For more than a decade, people from all organizational levels and from a broad spectrum of industries and businesses have participated programs to help them enhance their Emotional Intelligence (EI) skills. While the participants' various roles have presented them with quite different pressures and challenges, the one factor all these people have in common is the emotions they experience. When people develop EI skills, they are able to become internally self-managed and capable of making their greatest contributions. And when employees work in that zone of peak performance, so does the organization. Following are some examples of how EI skill development can benefit executives, high potential people and managers or supervisors.
Executives:
Executives must make decisions daily that may make or break their companies. They must rely on more people than ever to achieve results they, personally, are held accountable for by the board. Inspiring and energizing their followers, they must quickly and flexibly lead system-wide organizational change. This constant, burdensome pressure can create feelings of anxiety, fear, caution, and even guilt and depression. "The Street" may hamper the company's ability to meet its goals and stockholder expectations by undervaluing the company if the executive makes a wrong decision, an untimely decision or no decision.
Research has shown that high EI skills are the distinguishing characteristics that separate star performing executives from average ones. Enhancing leaders' EI skills enables them to lead with courage, demonstrate their passion, grow and retain talented leaders, and empathize with people while humanely challenging them to meet demanding business goals. The resilient, flexible, strong organizational culture that is created by such a leader attracts talented people, ensures organizational success (through thick and thin), and creates a lasting legacy.
High Potential People:
High Potential People take on demanding multiple projects and leadership roles. Unforeseen events occur that delay or derail critical business initiatives under their responsibility. Daily they may interact with customers, suppliers and even competitors who can be threatening and irate. They receive hundreds of emails demanding immediate attention. These situations can cause the person to feel anxious, fearful and overwhelmed. They may feel frustrated that things are not moving faster and may worry that problems are hurting their career. Negative emotions can lead to poor decisions and multi-million dollar flubs. Products flop and marketing campaigns go awry as critical details fall through the cracks. A company's chances in its industry can be crippled if a shallow talent pool keeps the company from developing new products and services.
Since high EI skills are a distinguishing characteristic between average and high-performing individuals, then the earlier these skills are developed and ingrained, the more likely High Potentials and the company are to experience success. Ensuring that high potential people develop their EI skills to the fullest assures a cadre of competent global leaders available to introduce new products, start new businesses, and lead the integration of new acquisitions.
Managers and Supervisors:
Managers' and Supervisors' behavior and treatment of their people determine turnover and retention. The manager or supervisor interacts on a daily basis with individuals who have distinct wants, needs and expectations. They significantly influence the attitudes, performance, and satisfaction of employees within their department and other departments. The stress of trying to lead and satisfy so many people's changing needs and expectations can be overwhelming, to say nothing of the demands from upper management. Being both firm and caring at the same time causes many to feel inadequate for the role. Forty percent of turnover is reportedly due to an inadequate relationship between the employee and their direct supervisor. Where trust is lacking, performance suffers.
Enhancing EI skills enables Supervisors and Managers to regulate their emotions and motivate themselves more effectively. This allows them to manage their own emotional turmoil effectively and demonstrate compassion and empathy for their employees. EI also provides them with the courage to push against the system to make necessary changes for their people. All employees want a supportive, caring Supervisor or Manager who has their best interests at heart. Knowing this, the employee will be more likely to turndown offers from other companies to work for such a person.
Results:
While it's evident that developing EI skills can be extremely valuable to the individual and the organization, it's beneficial to examine actual results people have achieved. Participants in EI training programs have reported a range of 20% to 35% increase in personal productivity, 15% to 35% increased teamwork, a 20% to 40% reduction in stress and worry, and similar improvements in management of emotional reactiveness, personal motivation, creativity, work/life balance and more. These increases can translate into positive return on investment for the organization.
Impressed by his accomplishments, Peter's boss assigned him the responsibility of locking in transactional and subscription revenue with content providers. Peter was in the final stages of negotiations with a vice president who verbally agreed to pay $250,000 for the number one position on Peter's telecom product.
Landing this deal was important for Peter's career - the boss would be impressed, and it would help him meet one of his financial targets for the year. Feeling confident, Peter assured his boss and the company president that the deal was locked.
The Unexpected
But when Peter met with the VP to get the agreement signed, things took an unexpected turn.
"We're excited about being positioned as the number one slot," the VP told Peter. "However, we would like to put your product brand name on our web site instead of paying you $250,000. In any given day, we have literally millions of hits. It could be great exposure for you."
In a nanosecond, thoughts of failure blistered through Peter's mind: "What's the President going to think? I promised him this was in the bag! What's this going to do to the product launch date? The president blew up the last time one was delayed! I'm not going to meet my financial goal! I'm going to be fired if I don't get this deal closed!"
Peter panicked, and before he even had time to consider his words, his angry thoughts and emotions burst forth, unfiltered.
"What? You agreed to $250,000. I've already told the President you agreed, and now you want to back out? We don't need exposure on your web site! I can't believe you're pulling this on me!"
After he spewed out his anger, Peter got up and walked out.
The Missing Piece
Whether he realizes it or not, Peter has just highlighted the one skill he's lacking. For all his apparent competence, his lack of "emotional intelligence" just cost his company money. The delay in the new product launch will reduce company revenue and quite possibly erode market share. His harsh emotional reaction effectively shut down communications, making it impossible to even talk about compromise.
Unfortunately, what happened to Peter is not unusual. The skills that most people think are critical for success (vision, organization, aggressiveness, etc.) couldn't help him when he faced what he perceived as a threatening situation.
What key skills and abilities separate outstanding leaders from mediocre ones? How they handle the emotionally charged situations that they face daily distinguishes star performers from good ones. It is critical for business leaders who want to succeed to develop emotional intelligence skills.
I Was So Mad...
Emotional situations do more than just make people feel "stressed." Emotional responses often are triggered in a part of the brain called the amygdala. One important function of this part of your brain is to compare incoming sensory information, what we see, hear, feel, taste, or smell with emotional memories, to determine if what's coming in is a threat.
The amygdala links our emotions to our nervous system in a powerful way. If you feel threatened, that power allows this little part of your brain to "hijack" the neural pathways, triggering an emotional response before the higher brain centers even receive the sensory information. And the feeling of being threatened triggers emotions like anger, frustration, anxiety and fear.
In other words, you literally can't think straight because the rational parts of your brain have not received the sensory information before you act.
Your ability to perform physical acts can also be affected. Have you ever hit a bad golf shot and gotten mad at yourself? What typically happens on the next shot? Another bad shot!
Beyond that, what we perceive causes biochemical reactions that affect our physical energy, our mental clarity, our emotional balance and personal effectiveness. All of which play a part in rational thought, communication and problem solving.
So how can you avoid a "hijacking?" By improving your emotional intelligence skills.
Let's go back to our earlier example. What would the situation have looked like if Peter had been given the opportunity to enhance his EI skills? What if he came into that difficult meeting armed with the ability to manage his emotional reactions?
Peter would strengthen, rather than weaken, the business relationship and communications by managing (that is, choosing) his emotions and handling a difficult situation smoothly. This would increase the likelihood of the product being launched on time, positively impacting income and market place perception. As an added bonus, Peter's reputation and career potential would be greatly enhanced.
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