LEADERSHIP: 12 FACETS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Published: 2010-08-22   There is 1 comment ... please add yours below

A valuable gemstone has many facets, each finely polished. To be a valuable leader, you similarly need a range of carefully honed capabilities. For some people, these attributes fall broadly into two categories. First, the technical (or IQ-driven) ones: for example, professional expertise, market knowledge, financial acumen or analytical skills. Second, interpersonal (or EQ) ones: such as showing empathy, listening well, being self-aware, developing successors and creating teams. With regard to the latter, below is a list of 12 EQ actions. Why not re-order them into a list that starts with the one you do best, through to the one you do least well! And, perhaps plan what you’re going to do to improve the bottom couple. After that, I’ll tell you where the list comes from.

1. Treat people equally – don’t play favourites.
2. Praise good work publicly – but only criticise in private.
3. Share information – as much as possible.
4. Make each person feel useful – and part of the team.
5. Trust them to do their job – and encourage their creativity.
6. Build cooperation – rather than rivalry.
7. Leave roles a bit flexible – so people can respond to needs not just do a job.
8. Avoid over-detailed schedules – that become out dated quickly and so are ignored.
9. Keep your door open – and be both accessible and available.
10. Walk around and talk to people – listening to what they say.
11. Develop successors for your role – don’t seek to become indispensable.
12. Believe in the importance of what you do – but NOT in your own importance.

By chance this week, I ran into John Clayton, a colleague from university. This is only our second meeting since then. He’s had a fine career as a consulting engineer in the UK, then Australia and now Asia. We discussed music (since we met en route to the opera), but we also talked about leadership. I asked John to send me a list he’d prepared summing up his views on the human side of it. My cryptic list above is his – but with each point reduced to just a few words. In the original, what struck me was the sense of lessons learnt in the field – with a story and real people behind each one. Above all, deep humility about being a leader.

There’s room for books and theories. But it’s hard to beat the practical experience of learning from others and honing your skills over a few decades of work experience. It overcomes the academic assumptions (and sometimes arrogance) and replaces these with real-world wisdom. As John says, #12 is possibly the most important. A perfecting element of leadership – like the radiant top face of a valuable gem.

Dr. Timothy Pascoe AM
PhD (Cambridge), MBA (Harvard), BE & BEc (Adelaide)
Creator, V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership^®