Social Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
You have seen her. She works the room effortlessly. She has great working relationships with just about everyone in which she comes in contact. She glad hands with a huge population of people. She plays the game.
She also gets promoted, sometimes ahead of people with superior technical skills. She is elected to office. She is asked to serve on important projects. She is well thought of and very few speak ill of her.
Leaders and entire organizations have discovered that success in the workplace has significantly less to do with intelligence or core job competencies and more to do with emotional and behavioral intelligence. The best technicians and the most brilliant team members will often end up with the highest degree of dysfunction when their emotional intelligence is very low. The fattest human resource files have very little to do with job knowledge and generally, have a great deal to do with poor behavioral adaptation and emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is the very popular behavioral science related to being in tune with the emotional functioning of our being. Leading behavioral scientists estimate that over eighty percent of typical decision making, including decisions related to verbal responses is emotionally driven. The study of emotional intelligence helps people realize how to identify and manage their emotional reactions for greater effectiveness.
The concept of emotional intelligence is broken into two distinct quadrants. The first is about self-recognition and self-management. Understanding individual emotions and providing situational management to assist in their control. The second tenet of emotional intelligence is social skills and working successfully with others.
Some people will sub-title social emotional intelligence as playing the game at work and that moniker is pretty accurate. In fact, the social side of emotional intelligence is all about interacting and working with others. It is also largely concerned with your public perception.
The biggest skill associated with the improvement of social emotional intelligence is relationship building. The effective leader realizes that his or her power base will be based in great part on relational and relevant power that is founded on successful relationship building. Organizationally, it is necessary to build relationships on peer levels, subordinate levels and with executives. Exterior relationships are also necessary to establish influence outside the organization and to develop a career safety net.
Those leaders that have developed good relationships often report that they are more effective in operating within a highly bureaucratic system. The can circumvent rules and cut some corners that are not available to those who have not invested in relationship building. Leaders with relationship skills will also find they have greater access to decision makers because of their relationship building with both the decision maker and key gate keepers.
In addition to good relationship skills, social emotional intelligence also requires the development of an acute set of social skills including team building, conflict management, collaboration and communication. Of these, the ability to communicate effectively and frequently to a diverse audience may well be the most important. If relationship building is not followed by frequent and effective communication, the relationship will eventually wither.
The final important element of social emotional intelligence is influence building. More than relationship building, the creating of greater influence is a person expanding the sphere of areas in which they can change events, processes and organizations. Creating influence often includes building consensus for both popular and unpopular, but necessary, positions and rallying decision makers for support or opposition of an issue. Excellent influence builders are able to influence an outcome without becoming too closely associated with that issue and always live for another day if they are on the wrong side of a vote or decision.
The next time you see her working the room effortlessly, building relationships and exercising influence, be sure to say hi.
Social Emotional Intelligence in Leadership - To learn more about this author, visit Tim Schneider's Website.
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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