Emotional Intelligence: Soft Skills for Hard Times

When we talk or read about Emotional Intelligence (EI), many people assume that it is an optional, touchy-feely, HR-related practice that can be employed when wanting to enhance morale or boost employee engagement. While there may be a grain of truth in those suppositions, EI is more accurately described as a frame-of-practice which can help leaders and their teams to weather challenging and uncertain times. Emotional intelligence encompasses a range of competencies and associated behaviors that provide us with self-awareness, interpersonal skills and a tool kit to address key challenges such as:

Uncertainty: Current economic conditions continue to bring uncertainty which can create anxiety at an individual level and cautious decision making at an organizational level. The EI competency Reality Testing helps us to assess a situation from a calm and rational perspective. It enables us to ensure that emotions do not overcome our more logical thought processes and allows us to both manage our own concerns and take a more reasoned and strategic approach to decision making that balances uncertainty with opportunity. Richard Feynman, the late quantum physicist and deep thinker in all dimensions, offered that “…doubt is not to be dared…it is also to be welcomed as the possibility of a new potential.” The EI competencies of Flexibility and Optimism provide us with ways to see the ‘opportunity in the uncertainty’ of which Feynman spoke - and to thrive in uncertain times.

Stress: With uncertain times and demanding business conditions, the inevitable outcome is stress. While a certain amount of stress can help an elite athlete to achieve Olympic-worthy performance, unmanaged stress can rob a leader of his or her effectiveness and distract team members from focusing on critical tasks at a time when top performance is required. Looking at Stress Tolerance provides us with a measure of how well we manage stress and channel that nervous energy into focused action, while the Impulse Control competency assesses our capacity to delay action constructively, to avoid reactive decision-making, and to take a step back before committing to a course or action.

Interpersonal Relations: When times are tough and uncertain, individuals will often look to their leaders as ‘bellwether indicators’ of the real situation and will draw either confidence or concern from their assessment of the leader’s state of mind. As a leader, it is often said that, “someone is always watching you”. All leaders are entitled to feel emotion or the state of mind that they choose to experience; the difference is that the leader’s state of mind extends beyond them personally and inevitably impacts their team. This is where awareness of one’s own emotional state is crucial to assessing and optimizing our impact on the situation. The competency of Self Awareness is crucial to this capacity and awareness of our Emotional Expression also enhances our ability to ‘modulate our mood’ in productive and constructive ways.

Our capacity to demonstrate Empathy permits us to reasonably assess their emotional functioning in stressful times. And finally, the Interpersonal Relationships competency in EI helps to forge and strengthen our relationships with team members to maintain focus and connection in challenging times.

The final ‘beauty’ of EI is that each of the competencies – and a number more not explicitly discussed above – can be learned and applied. When we focus our awareness, and modify our behaviors to manage our own emotions and to work successfully with others, we can do more than survive these tough times: we can thrive. EI helps to provide an inner road map with which we can lead ourselves and our teams to a path of success in trying times.

When to start that journey? There is no time like the present…

If you are interested in understanding your emotional intelligence and how to improve it, Fred Jacques will be facilitating Emotionally Intelligent Leader, starting January 16, 2017. This program is eligible for grant funding until December 1, 2016 which will cover 2/3 of program investment.

About the Author: Fred Jacques, PhD
Fred is a leadership educator and consultant with over 30 years of experience in both the public and the private sectors. He has designed and delivered leadership development programs that incorporate best practices in seminar-style instruction, experiential exercises, 360-degree feedback and individualized coaching. Fred is a sought-after facilitator and coach and is known for his attention to client needs and his sense of humour. Fred has a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the Haskayne School of Business and an M.A. in Applied Behavioral Sciences from the Leadership Institute of Seattle at City University. He is a Certified Human Resources Professional and is accredited in the use of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the EQi-2.0 and numerous other assessment tools.