Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. Emotional Intelligence helps leaders perceive and solve for the needs of each person and group they influence.
It is not overstating the obvious to establish that, just like the muscles in our bodies, Emotional Intelligence skills must be used and developed, then used and developed some more. This is true for all leaders no matter their level in the organization or years of experience.
In this article, we gave three (3) justifications why emotional intelligence training is important to drive leadership:
- Emotionally intelligent leaders increase retention numbers and directly influence engagement scores. McKinsey recently noted, “numerous studies show that in a business-as-usual environment, compassionate leaders perform better and foster more loyalty and engagement by their teams.
- Emotionally intelligent leaders raise performance levels.
- Emotionally intelligent leaders raise revenue margins. In the classic HBR article “What Makes a Leader?” McClelland’s findings in a 1996 study showed that “when senior managers had a critical mass of Emotional Intelligence capabilities, their divisions outperformed yearly earning goals by 20%.
There is no longer any question: Leaders must have strength and balance in Emotional Intelligence for maximum effectiveness, and this skill set helps them to diagnose and deliver an antidote that can prevent much trouble, pain, and possible heartache. Yes, especially in the workplace.