JCA Global have developed a tool that looks at emotional intelligence in a slightly different way. It looks at attitudes, feelings and behaviours. First of all, attitudes, and our feelings towards different stimuli; then feelings, and when I talk about feelings, I talk about feelings from almost a physiology perspective, so really being in tune with what I'm feeling. And then the final bit is about the behaviours. When we start to look at that, we look at the relationship that I have with myself and the relationship that I have with others and this leads on to the importance of relationship building.
There's neurological evidence to support the fact that our attitudes and our feelings around those attitudes are based on stimuli or experiences from the past and probably triggers from the past. So when you have a feeling or an emotion, you'll either interpret and filter that emotion either in a positive way or in a negative way. And that will therefore inform your behaviour.
The reason that your attitudes are really important, and your attitudes towards yourself and your attitude towards others, is because that will be the fundamental and underlying piece that will inform how you respond. And particularly when we're looking in the workplace and we're looking at senior leaders, their behaviour will be based on how they either feel about themselves or how they feel about others. So fundamentally, if I feel all right about myself and I've got high self-regard, it doesn't matter what happens in terms of my performance or my behaviour. I know fundamentally that I'm an OK person. So we look at it in that context. The flip side of that is that actually I've got really high regard for myself but I haven't necessarily got high regard for others, that can create leadership behaviours that aren't necessarily great from an EI perspective. So it's always about looking at what the context is behind that.
Once we have looked at attitudes, we then need to look at awareness, and awareness in the context of emotional intelligence is about that ability to be emotionally aware and in tune with what I'm feeling. So if we start to look at the attitude, we start to look at, OK, I've had a reaction to a situation. I'm feeling something, and it could either be a really extreme emotional response, and it could be positive or negative. I'm experiencing different feelings around that. So in the context of emotional intelligence, that ability to really understand what I'm feeling is a really important part that will then inform with how I connect with myself and the behaviour in terms of how I manage my behaviour, but how I connect with other people.
When I work with leaders around emotional intelligence I try to get them in tune with what they're feeling. And believe me, in the workplace this is a really challenging situation, because we come to work and more often than not, particularly senior leadership teams, they have a mask that they wear. And it will be based on how they feel they need to behave rather than probably how they want to behave. So there's a lot of work that's being done at the moment around authentic leadership and what is it to be an authentic leader and being really clear about really understanding that. So I guess that feeds back into if I'm more aware of who I am in terms of what underpins my attitudes, and my values, and beliefs, then probably the more aware I am of others. And I always say to leaders, the amount of people, the amount of senior leadership teams that I've worked with that said, we want you to run a senior leadership development programme because they need to change. And I bring it back to the fact that actually, it's probably you that needs to change, and let's start with you. And if you change and you get greater awareness of what other people need, then you're going to get a more engaged workforce.
The third area is around emotional intelligence and then how I start to manage my behaviour. Being really aware of what you're feeling can really help you inform how you then choose to behave in terms of your own self-management. You'll be far less reactive, and far more responsive, and far more intelligent. So you won't be reacting to those negative emotions that you might have experienced in the past.
The final bit that I would then look at and that the model looks at, it's about how do I take my understanding of myself as a way of better relate to other people. If you think about the workplace, whether you're a graduate that's starting your career, and you've just come out of university and you're just starting, or whether you're a senior leader of an organisation, that ability to be able to relate to other people and engage with other people is an absolutely critical part. Being able to really understand, and be aware and interpret how others are feeling, being able to listen to their perspectives, being interested in them actually. I worked with a leader recently who was really struggling to engage with the people on his team. He was incredibly introverted, very logical, and for him it just wasn't within his preference to actually go up to his team members and ask them questions such as: What's important here? What are you feeling? The team members preference was much more around what were they feeling. It was really important for them. And by just changing some aspects of that, he was more able to connect with the people in his team, which ultimately will result in high performance.
So to recap on those four points around emotional intelligence, the first thing that you need to really look at is your attitude. So that's your attitude towards yourself, and how you regard your yourself, and your attitude towards others. The second point is around awareness, so really understanding how you feel and how an individual feels. It's such an important part. The third point is around self-management. So based on how I feel about myself, the awareness that I have of my own feelings, how I then choose to behave in terms of my ability to manage my behaviour is the next point. And finally the importance of working with others and building relationships.
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Author: Adapted from a video on the ACT Career Hub from Amanda Wildman, executive coach, emotionally-i-fit www.emotionally-i-fit.com