Emotional intelligence: Raising the Bar for Leadership and OD Professionals

The rules of leadership are changing.

A growing body of theory and research on emotional intelligence is producing fundamental change in our assumptions about success in business. Commonly referred to as EQ, the term, “emotional intelligence” has reached the level of jargon, meaning different things to different people. As I am using the term, EQ consists of personal characteristics and social abilities that determine our success at work and in life.

Today's knowledge-based companies are filled with people with years of formal training required to enter professional disciplines. Completing these rigorous programs requires high IQ's or they would never have earned degrees in such intellectually demanding fields as engineering, chemistry, physics, information systems, or finance.

When companies have so many intelligent and educated professionals, what distinguishes those who turn out to be star performers from the rest of the pack? EQ has been shown to be responsible for as much as 80% of the variance in identifying star performers. IQ and training provides the ticket into the arena. EQ determines how successfully people play the game.

Do you know that only 10% of terminations are due to deficient technical skills? The other 90% are due to attitudinal problems, inappropriate behaviors, and difficulties with interpersonal relationships, all related to EQ. Deficiencies in EQ are far more likely to derail careers than the technical inability to do the job.

In 28 years of consulting, I've seen many business trends come and go. When I first heard the term emotional intelligence, I thought, “This, too, shall pass.” We now know that EQ is highly predictive of individual and group success. Further research will help us better understand what it is and how to develop it but EQ is here to stay.

If your company is built on highly intelligent professionals or requires people to do highly complex work, EQ plays a critical role your company's success. Your greatest leverage for improving the performance of your staff lies in building a culture focused on the development and nurturing of EQ. You hire people for their brainpower and training but the ability of your leaders and teams to work with and through each other makes the critical difference between success and mediocrity.

Think for a moment how your business is currently performing. Now imagine what would happen if you developed a comprehensive strategy to build a culture that is focused on the development of EQ in every leader and employee in your company. Imagine how much you could accomplish if your executives, managers, and employees could talk freely, think creatively and disagree without fear or personalizing conflict. Imagine if your managers were noted for accessibility and listening to people in the organization. Imagine what would be possible if everyone in your company were continually working on perfecting the personal and social competencies associated with EQ.

Crafting on EQ-based culture begins with an honest assessment of the effectiveness of your company's current leadership and operational culture. Then you must create a rigorous and systematic approach to building a culture that places as much emphasis on EQ as it does on technical abilities in making hiring, training, and promotional decisions. Most of all EQ calls for a transformation in your leadership practices and how people in the company relate to each other.

The following principles offer guideline for building an EQ-focused culture in your company:

1. EQ must start at the top.
If you are going to be promoting the qualities and values associated with EQ, every leader, from the CEO to 1st line supervisors, must be models of EQ. But there is a problem. The higher you rise in the leadership hierarchy, the more distorted your self-perception is likely to be. So the work must begin with an unflinching assessment of your current leadership practices and start developing the competencies of EQ to improve them.

The first wave of training and coaching in EQ must start at the top and work its way down the management ranks to front-line employees. The requirement to develop and demonstrate EQ must have consequences. When was the last time your company let go of a valuable technical leader whose communication style was harsh, abusive, demeaning, and autocratic? If people like this are allowed to remain in your organization, don't waste time and resources with an EQ initiative. To do so will only result in cynicism and greater distrust of management.

HR and Training will play a crucial role in the delivery of EQ development events and continuing follow-ups. But focusing your company's culture on EQ cannot be seen as “just another HR program.” It must be sponsored from the chief executive's office. The CEO and the executive team must continually demonstrate that building a culture of EQ is one of the company's core strategic initiatives.

2. Your company's cultural values must be behaviorally anchored in the language of EQ.
Most companies have proclaimed values, usually including a statement about how important every employee is to the company's success. These are all too often hollow proclamations, empty words that aren't put into practice. Your values must include descriptions of behaviors are expected of every person in the company as well as behaviors expected of every leader in the company, top to bottom. Behavioral anchoring changes abstract values into day-to-day behaviors.

3. Hiring practices must evaluate EQ just as carefully as technical training and experience.
In interviews, look for interpersonal comfort, the person's capacity to listen and establish a relationship with you and with the team he or she will work with. But people are on their best behavior during an interview and sometimes you don't see the real person until some time on the job has passed.

It is advisable to use an EQ assessment tool as a screening device but buyer beware. Look for the following: how long the instrument has been on the market; studies to support reliability and validity; and, carefully study the instrument itself for transparency. How easily can the instrument be manipulated? Can the person figure out how to look good in the report? If so, don't use it, no matter how great the developer proclaims the instrument to be.

4. Develop an ongoing program of training, feedback, and individual coaching in EQ.
The development of EQ is a career-long process. Training programs are a good introduction to EQ and the personal characteristics and social abilities associated with EQ but life-long communication patterns will not change over the course of a two-day program. Change in EQ takes continuous follow-up and practice. Refresher sessions must become a regular part of the schedule. Executive coaching can make a big difference. Readings with short discussions in team meetings are also useful. A 360 instrument designed for other people to provide feedback on matters related to EQ should be administered annually to assess progress and establish new developmental goals. But the single most important follow-up to training is described in the next step.

5. Every executive, manager, and supervisor must learn how to coach for EQ.
No one goes to work with the deliberate intention to intimidate their direct reports, alienate their peers, and irritate their boss on a given day. Developing EQ requires people to become aware of traits they don't see in themselves but are painfully obvious to everyone around them. This requires every manager to become comfortable providing personal feedback addressing developmental needs related to EQ.

Performance management regarding objective standards is one thing. It is quite another to give someone feedback on inappropriate displays of anger, reluctance to speak up in meetings, or any other number of personal quirks that undermine a person's effectiveness at work. Leaders must build a foundation of trust with employees that make people more willing to accept such personal coaching without feeling personally attacked. And they must learn how to deliver this kind of coaching in a supportive way.

The first step in most models of EQ is self-awareness. Unless we become aware of self-defeating patterns of behavior, we will blindly keep doing the same thing, even though we may be producing unintended results. This requires every leader in the company to dramatically increase the frequency of on-the-spot coaching. Training in EQ only sets the stage for change. Constant conversations and coaching about EQ help people expand their self-awareness and work on developing more appropriate behaviors.

This step loops back to #1, EQ must start at the top. Leaders must model the behaviors they are coaching. A manager who intimidates people when they disagree or who is overly harsh in providing coaching will hardly be credible in coaching a direct report to handle anger more appropriately. Developing EQ throughout an organization requires the leadership team as a whole to take on mastery of EQ as a personal and group quest throughout the course of their careers. No one perfectly masters EQ but leaders who are constantly working to improve their EQ by seeking out feedback from others, including their direct reports, earn the credibility required to provide coaching for emotional intelligence.

6. Build EQ into the Performance Management System.
Individual EQ Development Plans should be built into yearly performance agreements and formal reviews. Salary increases and bonuses should be based on EQ as well as results produced. The ultimate test for leadership: a good producer who could care less about developing EQ. Either bring that person up to speed or let him or her go work for someone else. People listen to what their leaders say but they pay far more attention to what their leaders do. Nowhere is consistency between words and action more important than in developing an EQ-focused culture.

WOODRIDGE

Leadership Articles

Emotional intelligence: Raising the Bar for Leadership and OD Professionals