond in a really productive or maybe respond in a productive, unexpected way that might work to your advantage might work to your benefit, because there are people that out of emotion will try to push your buttons and get you as upset as they are about something. And it's important to respond appropriately. I think early on in in, in my early exposure to emotional intelligence, I was kind of I had that kind of similar reaction, Oh, is this going to be a touchy feely thing I wasn't really very well educated in hand holding, I think where I have a challenge in business is that often these tools, these tools that are being introduced to people are being presented like this is the thing that's going to fix our organization, you are going to be the most amazing leader ever. And I think the reality is emotional intelligence is just part of a larger leadership toolkit, you have to have strong analytical abilities, you have to have good practical skills, you have to be able to understand the context of the world around you and business, you have to have really solid decision making capabilities. Emotional intelligence is just another arrow in the quiver of what good leaders could do. Having self resilience and an awareness and being able to respond appropriately is a good thing. I think for me as well. The other challenge that I had with that eq 2.0, or that emotional intelligence. 2.0 is, in psychology as researchers, as scientists, we approach the world as we're trying to find good indicators of a set of behaviors. And a lot of that time that's done through assessments or experimentation. And the EQ 2.0 book is designed to not be stable. It's designed to measure your understanding of how you are today, then you go through a training and you know how to answer the questions better. And so your score goes up. And hopefully, you've learned something from that it's not a really a solid assessment of emotional intelligence, there are better tools out there to really gauge your level of emotional intelligence. And again, you don't have to embody all the elements of emotional intelligence. It's really just like any learning, it's about self awareness. And then when the time is right, do you pick the right tool for the job?

Dr. K  12:37  
Yeah, absolutely agree. If you have just good emotional intelligence, and that's all that you have, that's not going to be enough. It is a component of it, it's also going to help you in your personal life.

Dr. D.  12:48  
A lot of leadership skills that I use at work I use at home, they are very helpful in in coordinating and thinking about the emotional state of friends, you know, and just engaging with other people, it does make life a little bit better. When I think about emotional intelligence and business. It's a piece of the puzzle. It's not the whole puzzle, as as you rightly said, as well. What are you really trying to accomplish with emotional intelligence development within your leadership team or within your organization, within your teams, you're trying to really influence your culture, the culture of the organization, we talk a lot about organizational atmosphere. Organizational atmosphere is the kind of changing weather that you bring to the room, when you walk in and you're hosting a meeting or having an interaction with people, it's how do you embody the culture and shape and frame the culture as you're interacting with people on a day to day basis. And so really, with emotional intelligence, you're trying to influence the weather around you the atmosphere around you in those interactions that you have. And if you embody those in the right way, you're really influencing the culture, you're shaping the culture and if more people embody or create an atmosphere around them, that is of similar mindset and is supportive and brings the right self awareness and temperature checking and caring about others in their day to day interactions, then that shapes your culture in the bigger way. So really, it comes down to accountability, if everyone in your organization has adequate motional intelligence and then you have one grumbler in the corner, who is always negative and yelling at people and distracting from the culture and you never hold that person accountable to the type of behavior that is expected within your culture. That person is reshaping your culture in the direction that you don't want it so you need to correct that really emotional intelligence gives you the tools and a framework for this element to be able to shape your culture in the way that you want it within your organization.

Dr. K  14:46  
And what would you say for people that might express that their emotional intelligence isn't that high?

Dr. D.  14:54  
You know, I would say well, good job for having that level of self awareness and and believing that you You have an area of opportunity, encourage them to think about what what drives them to think that way. Maybe their emotional intelligence is just fine. They have a self confidence issue. There are other ways that people can think about a problem, I think demonstrating emotional intelligence in yourself asking questions, being humble about what makes them think that way and getting to know them a little bit better and being a supportive person so that you can help them on that journey. Obviously, if that person asks you that question, it's because they think that you can help them develop in some way. So take that honor and run with it and be supportive for that person, get to know them a little bit better and help them on that journey.

Dr. K  15:42  
So Dr. D, what do you think leaders can take away from this discussion?

Dr. D.  15:47  
Well, a person's motivation, self awareness, social skills, ability to self monitor, and self regulate are all an important part of a leaders ability to inspire and motivate others, but it should be used in concert with other capabilities and other abilities necessary for capable leadership. Emotional intelligence is a good predictor of good leadership traits and employee commitment. Consider evaluating new hires, promotions and leadership to understand current abilities and how this trade can shape organizational culture. Is it nurture or nature? Is it ingrained or develop? Is it important you have to define your culture, provide the right tools, provide education, a shared language and hold each other accountable for organizational culture, the way training is developed and delivered makes a big impact on how effective it is. And of course, employee assistance in organizations for those that are truly struggling is also important. Having access to mental health resources, what is on tap for next week?

Dr. K  16:45  
Well, next week, we'll be talking about invisible promotions. I love this topic. I'm super excited for this one, when you take on so many additional responsibilities at work, but you do not receive the title or the pay that is justified for what you are doing.

Dr. D.  17:00  
Very interesting topic.

Dr. K  17:02  
It's happened to all of us actually, during this pandemic time.

Dr. D.  17:06  
Absolutely during the pandemic when there have been downsizing and people still have to get the work done. It's a tricky situation. And to all of you on this journey to the realm thanks so much. I'm Dr. D.

Dr. K  17:18  
And I'm Dr. K and we are looking forward to your next visit to the Executive Realm. And I just want to throw a quick shout out to Kevin in Indiana. Thank you for all the love 

Dr. D.  17:30  
Very nice