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.