Building your emotional intelligence means increasing your awareness of other people.
Main idea:
Leaders who are looking to build emotional intelligence wonder were to start. Studies show that increased “EI” leads to resonate leadership, ability to influence others, and results in a satisfying work culture of connection and performance.
Emotional intelligence is categorized by two dimensions: Awareness and Management
· Awareness is an observational practice
· Management is a behavioral one
When awareness and management are applied to the self and to others, we have the basic building blocks of increasing emotional intelligence.
ABCD - Always be collecting data
When you hear the word data, does it conjure images of numbers on a spreadsheet? Unless those numbers portray a drastic year-over-year revenue loss, in our heads we usually separate data from emotion. We approach data as information to scrutinize, analyze and from which to make actionable decisions. We usually think of data as separate from the people aspects of our workplace.
Put on an anthropologist hat for a moment. When an anthropologist goes into different cultures, they observe behaviors and they collect data on those behaviors. When you expanded your perception of data to include everything happening around us, even other peoples’ actions, words, and behaviors, ABCD becomes a powerful approach to building emotional intelligence.
Limbic Loop
Here is the clincher- and why we need tips and tricks help us. We respond to others’ emotions and moods; it is how our brain is wired. Many of us have noticed how one crabby or disgruntled person in a room can sour the mood for others. When the sour-puss is the leader, people are even more-so affected. It does not take much for a room to go from upbeat to grumpy. When we get tangled in other’s emotional state, our feelings can cloudy our thinking and our response. When we get into a “hot” argument or situation, our focus can easily go from the big picture (“Let’s solve the problem of sales decline”) to the immediate (“Hey, you insulted me!”). We lose focus and our leadership and team abilities suffer.
Fly On The Wall
Here is a useful trick; become a “fly-on-the-wall”. This powerful data collection tool is great especially when emotions are “flying”. It allows you to step back and also to observe the ripple effect of your own words or actions.
As a fly-on-the-wall, your job is to zoom into a room, land in a corner and observe. Hang out there and simply watch the scene. Pretend you don’t speak the language and take a minute to just SEE. What body language are people using? Do they seem engaged or disinterested? How do they seem to be responding to what is being said? Now, how do they FEEL? What emotions can you pick up on? What do the people in the room HEAR? And as a result, what do they PERCEIVE? An empathy map, see below, is a helpful framework to use.
As a fly-on-the-wall you can also observe yourself in the situation. How do you look to others? What do you sound like to others? How might they interpret your body language? What effect do small changes in your word choices or tone seem to have? What responses do you observe?
As you become an open and curious fly, your observational skills become stronger. Your emotions stay out of the current. And when you do note a spark of emotion within yourself you can add it to the data you are collecting. Practice this skill often, and especially when situations become a bit heated. Coming back to this, again and again, will increase your awareness of others and grow your ability to be fully present.
An Empathy Map is one way to collect observational data. It is a tool that shifts your framework to that of the other person.