-
How to Project Manage a Pyramid
May 21, 2013
-
The Art of Project Management: Scale
May 20, 2013
-
Project Management Foundations - Understanding the Maturity of Your Project Office
May 20, 2013
-
Why Are Companies “Good” but Very Rarely “Great” at Project Management?
May 19, 2013
-
Project Management Institute’s 2013 “Pulse of the Profession” Survey
May 18, 2013
-
Personal Time and Project Management Tips From America’s Top Universities
May 17, 2013
-
5 Things To Do On Your Small Project
May 17, 2013
-
The 7 Project Manager Personalities: Which One Are You?
May 16, 2013
-
Project Management - Organizational Influences
May 16, 2013
-
The Inconsistency of Agile
May 15, 2013
Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
April 20, 2012 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Leadership
Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
By Wendy Mason
Using emotional intelligence can help you succeed as a leader. But what is emotional intelligence, and why is it that success in life sometimes seems unrelated to intelligence and how hard you are prepared to work?
In 1996 Daniel Goleman wrote his groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence. His exhaustive research had confirmed that success in life is based more on our ability to manage our emotions than on our intellectual capability or our physical strength.
Dr Goleman describes five main elements of emotional intelligence:
- Self-awareness.
- Self-regulation.
- Motivation.
- Empathy.
- Social skills.
The ability to call on these five qualities can help you to succeed as a leader.
- Self-awareness means you are in touch with your own feelings and emotions. You understand how they affect your behavior and how they influence those around you. You can strengthen your self-awareness by keeping a daily journal where you record how you feel each day and then reflect on what you have written. Take time during the day to monitor yourself, your feelings and how you are reacting to things.
-
Self-regulation means you don’t let fly with negative emotions or make rushed judgments about things or people. Successful leaders stay in control of themselves and they are prepared to be flexible while being accountable. To help you do this, you need know your values and where you are not prepared to compromise. Spend some time thinking about what really matters to you. Make a commitment to be accountable for what you do and practice staying calm.
-
Motivated leaders have a clear vision and work consistently towards their goals. Do you have that clear vision and is it still appropriate to you and your organization? If you get to the point where you are responding to events, rather than being proactive, then take action because your lack of motivation could put your organization at risk.
-
For leaders, having empathy is critical to managing a successful organization or a successful team. Empathy means you can put yourself in someone else’s situation. Leaders with empathy help develop their teams as they develop themselves. They make sure that people are treated fairly, and they listen. As a result they earn respect and loyalty. Practice imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes – put yourself in their position. Listen carefully to what people say and pay attention to body language – respond to feelings!
-
Leaders with social skills are good communicators – they communicate well and often. They’re just as open to hearing bad news as good news! Leaders who have good social skills have the confidence to resolve conflicts before they threaten the team or the organization. Learn to talk to your team and if necessary do some formal training in communication skills and conflict resolution.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage both your own emotions, and those of the people you lead. Having a high EQ means knowing what you are feeling, what this means, and how your emotions can affect other people. For leaders, having emotional intelligence is essential for success. Take time to work on self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. They will certainly help ensure that you succeed as a leader.
Wendy Mason is a Life and Career Coach. She helps people have the confidence they need to be successful at work and to change career. You can email her atwendymason@wisewolfcoaching.com or ring +44(0)2084610114. If you you want to read more from Wendy, you can check her blog.
No comments yet.
feel free to leave a comment
Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!
XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
All fields marked with " * " are required.
- Agile Project Management
- Ask the Hut
- Certification
- Change Management
- Communications Management
- Computer Based Information Systems
- Concepts
- Corporate Transformation
- Cost Management
- Critical Chain Project Management
- Delegation
- History
- HR Management
- Implementing Project Management
- Integration Management
- Lessons Learned
- Management
- Miscellaneous
- People Issues
- PMBOK
- PRINCE2
- Procurement Management
- Program Management
- Project Lifecycle Phases
- Project Management Advantages
- Project Management Advantages
- Project Management as a Career
- Project Management Best Practices
- Project Management Charts
- Project Management Definitions
- Project Management Ethics
- Project Management for Beginners
- Project Management Guides
- Project Management Musings
- Project Management Office
- Project Management Proposals
- Project Management Templates
- Project Portfolio Management
- Project Workforce Management
- Quality Management
- Requirements Management
- Risk Management
- Scheduling
- Scope Management
- SCRUM
- Soft Management
- Time Management
- Training
- Uncategorized