Naveed Aman Khan
WHEN you think of a perfect leader, what
comes to the mind? You might picture
someone who never lets his or her temper get out of control, no matter what problems he or she’s facing. Or you might think of someone who has the complete trust of his or her fellows, listens to his or her team, is easy to talk to, and always makes careful, informed decisions. These are qualities of someone with a high degree of emotional intelligence. Why emotional intelligence is so important for leaders and how you, as a leader, can improve yours? Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, manage own emotions, and those of the people around. People with a high degree of emotional intelligence know what they’re feeling, what their emotions mean and how these emotions can affect others.
For leaders, having emotional intelligence it is essential for success. After all, who is more likely to succeed a leader who shouts at his or her team when he or she’s under stress, or a leader who stays in control, and calmly assesses the situation? Self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills are the key elements. The more you, as a leader, manage each of these qualities, the higher your emotional intelligence is. If you’re self-aware, you always know how you feel, and you know how your emotions and actions can affect the people around you. Being self-aware when you’re in a leadership position also means having a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses. It means behaving with humility.
What can you do to improve your self-awareness? Reading helps you improve your self-awareness. If you spend just a few minutes each day writing down your thoughts, this can move you to a higher degree of self-awareness. Slow down when you experience anger or other strong emotions, slow down to examine why. Hold yourself accountable if you tend to blame others when something goes wrong, stop. Make a commitment to admit to your mistakes and to face the consequences, whatever they are. You’ll probably sleep better at night, and you’ll quickly earn the respect of those around you. Practice being calm the next time you’re in a challenging situation, be very aware of how you act. Do you relieve your stress by shouting at someone else? Practice deep-breathing exercises to calm yourself. Also, try to write down all of the negative things you want to say, rip it up and throw it away. Expressing these emotions on paper and not showing them to anyone! is better than speaking aloud to your listeners. What’s more, this helps you challenge your reactions to ensure that they’re fair self-motivated leaders work consistently toward their goals, and they have extremely high standards for the quality of their task.
How can you improve your motivation. Reexamine why you’re doing your job it’s easy to forget what you really love about your career. Take some time to remember why you wanted this task. If you’re unhappy in your role and you’re struggling to remember why you wanted it, try the technique to find the root of the problem. Starting at the root often helps you look at your situation in a new way. Make sure that your goal statements are fresh and energizing. Know where you stand, determine how motivated you are to lead. Leadership motivation can help you see clearly how motivated you are in your leadership role. If you need to increase your motivation to lead, it directs you to resources that can help. Be hopeful and find something good motivated leaders are usually optimistic, no matter what problems they face. Adopting this mindset might take practice, but it’s well worth the effort. Every time you face a challenge, or even a failure, try to find at least one good thing about the situation. It might be something small, like a new contact, or something with long-term effects, like an important lesson learned. But there’s almost always something positive, if you look for it. For leaders, having empathy is critical to managing a successful team or even country. Leaders with empathy have the ability to put themselves in someone else’s situation. They help develop the people on their team, challenge others who are acting unfairly, give constructive response, and listen to those who need it. If you want to earn respect and loyalty of your team, show them you care by being empathic. How can you improve your empathy? Put yourself in someone else’s position, it’s easy to support your own point of view.
After all, it’s yours! But take the time to look at situations from other people’s perspectives. Pay attention to body language perhaps when you listen to someone, you cross your arms, move your feet back and forth, or bite your lip. Or start rotating finger ring on different occasions. This body language tells others how you really feel about a situation, and the message you’re giving isn’t positive! Confess it or not you look confused. Learning to read body language can be a real asset in a leadership role, because you’ll be better able to determine how someone truly feels. This gives you the opportunity to respond appropriately. Respond to feelings you ask to work again. And although he agrees, you can hear the disappointment in his voice. So, respond by addressing his feelings. Tell him you appreciate how willing he is to work extra hours, and that you’re just as frustrated about working late. If possible, figure out a way for future late nights to be less of an issue. Leaders who do well in the social skills element of emotional intelligence are great communicators. They’re just as open to hearing bad news as good news, and they’re expert at getting their team to support them and be excited about a new mission or project. Leaders who have good social skills are also good at managing change and resolving conflicts diplomatically. They’re rarely satisfied with leaving things as they are, but they don’t sit back and make everyone else do the work: they set an example with their own behaviour.
— The writer is book ambassador, columnist, political analyst and author of several books based in Islamabad.
