WHAT EVERY LEADERS NEED: EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Have you ever been in a situation where it seems you woke up from the wrong side of your bed? Where everything just seems it is not going the way you planned? Or perhaps have someone turned you down or not appreciate you after doing a great job? Have you ever felt in such a way that you cant explain why you are gloomy and feeling unhappy? Have someone ever said something to you that killed your morale all through the day? If you have ever experienced any of this, congratulations you are not in this alone.


But when you find yourself in this situation how do you handle it, am pretty sure many of us transfer our aggression to people and make them pay for what they knew nothing about. It makes people immediately notice when you are not in the mood or perhaps when you have mood swing . it becomes so bad for you as a leader at home, workplace and every section where you lead because it affects your effectiveness and thereby damping others morale and emotions. May I tell you this as a leader it is not enough for you to be very intelligent even though it is a key factor in leading others but if your emotional intelligence is very low then am careful to say that your organization is going down the drain because as a leader you are meant to influence others and a very important way of doing this is how you communicate, and your emotion at this part plays a key role.


So you might what to ask what is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence refers to the capability of a person(leader) to manage and control his or her emotions and possess the ability to control the emotions of others as well, that is,they can influence the emotions of other people also.

Having established the fact that emotional intelligence is a very important skill in leadership. it has been researched that for one to be emotionally intelligent this five elements must be seen as a trait in such a person which are:

SELF-AWARENESS: How aware are you of your environment, this makes you be in a better position to understand others, and affect people around you, this also means you are aware of your strengths and weakness. And anytime you experience anger try take note of what made you annoyed.

SELF-REGULATION: This is the next step in which you think and digest what you intend saying before spilling it out and this would impact others in a positive way, that is, you must be accountable to yourself whenever you make a mistake and always try to be calm in whatever situation.

MOTIVATION: How motivated are you when faced with series of tasks, when you are motivated as a leader it becomes easy for you to influence others, as a leader show your followers how it is done by leading by example and always see something good in every challenge you find yourself.

EMPHATY: As a emotional intelligent person, how well are you able to put yourself in other’s shoes before judging them and as a leader you should be able to empathise  with others because this in turn makes you earn the respect of your followers.

SOCIAL SKILLS: This is about communicating your point of view to your follower, and this is needed to help build relationship and in turn makes them trust you as a leader.

Diagram showing elements of emotional intelligence 

Check yourself if you are truly emotionally intelligent, in my next article I would be sharing with us signs that shows you lack emotional intelligence. I would appreciate you seek honest opinions of others especially your followers and ask them how you react when you are annoyed? And how well you handle tasks under pressure?  This would give you a direction on where you need to adjust and be emotionally intelligent.
Till we meet again on leaders corner I remain OLUWATOBI OKE (pastorgoody)