>> Today we're going to be talking about emotional intelligence and the importance of emotional intelligence for effective leadership. To help with our discussion today, I've asked one of our local experts to come in and share some thoughts with us. I want to introduce Ann Flanagan-Petry. Ann, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got interested in emotional intelligence. >> Oh Greg, that's a great question. I became interested in emotional intelligence in my work in healthcare as an organizational development consultant. One of the things that I was curious about was why certain leaders and certain teams seem to be really effective, more effective than others. And I started to kind of deconstruct what it was that they were doing. And it seemed to come back to this core set of competencies that we now know is emotional intelligence. So, that's what drives my passion and interest in this subject. >> So why is there a growing interest in emotional intelligence in the workplace? >> Well, Dan Goleman did this amazing study where he looked at 200 companies and studied executives in these 200 companies, and he found that emotional intelligence was twice as important as IQ and technical ability in terms of driving performance. And he also found that other top performing leadings, 90% of what separated the best from the rest was emotional intelligence. >> So it sounds like this is a very important attribute for leaders to have. Can you tell us a little bit more about exactly what emotional intelligence is? >> Yeah. So, Dan Goleman kind of has made emotional intelligence much more accessible by creating a framework, and it's defined by four clusters, if you will, of competencies. And these competencies start with self-awareness. And self-awareness is really the foundation of emotional intelligence. So if you think about a leader who has insight into their own emotions, has an understanding of how their emotions impact other people, you can see that these leaders are able to bring a sense of greater transparency and openness with their staff. And a lot of times these leaders are also able to have a sense of humor and humility about their own strengths and weaknesses. So self-awareness is one. The second competency is self-regulation. And you might think why is self-regulation important for leadership? Well, if you think about it, self-regulation is about being able to manage your impulses. And we work in a very often intense environment, and they can create a lot of emotion. And so being able to regulate or moderate your emotions allows your staff to feel that they can trust you. There's more of an ability to create kind of a safe environment for people to speak up, speak their mind. So self-regulation is another important cluster of competencies. Then the third competency is social awareness. Social awareness is really about the ability to have a sensitivity to the context within which you are in. So we think about this in terms of the hallmark of social awareness as empathy, being able to connect with other people and take their perspective. Really important for your relationship with your colleagues, with your clients, with your staff. And then the last competency that's really important, or cluster of competencies, is relationship management. And relationship management is really about how you interact with other people. And that skill of being able to attune to other people, to care, to genuinely care and be curious about another person and their wellbeing. >> Does that relate to the idea of social networking? >> Sure. There's a lot of interesting kind of research going on around relationship management and social networking. Particularly, we're finding that if you are able to connect with one person in a meaningful way and have an impact on them, often it spreads, this idea of social contagion. >> Is there any reason why emotional intelligence would be more important than ever currently in the workplace? >> Well, I think actually it's probably one of the most important things a leader can learn. I mean, we are living in an era where change is happening at ever-increasing velocity. And so the ability to manage this change and to be skillful at it is something that I think corporations are really interested in understanding. Especially in the knowledge workforce where we need to be able to meet one another to get work done. Most work happens in teams, for example. And high-performing teams, most all of them have this ability to connect, to have psychological safety to work with one another and have relationships, as well as be able to focus on the tasks that they have to get done. >> Is there something that an individual can do to strengthen their emotional intelligence? >> So, if I were, you know, sitting out in the audience and interested in working on this more, probably the first thing you can do is get a baseline assessment of how you're doing to get an accurate sense of your own emotional intelligence. So there are different validated surveys that you can take a test basically, an assessment of your own emotional intelligence. >> Can you find these online, or do we have to find a professional? >> Yes. There are some free online, and then there's some that are proprietary that you purchase. Many companies if you're interviewing or in a leadership development program will have you take an EQ assessment. So that's something that you may see in the workplace. And then they use, then we use those results to then work with people in coaching relationships to close the gaps where there are gaps and leverage strengths. >> So you may be able to go online and do an assessment, but you're probably going to need to identify a coach to help really improve on whatever your limitations are. >> You know, yeah. So the research seems to indicate that the real progress is made when you work with another person to improve. >> Okay. If there are people who are watching today who would like to learn more about this topic, can you identify a resource that they might be able to read? >> So, there are amazing books out there. First and foremost, anything by Dan Goleman. Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace is an excellent book. And then there's many other popular books. There's actually an interesting book called Search Inside Yourself, Leadership Institute, about Google's program to improve emotional intelligence in the workplace. >> Great, well Ann, thank you very much for coming and sharing with us today your ideas about emotional intelligence. >> You're welcome. Glad to be here.
