Emotional intelligence is at the heart of leadership
Emotional intelligence plays a critical role in our ability to demonstrate leadership. It is our ability to become aware of the meaning of events as we experience them, in order to act effectively and positively.
”Thank you for letting go of your emotions by walking through the office door”. This mention, although imaginary, could have appeared at the entrance of many businesses. For a long time, we believed that emotions had no place in the workplace, that they had to be hidden, buried deep within us, regardless of the situation. Expressing emotions was even something inappropriate, very frowned upon. “Take it upon yourself, it's not professional”, could be heard in some corridors. I am talking here in the past tense, but this type of injunction still exists. Even today, and in some professional places, it is customary to silence one's emotions. However, our emotions have their place at work. They are even fundamental!
Not only are they a dimension of our personality, but above all they influence our ability to demonstrate leadership. They allow us to feel, to listen to our environment and thus to move and connect with others. We covered it in a previous article. Demonstrating leadership means offering a vision that inspires and aspires at a given moment. A vision based essentially on intuition and collective intelligence. But for this, another brick is just as essential in leadership: emotional intelligence.
What is emotional intelligence?
First, let's define these two words: intelligence and emotion.
Intelligence is knowledge, as opposed to intuition, sensation. It is the “faculty of discerning, grasping, perceiving and understanding.” Multiple, intelligence is not simply cognitive. Let's take music as an example. An individual endowed with a certain musical intelligence will have the ability to recognize musical patterns, to perceive rhythms and melodies, to interpret them, or even to create them with a musical instrument.
As for emotion, Charles Darwin already considered them essential for adaptation in his book” The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals ” published in 1872: an emotion is a reaction of the unconscious following an external event, it is visible to others, instinctive and has a somatic and physical characteristic specific to each person. Among these emotions, we find fear, joy, anger, anger, disgust, sadness or surprise. However, emotion should not be confused with feeling. Emotion is a spontaneous reaction to a situation, it only lasts a few seconds. Conversely, a feeling is the manifestation of a condition that lasts over time.
Our emotions are useful because they inform us of a change in our environment, and thus allow us to act accordingly. In Latin, emotion comes from elsewhere Ex-Movere, which means to move outside... Take the gazelle for example. Sensing the danger, she flees for fear of being devoured by a lion located not far away. It was the emotion of fear that allowed him to save himself. We are all this gazelle. Listening and becoming aware of your emotions is in this way to perceive the meaning of events, as we experience them. By doing so, we may be in a position to act effectively and positively in a given situation.
Emotional intelligence is thus the ability to perceive our emotions, to discern them, to grasp the information sent by these emotions, to understand what they are bringing into play and to then choose the appropriate behaviors.
Take into account that the other is not yourself
In leadership, emotional intelligence is therefore essential. Emotions allow us to feel, to connect to our environment and thus to put ourselves in motion when necessary.
But for this perception to be useful, emotional intelligence requires other qualities to serve its own leadership. We also need to understand and accept that our emotions are personal, they are specific to each individual. Everyone reacts differently, depending on their physical and psychological characteristics, their beliefs, their values, their personal and professional experiences. People in a given situation are not necessarily going to experience the same emotion. One may feel fear, the other sad, or one angry and the other happy.
In an organization, some “leaders” will play on fear to motivate their teams. “Be careful, if we continue like this, we will close the door”, “We must redouble our efforts otherwise we will be swallowed up by the competition”. It is a way of doing things, of course, but the fear transmitted will not always be understood as such. Some will turn this fear into sadness - conducive to immobility - or into disgust. Fear, which was (wrongly) thought of as a source of motivation, will by far not influence all employees in the desired direction.
Others Leaders They also get angry at those who don't follow them. But again, the emotion that inspired their leadership is not always shared and understood. The challenge will be to understand your own emotions, to accept their uniqueness in order to then be able to recognize those of others.
Recognizing your emotions and those of others
Taking into consideration the emotions of your peers is an essential concept.
Demonstrate leadership is, let's remember, a relational act. It is being able to build a relationship of trust with others. Without this recognition, there can be no constructive relationship. It's as if everyone belongs to a different planet. Understand and accepting emotions On the other hand, it makes it possible to move forward in certain complex situations.
This applies, for example, in case of disagreements or conflicts. But also when you want to offer your vision to a team or an organization. It is then not a question of becoming the psychologist for each of the employees concerned, of course. But to perceive how they have been “set in motion” by their own emotions. To recognize it and thus to establish its legitimacy in order to offer them not only a vision, but an appropriate way of following it. The emotion needs to be heard, the proposed response is the act of leadership that can make a difference if it is adequate.
So let's not get us wrong. It is one thing to consider the emotions of others. Going in their direction is another. Emotional intelligence is of course putting yourself in the other person's shoes by doing proof of empathy, but then it's up to us to know what to do with these emotions, in a clear conscience.
Emotional intelligence at the service of leadership, so there are 4 faculties:
- Becoming aware of your own emotions and accepting them;
- Perceive the changes in the environment to which they respond;
- Accept the uniqueness of your own reaction to changes in the environment;
- Recognize the emotions of others and then offer them the vision to follow as well as the way to go about it.
How do you get there? A key to developing your emotional intelligence is obviously to work on your Self-leadership.
