To attract, retain and develop top talent, you must keep your people invested in you as a leader. Your people are significantly more likely to work hard for a person, rather than a company. People want to feel respected; a person can offer that, a company can’t. Leaders can no longer assume respect based on job-title. Now more than ever, respect must be earned and earned quickly. Your employees want to feel connected and cared about. They want to feel invested in. Without these pieces they won’t be as productive or plugged-in and eventually they’ll take their talent elsewhere. It’s not enough to be intelligent alone, leaders must also be emotionally intelligent.
As Roger Perman, the founder and CEO of Leadership Performance Systems describes, “Executives and managers who have better relationships with people are exposed to more information and more thorough information. As a result, they can make better informed decisions. When you reframe emotional intelligence (EQ) and you move beyond the hype of the phrase, you have to ask the naysayers, do you really think that relationships are unimportant? People want to be around, work for, and walk through hell for people who give them regard, respect, recognition, and appreciation.”
So let me ask you, do you respect your people? Do they know you respect them? Do you know how to show it?
- As a leader, do you feel you’re able to accurately express your intentions and emotions most of the time? Or are you vague about them?
- Do you feel like emotions are really just a sign of weakness? Or do you feel you know how and when to express them appropriately?
Emotional intelligence refers to a set of social skills that influence how people:
- Express themselves,
- Develop and maintain relationships,
- Cope with challenges, and
- Use emotional information in effective and meaningful ways.
If you’re being misunderstood by your people, the impact on your team is substantial–whether you realize it or not. They may be misreading or misunderstanding your intent. They may not feel you’re authentic. They may not feel they can fully trust you. Not only do these things impact your chances of establishing and maintaining a high-performance culture, they also impact your bottom line. If your people are having to think about if you respect them and worry whether or not they are a valued team member, you won’t get maximum results from them. And in the worst case scenario, they’ll leave…and turnover is expensive.
People are expecting leaders to share more of themselves. Employees want their leaders to be people, not just job-titles–they want to know what you really believe, not just the corporate line. The realization of this impact is part of the reason we see so many leaders having to embrace transparency through social media and the opening of intracompany communication channels through software like Slack. Being emotionally aware, ensures you’re on the right track to coming across as real, interested, and proactive when communicating across platforms outside of traditional business communication.
Imagine the ripple effects of an emotionally aware and intelligent leader.
A strong leader attracts similar people. “Like attracts like,” as the Law of Attraction would suggest. What starts with one leader being willing to focus on their weak areas, results in an entire company of self-aware and emotionally-aware people–and sooner rather than later. That mentality blossoms with each new hire and soon you end up with happy employees, engaged employees, and a high-performance culture. Knowing how you are perceived as a leader, knowing if your people find you believable and accountable, is imperative to your leadership success–and to the success of your retention rates.
I’ve worked with leaders to understand their communication style (DISC), their motivations, how they make decisions, what they see clearly, and how to recognize their blind-spots for over 20 years. All of these play a significant role in the development of a strong leader. However, there is a significant genetic component in each of these that you can learn to adapt and account for, but cannot necessarily change or develop. Emotional intelligence on the other hand, is a skill that can be learned, improved and honed.
Emotional intelligence has been part of the leadership skills conversation for the past 15 years but only in the past few years has it gained significantly more acceptance by top leaders who have realized the positive impacts it can have on an organization and their bottom line. As a result, I can now confidently assess emotional intelligence and establish a baseline to help leaders prioritize the areas to improve that will have the biggest impact on the bottom line.
Don’t limit yourself or your people.
An organization is people. Your biggest resource is your human resource. The better you treat people, the better they and your company will perform.
Ready to have a conversation? Contact me.