CHAPTER 1
What Is Emotional Intelligence?
I was sitting in my office, looking at the forecast results for the end of the financial year. The organisation was not performing to expectation; productivity was good, but not great, and overall, staff did not seem to be engaged in the business. They appeared to be simply just doing enough. I had empowered my leadership team to drive the organisation, but although they were smart people and worked hard, they seem to be lacking the necessary skills to lead and motivate their teams to perform. There was one ingredient missing.
Over the past twelve months, I had sent my leadership team to several highly regarded development courses, but they had no enduring impact and had proved to be expensive, with little or no return on investment. Performance did improve initially, but after the enthusiasm from the learning dissipated, it soon returned to business as usual. Something had to change; this organisation had the potential to be great. I had tried everything.
Or so I thought.
I then remembered reading an article in a leadership journal that referred to a successful leader as emotionally intelligent, and how he had used emotional intelligence to inspire performance and create a highly engaged workforce capable of delivering exceptional results. I searched on the Internet and found the article. The person in question, Andrew Miles, was less than an hour's drive away, I picked up the phone and put in a call to the man they referred to as the emotionally intelligent leader.
Trudi, Andrew's secretary put me through to him immediately. I explained that I had read the article and was intrigued as to how emotional intelligence was helping to drive performance and achieve great results for his organisation.
"I can understand why you are intrigued," responded Andrew. "When I was first exposed to the concept of emotional intelligence, I dismissed it without consideration. How many leaders do you know who talk openly about how they feel and consider the feelings of others? It stuck in my mind, though, and eventually, I made the decision to explore it further. I had nothing to lose and wanted to see if it was all that it was being purported to be."
He continued, "I am so thankful I did. It has changed the way I conduct myself in both my work and personal life in such a way, I feel I need to share my experience. I have some time free tomorrow morning. Why don't you come in at ten o'clock, and I'll explain how I came to be known as an emotionally intelligent leader."
"I would really appreciate that," I replied. "I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at ten."
Having taken the plunge, I was still unsure if this was the right solution for me. Don't die wondering, I thought, and promised myself I would go in with an open mind and leave my scepticism at the door.
I arrived at the premises early the following morning, was escorted to Andrew's office, and was greeted by the emotionally intelligent leader himself. He was not quite what I expected.
"We are a bit pushed for time," Andrew said, "so with your permission, I would like to get straight into why you are here, which I believe is to get a clearer understanding of how emotional intelligence can assist you, your leadership team, and your employees improve performance, from both an individual and an organisational perspective."
"That's pretty much it in a nutshell," I replied. "I have investigated and implemented a number of initiatives, but they had limited impact. I found the article interesting, and it got my attention. However, I wanted to find out more before I waste money on something I had no real understanding of." "Well, it certainly has been a game changer for me and my organisation," Andrew said enthusiastically. "Let me take a step back, though, and share with you a simple formula I have been using to drive success for a number of years now, albeit ineffectively, based on what I know now." He showed me a quote in a frame with a picture below it.
"I have used this model for a number of years," he explained. "Physical. Mental. Emotional. Physical effort is related to the amount of hard work we put in as individuals. The hours we work. Mental effort is the quality of the work we produce over a period of time. Can we remain focused and deliver consistently high outcomes? Emotional effort is how we manage our emotions to ensure we work hard and deliver high-quality results on a more frequent basis. I was aware of how our emotions affected both the physical and mental aspects of work, which ultimately affected performance, but had no idea why. I started reading research based on the concept of emotional intelligence. Let me share what I discovered.
"Emotional intelligence was originally defined in a 1990 article by Peter Salovey, dean of psychology at Yale University, and Jack Meyer, from the University of New Hampshire. In their article, they suggested that there might be abilities that have to do with emotions just as there are with words, numbers, or shapes. They also proposed that individuals differed in emotional abilities and that these abilities may be important because they could be developed and could underpin many important areas of life, such as success at work and the quality of interpersonal relationships.
"It was these latter concepts that caught the attention of Daniel Goleman. It was this connection between emotional intelligence and decisions, and between behaviour and performance, that inspired him to write a book that placed particular emphasis on the links between emotional intelligence and important life criteria. Daniel's first book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ, brought widespread attention to the topic and resulted in the emergence of a number of different models and measures of emotional intelligence.
"I looked at a number of these models but was finding it hard to determine which model was right for my specific need. I was then introduced to a Dr. Ben Palmer, founder of genos. His PhD thesis looked at these different models and measures; he developed a common and definitive approach to defining and measuring emotional intelligence and how this applied to leadership."
Andrew handed me a framed print with the genos definition of emotional intelligence and the model with six competencies.
"This was the definition that caught my attention, and the competencies of the model captured the leadership skills and behaviours critical to leadership performance that manifest from emotional intelligence abilities. So I was interested to understand when emotional intelligence was applied to leadership, what impact it would have on my organisation's performance. Let me explain further," he said. "As you can see, the model consists of six distinct competencies:
– emotional self-awareness
– emotional awareness of others
– authenticity
– emotional reasoning
– emotional self-management
– inspiring performance"
Andrew pointed to the model and said, "At the centre of the model is emotional intelligence, as emotionally intelligent leadership competencies are based on emotional intelligence. Our emotions influence decisions, behaviour, and performance, productively and unproductively. Research shows that there is a direct link between the way people feel and how they perform in the workplace. Applied in leadership, emotional intelligence is about how intelligently you use your emotions to inspire performance in others to deliver great results.
"With the genos tool, our goal is to increase the frequency of the outer circle productive leadership being states. We need to be present with our emotions and conscious of how they are impacting our decisions, behaviours, and performance and how we impact those we interact with. We need to be empathetic towards others and understand what makes them feel specific emotions, be authentic in our expression, and use emotional data to make expansive decisions and build resilience to manage and control our emotions and inspire performance in others."
I nodded.
Andrew continued, "At the same time, we must also aim to reduce the frequency of the inner circle, unproductive leadership being states, with the knowledge that we all spend time displaying the inner circle behaviours. When we are disconnected from our emotions, we are unaware of how they are impacting our decisions, behaviours, and performance. We are insensitive to the emotions of others and don't care how they feel. We are guarded in how we express our emotions and seen to be untrustworthy. We make limited decisions, are seen to be temperamental and unable to manage our emotions, and are indifferent towards others, creating a negative environment in which to work."
I turned, looked at the model, and then said, "This is all well and good, but from my understanding, all this emotion stuff is a bit wishy-washy, isn't it? I mean, surely showing your emotions in the workplace is perceived as a weakness?"
Andrew sighed. "A lot of leaders believe that, to their detriment. However, you must have felt some emotion that compelled you to pick up the phone and ring me, didn't you? Maybe not. And therein lies the problem. If we aren't aware of our own emotions, how do we know how they are impacting what we do on a day-to-day basis, individually and as a leader?" That was something I hadn't considered. Andrew shared more detail.
"Self-awareness is the foundation of the model. People who are emotionally self-aware are conscious of the role their feelings can play and are better equipped to manage this influence effectively. When we are emotionally self-aware, we are present with the role feelings are playing in our decisions, behaviour, and performance and the subsequent effect we have on others. When we started to focus on our leaders' emotional capability, that's when the performance turned around," he concluded.
"So how do I become more aware of my emotions and the impact they are having on my performance?" I asked eagerly.
"That's a good question," he replied, "but one that you need to find out for yourself. I sensed from our conversation on the phone that you are feeling a little disappointed about the performance of your organisation and see emotional intelligence as a potential solution to drive a high-performance culture."
"Based on my readings and this conversation, I am hoping that is the case," I replied, smiling.
"Great. I am glad to see that you are still keeping an open mind. I have arranged for you to meet with some of my leadership team, who practice the concept of emotional intelligence and saw significant improvement as a result."
"What sort of improvement?" I asked.
"I'll leave that for them to explain. My personal assistant has a list of people I suggest you talk to. Your first meeting is with Gayle Ferguson, our general manager, at eleven. She is expecting you. When you are finished talking with everyone, come back and see me. I'll be interested to see what you've discovered."
With that said, Andrew stood up, smiled, and shook my hand. I was still a little sceptical and unsure whether this would work for me and my organisation. But what did I have to lose? I was intrigued to meet with Gayle and find out more about the importance of emotional intelligence.
I was directed to Gayle's office; her door was open. She was on the phone but beckoned me to come in and take a seat.
As she put the phone down, she smiled and welcomed me. "I believe you've met Andrew," she said. "How do you feel now that you have an understanding of the competencies required to be an emotionally intelligent leader?"
"I'm not sure," I responded. "It all seems a bit confusing and theoretical at the moment. I still have no idea how emotionally intelligent leadership can help my organisation improve."
"I know how you feel," she said. "I felt like that too, when I was sitting in a classroom, learning about emotional intelligence. However, now that I have had the opportunity to utilise what I learnt, it has made a significant impact on how I manage myself and how I lead my team. Let me see if I can help you get a greater feel for what we are doing here."
Gayle continued, "To help you understand the power of emotional intelligence, I want to start with an exercise on the science of emotions."
She handed me a sheet of paper with a table on it.
"What I'd like you to do is write down as many feelings as you can recall feeling over the last twenty-four hours in the left-hand column," Gayle said. "I'm going to give you sixty seconds. Ready? Go."
I wrote down all the emotions I could remember over the last day.
Gayle interrupted my thoughts. "Okay, time's up. Count up the number of feelings, and write the total number of feelings recalled in the box below."
Embarrassed, I wrote in the number 6.
Gayle then passed me a two-sided sheet that listed all of the feeling words contained in the dictionary. It was quite an extensive list. She gave me time to familiarise myself with the list and then gave me another sixty seconds to recall as many additional feelings I could recall having over the last twenty-four hours, using the sheet as a prompt.
She broke my concentration once more: "Time's up. Now I'd like you to count the total number of feelings recalled this time and write it underneath in the box."
She further explained, "What I then want you to do is reflect on all the feelings across both lists. Specifically, I'd like you count up the number of positive emotions and record this figure, then do the same for the negative emotions."
I noted that I was able to recall more emotions using the prompt sheet and had a total of nineteen emotions I could recall feeling, of which seven were positive and the remaining twelve negative. How bad a day was I having?
Gayle continued, "To help us understand the importance and application of emotional intelligence in the workplace, and indeed the activity we just did, I'd like to start by providing some insight gained from recent neuroscientific research. Neuroscience is the study of the biological mechanisms of the brain."
She handed me a diagram, which I looked at with interest.
Gayle took a deep breath and began, "This research has shown that, whenever an event around us occurs, such as the way someone spoke to us in a meeting, the first thing that happens is our emotional brain, which involves structures such as the amygdala, tags that event as either a reward or a threat. The tag is an emotion; reward emotions are typically positive, and threat emotions are typically negative.
"This emotion tag is communicated to the thinking brain, which involves structures such as the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex helps us determine good from bad, better from best; it helps us anticipate behaviour and determine our behavioural response to events. As such, the first principle of this program, and indeed one of the underpinnings of emotional intelligence theory, is that the way you feel influences the decisions you make and the behaviour you display.
"Does that make sense?" she asked. I nodded, and she continued.
"The second interesting finding from research on the neuroscience of emotions is that the emotional tag or emotional signal sent from the emotional brain interacts in a way with the thinking brain that can either enhance or impair its functioning. More specifically, this research has shown that positive emotional tags such as feeling satisfied, valued, or useful tend to enhance the functioning of our prefrontal cortex, helping us think more openly, creatively, and laterally. As such, when we experience positive emotions, either consciously or unconsciously, we tend to be more open to new ideas; we are more engaged and willing to do difficult things and develop new solutions, and we think more deeply about issues and see more options. Positive emotions also increase dopamine levels, which are important for interest in things and learning.
