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The Power of an Emotionally Intelligent Leader

Written by: Dr. Martina Violetta Jung

Article Overview: Understand and utilize the interconnectedness between emotions, muscles, movement, motivation and performance to your advantage as a Leader.

The Power of an Emotionally Intelligent Leader

Emotion moves people, not logic! Few leaders make use of this knowledge. Partly because many people in leadership positions have not developed their emotional capacities, partly, because business is supposed to be a ‘serious’ matter, and there is officially no room for emotions. Yet they are everywhere and determine all decisions. Let’s take a closer look.

The word ‘emotion” derives form the Latin words ‘emovere’ and ‘emotum’, which mean ‘to move out’ and ‘to shake’. In fact, one should rather talk of an e-motion, because every emotion creates motion in a person’s muscles. Thus e-motion is equivalent with motion. The words ‘motive’ and ‘motivation’ derive from the same Latin rot of the word. Thus emotion creates movement in the muscles which in turn creates motivation. For a human being it is impossible not to have emotions. But, it is possible to cut them out of your conscious awareness or to be aware of them only in an undifferentiated way. If I ask you: “How do you feel?” Would you reply either ‘good’, ‘bad’ or ‘so so’? Or would you be able to describe your feelings very specifically: happy, hopeful, cheerful, joyous, in love, energised, jealous, powered up, driven, sad, hurt, envious, full of hatred, disappointed, fearful. People with a limited awareness and ability to live their emotions usually suffer from cramped and inflexible muscles. Thus their ability to move, to be motivated and also, sorry to add more bad news, to be creative, is limited.

There is even more to our ability to be aware and live our emotions. About 90% of a human being’s communication is non-verbal. The more we are able to let our body communicate for us, the better we will get understood. If our body is rigid, we limit our possibilities. Emotions are the oil in the motor of relationships. It is impossible to build relationships on logical arguments. Relationships come into life if we react noticeably emotional to each other. To be able to do that one needs to be capable to perceive one’s own emotions and express them. In addition, one needs to be capable to perceive other people’s emotions and react accordingly.

The easiest way to open up to your emotions is to work on your physiognomy, make it more flexible, livelier. There is even more to gain. Our brain sorts and stores information as per emotion; the more different emotions you know, the more different information your brain can store. Bad memory is very often the result of a monochrome emotional life. As there is only a limited amount of space with each emotion in our brain for storage, the fewer emotions you have, the faster your brain’s storing capacity is fully occupied.

The more extensive, differentiated and intensive your emotions are and the more you can influence them, the easier it is for you to motivate others via their own increased emotions to move, to be motivated and consequently, to move the business. Learning will become easier, creativity will take a boost.

So what can you do to tap into this resource right at your finder tips? First, exercise your body, if possible daily, and make it more flexible. Second, search for and live your own emotions eery day, especially the positive ones. Smile more often, laugh out loud,but also show vulnerability. THis makes you utterly human and that is what people are looking for if you want them to follow you. Finally, encourage the people working with you to express their emotions. You will be surprised how lively, energetic, creative and productive you and your people will become!

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  Emotionally Intelligent Job-Related Feedback
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Article Tags: bad news, closer look, conscious awareness, decisions, e motion, emotion, emotional capacities, emotions, feelings, hatred, latin words, leadership positions, logic, logical arguments, love, motivation, motive, muscles, possibilities, relationships



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