Emotional intelligence (EI) can help you build effective relationships at work. As a leader it is essential to understand what emotional intelligence is and why it’s important. Leaders should become more self-aware so that they can identify triggers that may hijack their performance. This helps leaders to align their intentions and their impact so that they can build strong and collaborative relationships.
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to harness emotions in sensing, understanding and responding adeptly to social cues in the surrounding environment. Learning to measure your current EI level and seek coaching to improve it. Leader competency is increased as leaders continue seeking opportunities to learn to use your EI to interact with others, solve problems and achieve higher performance.
It is often referred to as “common sense” that allows one to relate to people and get along in the world. Research has shown that EI is a far better predictor of success than IQ.
Emotional intelligence is what every leader uses to make pivotal decisions, plan projects and initiatives, solve problems, interact with clients, set performance expectations, communicate feedback, and collaborate with colleagues of all levels.
While your IQ will remain stable for most of your life, you can develop and perfect the competencies associated with EI to achieve higher performance as a leader.