Skills Developed From Emotional Intelligence

The Leadership Series

 

 

In the previous article – Leadership and Emotional Intelligence – we laid the groundwork for why you should be intentional with your emotional intelligence where leadership is concerned. It has massive implications for more than most people readily understand. Emotional Intelligence, when executed in your leadership endeavors, just like The Art of Intentionality, will build specific traits in the leader.

That’s what this article explores – skills a leader can expect to develop via emotional intelligence. They are (in order) Positivity, Empathy, Good Communication, Collaboration, Delegation, and Creativity.

Let’s get started.

 

NOTE: This article is part 6.1 of a series on Leadership here at The Wealthy Ironworker

1. Leadership, Management, and The Skilled Trades
2. The 4 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader
3. Leadership and The Task-Oriented Trades
4. Situational Leadership and the Skilled Trades
5. Leadership and The Art of Intentionality
   1. Skills Developed From The Art of Intentionality
6. Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
   1. Skills Developed From Emotional Intelligence
7. Leadership and Humility
   1. Skills Developed From Humility
8. Leadership and Listening to Understand and Not to Respond
   1. Skills Developed From Listening to Understand and Not to Respond
9. Skills Developed Overall in the Leadership Process

***The above is subject to change as this series expands***

 

Emotional Intelligence and Positivity

 

The first one we look at is positivity.

Positivity – as defined by Oxford Languages – is “the practice of being or tendency to be positive or optimistic in attitude.”

If you look up optimistic, however, you find it defined as “hopeful and confident about the future.”

That will work for our purposes. Optimistic and positive are close enough synonyms that you automatically know what they mean.

Moreover, positivity seems to be more of an external skill.

When you are intentional about your emotional intelligence, you are positive. You exude it. Others know it, too. It’s infectious – and that is exactly what you want it to be.

Think about it: if you, as the leader, do not display positivity, and instead you are a negative grump, how does that help anyone, let alone the job?

You already know the answer: it doesn’t.

What’s more, as you are growing your emotional intelligence and the various skills, you are going to find that positivity will help you with every other one. The better you are at displaying your EQ, the greater its effect – and this includes others in your realm of influence.

You are positive about the job, the schedule, the ability to properly place people where they are best, for the completion of the tasks, and even the simple, daily things. You know, the ones that seem to appear at the most inconvenient times.

As a result, people take notice. They see that despite the pressure, a thousand things that need to be completed, and yet, despite the distractions, you maintain your cool. You’re able to process everything and manage it in a calm, and collective manner.

This is how your emotional intelligence journey should start.

 

Emotional Intelligence and Empathy

 

Empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”

It is, to be a bit more concise, an extension of emotional intelligence. The greater emotional intelligence you have, the greater your empathy. We will take it a step further, though, since it involves another, more complex step – imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes.

This is not easy, nor is it desirable for most. Each of us believes we have more to do than we should, already. Now, as a leader, I have to actually do even more – to consider what it is like for other people?

If you want to grow emotional intelligence – and be an authentic leader – then yes.

There is some debate about how much empathy a person can have; some believe you can only have enough empathy for a few people – much like friends. Others believe it’s far broader in scope and nature. For my part, I believe you have a deeper empathy for fewer people, and a broader, shallower empathy for more (based on our shared humanity).

Put another way, the more you know about someone and the deeper the connection, the more likely you will be empathetic towards them – and that empathy is richer and more understanding. If I don’t know you, how could I be empathetic (trying to understand what you are going through)?

I couldn’t.

This is also why you should be intentional about growing your emotional intelligence and influencing others. You want other aspiring leaders to copy you, so they can be empathetic when you cannot. You’re playing with multiplication, here.

If you want to really tweak people’s paradigms and make an impact, develop rich empathy.

 

 

Emotional Intelligence and Good Communication

 

Good communication is absolutely paramount if you are going to be an effective, authentic, and influential leader. Oxford Language defines communication as “the imparting or exchanging of information or news.”

How many people in leadership or management roles were bad at communicating? How many times were you absolutely frustrated at their lack of clearly telling you what needed to be done, how (if it was a requirement), why, etc.?

Here, allow me to answer this rhetorical question: All. The. Time.

There is little that frustrates like poor communication. Add to that the personality conflicts that inevitably arise on the job site, and you have a volatile recipe for trouble.

Let me ask it another way. Ever seen a good leader who didn’t communicate well? I didn’t think so. In fact, I’m willing to bet one of the main praises they often get is how well they communicate.

As an intentional leader, your emotional intelligence build-up can – and should – result in better communication. As your positivity aids your empathy, you see things more clearly, and that leads to clearer communication, too.

 

 

Emotional Intelligence and Collaboration

 

“The action of working with someone to produce or create something” is how collaboration is defined. When your leadership skills are being developed, your emotional intelligence expanded, and you’re exploring empathy and communication, you begin to discover that you cannot do it alone. It’s too much. You cannot hope to formulate a strategy, plan, schedule, remain positive while being empathetic and communicate clearly. You would be overwhelmed.

There is good news, though. You aren’t expected to.

Enter collaboration.

Collaboration, correctly understood and executed, brings others to the table and into the fray. This allows you to extend your influence and achieve results otherwise unattainable.

Now you’ve likely seen collaboration before; a lot of companies attempt to do it. Chances are, though, you’ve experienced it poorly. Frustration sets in as there are poor communicators, who lack empathy and intentionality. Having read The Leadership Series to this point, you KNOW this to be true.

How? At this point, you realize what sets them apart is their respectable levels of leadership. That’s how.

There is a clear distinction between good and poor collaboration – and it’s robust emotional intelligence. What follows collaboration?

Delegation.

 

 

Emotional Intelligence and Delegation

 

Delegation – “the act or process of delegating or being delegated.” Digging deeper, we see that delegating means “entrust (a task or responsibility) to another person, typically one who is less senior than oneself.” Essentially, you are NOT trying to do it all on your own, and you shouldn’t either. 

Delegation is a natural outcome of successful collaboration. The emotionally intelligent leader understands this, and part of a leader’s own adjustment and growth is to leverage it. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, nor is this easy; after all, no matter the reason, outcome, or situation, YOU – as the leader – are ultimately responsible. The realization of this often leads many to simply keep as much control as possible, doing more, ultimately leading to less achieved. What’s more, it’s an understandable thing, too.

It also stunts your growth and ultimately slows down the job.

Gut check time: Do you want to be a great leader? One that people know gets the job done, inspires others, and encourages them to do the best they can? Do you want to be seen as someone who is authentic and genuine?

I certainly hope so; otherwise, why read this far into The Leadership Series?

One of the biggest ways for you to grow your own emotional intelligence and inspire others is to clearly communicate and delegate. Be clear and concise.

And when things go wrong (and they will), accept responsibility. That’s the real secret for emotional intelligence to be contagious; it’s being extended to others. And this can lead to creativity.

 

Emotional Intelligence and Creativity

 

By this time in your leadership skill development, you have reached a point with emotional intelligence that you are going to be creative.

Why?

When you believe you have no one to depend on and do not collaborate or delegate, then you believe you HAVE to do everything. But that isn’t the case for you – the intentional, emotionally intelligent, leader. You have built up the other skills up to this point, and as a result, you know that in order to be the best you can be, you have to collaborate and delegate. This enables you to be creative. Creative in your assignments. Creative in your delegation. Creative in your empathy. Creative in your communication. The sky’s the limit when it comes to how creative you become when it comes to being emotionally intelligent.

What’s more, those you work with give you extra leeway when you do things outside what they were expecting. This is due to the increased respect you’ve been given due to your authenticity and genuine nature – and that is undergirded by your intentional emotional intelligence.

Can you see the connection? The link between all the skills you have grown from this quality?

Creativity can serve a leader well, but some are apt to completely dismiss this skill. Many believe it has no place on the job. Some would lump it in with a more creative profession and even go so far as to say we need concrete, matter-of-fact, this-is-how-we-do-it energy. Really?

We’ve seen this before. Whenever there is a new way to do things, a new way to protect people, a different view on how to handle the work. “We’ve always done it like this” is a statement that needs to die a thousand deaths.

Be open to creativity – I assure you it’s worth it.

 

Emotional Intelligence: From Positivity to Creativity

 

Having examined each of the above traits individually, let’s now look at a more cohesive example of how they are all intertwined and how one helps build the other.

 

You want to be a leader. More than that – you want to be a great leader. You know what poor leadership looks like; after all, you’ve seen plenty of examples of it until now. Determining to be different, you decide to study leadership, discover The Leadership Series at The Wealthy Ironworker, and eureka – you’ve discovered a model that makes sense.

You intuitively understand that the road to becoming a great leader begins with being intentional about it. It’s always on your mind: in the interactions you have, decisions you make, and jobs you’re a part of.

Following the first indispensable quality – intentionality – the model discusses emotional intelligence. You’re studying it, believing that if you do, you’ll take leadership to the next level.

The first skill you encounter is positivity. You reach back into your past and remember the poor leaders of yesterday. They were negative grumps. They were always yelling. You are reminded of that old saying:

 

“The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

 

In short, you understand you do not want to be like that – and use it to fuel change. You intentionally decide to be more emotionally intelligent with positivity. You see the glass as half full. You internalize the concept that there are some things you cannot help, change, or get away from – but you CAN change the way you respond. You can be upbeat, stoic, and stand tall.

That positivity leads to empathy. You know other people have struggles, too. They have personal lives, and sometimes that comes to work with them. They have struggles. They have difficulties. They have good days and bad days like everyone else. And because you are positive, you also become empathetic in how you interact with others.

That increased empathy leads to better communication. How could it not? You have to adjust you approach depending on who you are talking to, what you’re talking about, and what they may have going on. For some, it’s a more direct and in-your-face approach; for others, it may look like telling them what to do and giving an explanation. You may even find yourself “your brother’s keeper” if someone is really going through it.

No matter what style of communication you end up using (and you’ll use many), you discover that, indeed, your communication skills are, in fact, improving. And because you are communicating effectively, you understand that you cannot possibly do everything.

This is where collaboration comes in.

Your positive, empathetic, and communicative style has led others to be more upbeat themselves. You bring others in to help with the tasks, the job overall, and other people you cannot possibly deal with one-on-one. There’s just too much to do – and too many people.

It’s time to delegate.

Delegation goes hand in hand with collaboration; it’s a very natural relationship, even if it is a very unnatural thing to do. You remember all of your previous leaders and how so many of them refused to delegate. And to a degree, you understand why. They had the responsibility to get it done. If something went wrong, they were the ones who were questioned. The schedule, assignments, flow, and overall job was on them.

You are intentional about being different, though. You want to take your leadership to the next level -and that includes delegating. Yes, you are hesitant and a bit reserved. You know the risks – but you also know the payoff. Are the risks worth it? Yes.

You begin to discover that more gets done. You have less stress. You have broad shoulders, but they carry a different weight, one that’s more important: completing the job while increasing job satisfaction for everyone involved. It isn’t easy, but when you see/hear from others whose outlook on work has changed because you’ve been intentional about being an emotionally intelligent leader, it’s worth it.

You’ve been extremely pleased with the progress you’ve made following this model, and you’ve become more familiar with how your own emotional intelligence has expanded. That familiarity allows a bit of creativity – the last skill on our list.

You experiment with your approach, you make tweaks and adjustments to increase your influence and ability. You would have never felt like you could do this before, but now that you have a foundation? You have that freedom, and you’re thankful for it.

 

Can you see woven through that quick little narrative how you go from positivity to creativity – all the skills coming from your intentional effort to develop emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence, pursued in such a way, brings growth to the leader, confidence to those following, and smoother tasks overall. In time, developing a reputation as someone who is positive, empathetic, a good communicator, someone who collaborates and delegates, and is creative in your approach is worth all of the effort you put in.

And all these skills were developed and grown through your pursuit of emotional intelligence.

 

 

NOTE: This article is part 6.1 of a series on Leadership here at The Wealthy Ironworker

1. Leadership, Management, and The Skilled Trades
2. The 4 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader
3. Leadership and The Task-Oriented Trades
4. Situational Leadership and the Skilled Trades
5. Leadership and The Art of Intentionality
   1. Skills Developed From The Art of Intentionality
6. Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
   1. Skills Developed From Emotional Intelligence
7. Leadership and Humility
   1. Skills Developed From Humility
8. Leadership and Listening to Understand and Not to Respond
   1. Skills Developed From Listening to Understand and Not to Respond
9. Skills Developed Overall in the Leadership Process

***The above is subject to change as this series expands***