Show Your Smarts
Concentrate in Improving Your EI
Kansas City Business Journal - 12.19.99
By Jim Dugan, Ph.D, Fortisan Group
The richest and one of the most powerful men in
the world is scowling at you and your
co-workers. His voice rises, and his eyes widen.
You have been happily employed with his
organization for two years, but suddenly your
existence feels threatened. The boss is really
fuming. You have never seen his tirades before,
although you have heard stories. Your hands
start to shake and you hear that nervousness in
your voice as you mumble a response. The
Chairman ignores your words, and his anger
continues to peak. How are you going to calm
Bill Gates?
This is one of the many evocative stories Dr.
Daniel Goleman uses in his best-selling book
Working with Emotional Intelligence to
illustrate the value of emotional intelligence,
or "people skills," in the corporate workplace. Goleman, a Harvard trained psychologist and
former science writer for The New York Times, is
one of the leading spokesmen in the field of
emotional intelligence, or EI. He asserts this
form of intelligence is twice as crucial to
business success than pure brain power or
technical superiority. Goleman writes "a high IQ
make get you into Mensa but it won't make you a
mensch."
Managers who once vented their frustrations to
colleagues over coffee now find their testy
email messages the centerpiece of court trials.
Microsoft, the software giant, and American Home
Products maker of diet drug fen-phen have felt
the financial pain of employees email rantings.
For example, an employee of American Home
Product emailed colleagues about fen-phen's side
effects dismissing them as the worries of "fat
people who are a little afraid of some silly
lung problem." Plaintiffs' lawyers literally
strike gold in discovering such insensitivity,
and arrogance, however momentary it might be.
The appeal of emotional intelligence to the
business world is growing because it validates
those intangibles or " people skills" that
extraordinary leaders have intuitively used for
years. It also provides some strange reassurance
to the majority of us that we can make it to the
top even if we possess less than superior IQs or
are not technical wizards.
Critics of EI suggest it fosters the "dummying
down" of business leaders because the employees
with the highest IQ's are not leading companies.
But IQ measures cognitive abilities not
leadership skills, and we could all cite
examples of pure brain powered workers who
didn't advance because they were more head than
heart.
Some suggestions for building your EI:
- Make some small change in your behavior and
evaluate its impact. For example, if you always
wait for a subordinate to bring you coffee in a
meeting, switch roles and you be the server.
Take a different chair than the one you usually
take at the head of the conference table. Shift
into a "listening mode" and actively solicit
opinions from your staff. Does the meeting
stall? Does your staff comment or joke too much
about these changes? Does this signal their
anxiety about change or your "too fixed"
leadership style??
-
Try to be reflective. Amid the swirl of meetings
and messages, take a few minutes and look back
at your behavior. Has it been consistent with
the changes you want to make? Did you talk too
much in that last meeting or put down comments
that didn't jibe with your own? Have you been
able to concentrate on your long term goals and
not get sidetracked by the latest crisis of the
day?
-
Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm. This is easier
said than done. In business as in life we are
always getting "blindsided" or provoked without
apparent justification. Recognize this as a
business fact. Anticipate what these situations
might be and imagine yourself uttering calm and
diplomatic responses. Prepare by looking into
the mirror and envisioning your boss and and/or
your team unfairly and rudely dismissing your
latest project. Watch your facial expression and
body language. Do you telegraph a growing rage
or inner calmness? Repeat quietly to yourself
"calm down" or "relax," and picture yourself not
counterattacking, backing down or dissolving in
tears. (You must practice this before you get
blindsided; otherwise it won't help much.)
Sidestep the personal attacks for the moment,
and get specifics of what your critics didn't
like about your proposal. Listen closely, stay
calm, and show mental toughness.
Remember emotionally intelligent leaders are
made, not born. Like any valuable skill, it
takes time to develop. Be patient with yourself
and keep at it because the rewards can be quite
substantial-- financially and personally.
|
|
|
