Emotional Intelligence

I can't believe that I had not written about this before. It is such an important concept to me personally that as time went by I assumed that I had put a piece together on the subject but I went looking for it and came up empty.

Last week I went to dinner with some current participants in my Agency's Leadership Institute and the discussion swung over to what traits or competencies are the most valuable for a leader. For me, there is no better discussion on this topic than Daniel Goleman's work on Emotional Intelligence. (I should not have been able to find the link for a free article.) But since it is there, give it a read, it is worthwhile.

He will walk through the 5 core competencies that are the distinction between someone who is seen as being emotionally intelligent and someone who isn't. The 5 areas, Self Awareness, Self Regulation, Motivation, Empathy and Social Skill are each independently and uniquely critical to the recognition of an emotionally intelligent person. Read and understand this article. Then, think about your EI strengths and weaknesses. For your EI weaknesses, how can you turn them around and make them into strengths?

I mention this because you must have a baseline knowledge in Emotional Intelligence to understand the follow-up, Leadership that Gets Results. (Shhhh, don't tell anyone that I found it out there for free too.) This piece, Leadership that Gets Results has the list of leadership styles to which every leader should try to master. More about that tomorrow. For now, just focus on the What Makes a Leader piece.

For me, the reason I found this to be so important is because I didn't realize that I had a weakness until it was laid out like this for me. After I understood the relationship of these competencies then, and only then could I see that I had a problem area in Self Regulation. Only after I recognized the problem could I take steps to turn it around. It worked for me, and I know it can work for you as well.