10 Tips to Improve Emotional Intelligence as a Leader
“The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and to influence their actions.” - John C. Maxwell
Before we go into the strategies, for those who may not be familiar. Let’s discuss what Emotional Intelligence is!
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to recognize emotions in yourself and others effectively. You can recognize, understand, manage, and have a general self-awareness of emotions. This involves some skills that require you to be self-aware, self-regulating, empathetic, and have strong interpersonal skills. You may think this requires a lot, but why would I care about strategies? Right? Emotional Intelligence is often learned. It helps us make more sound decisions and better serve the customers, employees, family, or others we may encounter in our lives. So, let’s consider 10 traits/tips for improving emotional intelligence.
Self-Awareness: Regularly reflect on your emotions and how you reacted to different situations. Think about how you felt in different moments. Recognize what triggers your emotional responses, and you will start to become more self-aware. If necessary, keep a journal to track your emotional patterns and triggers. I read the concept a few years back of a thought audit where you write down negative thoughts. Same concept here: write down how your emotions were in different instances to improve your awareness of them.
Self-Regulation: Practice mindfulness, prayer, or meditation to develop better control over impulsive responses. Growing up, I was always taught that sometimes, walking away is better than getting into a fight. Sometimes, taking a break, pause, and then coming back to the issue- let’s level heads prevail!
Empathy: Active listening is huge, and I may write an entire post about it alone! Actively listen to others without judgment, seeking to understand their perspectives. Stephen Covey has it in one of his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” That is still great advice! Another way to empathize with others is to put yourself in someone’s shoes to better understand their perspective. We can’t truly be in their shoes, living their life, but if we try to understand where they are coming from, we can be more empathetic towards them!
Social Skills:I could stress this and write numerous posts about this, and I may… You need to develop effective communication skills, both verbal and non-verbal. The words you say, the tone you say it, and the body language while saying it all matter!In teams, family, group projects, etc. Try to create a positive and inclusive team culture by promoting open communication. If people feel open to sharing, there will be more discussion and, in turn, more growth in these interpersonal skills.
Motivation: Set clear and meaningful goals for yourself and your team. You could use the SMART goals method or another methodology. Have something that drives you. I can’t motivate you, and the motivational Reels on Instagram or TikTok may make you feel good, but they won’t motivate you long-term. That is a you job! Find intrinsic motivation in your work, which can be hard sometimes. If you can find it, encourage others to do the same. I’ve always heard the phrase, “If you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life,” and I believe that!
Recognizing Emotions in Others: Pay attention to non-verbal cues. People give off plenty of them! These can range from tone of voice to eye contact or things such as body language and facial expressions. Watch for these, and you can pick up on a lot when dealing with emotionally-ended questions that can also encourage others to express their emotions. Sometimes, these are unnecessary and can have a negative effect, but simple things like “How have you been handling the workload lately?” or “How have you been feeling about your projects?” General and open-ended allow someone to share. But then watch for non-verbals!
Handling Criticism and Feedback: This one is hard, especially for my fellow pessimists out there. View constructive criticism as growth opportunities. I often take criticism hard, regardless of where it comes from. Often, I can use it to motivate my actions to change or improve in some way. This is also hard for me and many others. Respond to feedback by focusing on understanding and improvement rather than defensiveness. Similar to criticism, not everyone is trying to tear you down. Try to take their feedback and see how you can learn!
Conflict Resolution: Develop skills in resolving conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. Maybe training on conflict styles would be beneficial! This is something I offer to businesses, such as conflict-style assessment and training, because this is such a hot topic for many organizations. Talk it out! Encourage open dialogue to address issues and find mutually beneficial solutions. We need to get past this us vs them mentality and work towards finding solutions.
Cultural Sensitivity: Please educate yourself about different cultures and their emotional expressions. You may not see the importance, but many cultures respond in different ways. Many communicate in different ways as we continue to be a multicultural world, workplaces, churches, etc. We need to be aware of how this impacts the people we interact with! Adapt your communication style to be respectful and considerate of cultural differences. It isn’t easy or necessarily fun, but it will be a huge benefit to you in the long term.
Continuous Learning: Stay curious or open-minded and seek to learn from new experiences. As you experience more situations and grow in emotional intelligence, it starts to compound. You may not see the difference, but the growth is there. Engage in ongoing professional development. You can take courses or workshops on emotional intelligence. Seek a trainer or coach to work on shortcomings and keep working on them. It will improve over time!
Which of these do you find the most impactful? Are you actively taking steps to improve your emotional intelligence? Let me know! I would love to hear what strategies, training, or other ways you are working on improving in this area.
Nick Dyson is the owner of Dyson Leadership and is a
Maxwell Leadership Certified Speaker, Trainer, and Coach. Providing Leadership coaching, training, workshops, Lunch & Learns, and more!
To learn more about training provided by Dyson Leadership, visit our webpage.
