Emotional Intelligence

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) defines Emotional intelligence as a constellation of abilities that help leaders deal with their emotions and the emotions of others. The ability to maintain one’s poise in the midst of pressure-packed situations is essential for leadership. In a word, it’s difficult to lead intelligently when in the middle of losing one’s emotional control. Here are a few pointers for a person looking to improve in this area. First, before a person responds, he should pause long enough to ensure he is answering with his brain and not just his emotions. Second, since the person paused anyway, why not take a few second to pray/meditate on what is truly important in life. So many people respond without praying and needlessly damage relationships. Finally, after pausing and prayer, ponder over the correct leadership response in this situation.

In truth, I have violated all these principles (as everyone has); nonetheless, just knowing them and attempting to apply them will help a person improve rapidly. One of the key statements I have learned to say to myself when the emotion of the moment is attempting to take over is: Is it worth it? In other words, is what I am about to say really necessary and is it worth damaging the relationship if I am about to say something harsh. Indeed, Laurie and my marriage improved as much from what we didn’t say as from what we did say. Unfortunately, people tend to say the most hurtful things to those closest to them and maintain cordiality better with complete strangers. This can only change when people develop emotional intelligence.

The LIFE Business teaches extensively on Emotional Intelligence. In fact, yesterday, a doctorate level leadership graduate emailed me and signed up as a customer for the Launching a Leadership Revolution subscription (2 CDS, 1 DVD, and a book every month). This person asked to be on our subscription because, even though obtaining a doctorate level degree, she said she learned the best leadership principle from our community. Another great testimonial to the power of the LIFE products to make positive changes in a person’s life. LeaderShift, to be released on April 16th, has already climbed to the #8 best-selling book on Barnes and Nobles and it’s still over two months away from release. B&N has the book for sale at the lowest price offered online and free shipping for orders of just a couple of items.

Below is further information on EQ chapter from my Top 100 Leadership book RESOLVED: 13 Resolutions for LIFE.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

The greatest athletes and leaders all have a poise about them that strengthens the resolve of all of those following the leader.  No great achievement can be fulfilled without leaders of great attitude and great EQ.  The good news is that EQ, like a muscle, can be developed by placing oneself in increasing pressure situations over time.  Having a leader with high EQ is essential for others to learn from his or her poise on how to maintain composure even when others are losing theirs.  At the start of leadership, everyone will fail in EQ in different situations, but over time, one learns to develop the internal fortitude to control one’s emotions, rather than have the emotions control them.  Never let them see you sweat is a key principle in EQ based leadership.  Teammates will rally behind the EQ of the leader, developing a confidence that the leader will see them through. Conversely, if the leader lacks EQ, the team will panic, each one attempting to save his own skin, leaving the team and the team’s goals in shambles.  Attitude plus poise, plus strength of will, equals emotional intelligence quotient and every great leader must develop a high EQ.  Remember, it’s not what happens to great leaders that counts as much as how great leaders handle what happens to them.

The story of Phineas Gage, as shared in the must read, Emotional Intelligence Quick Book, was instrumental in helping psychologist understand the workings of the mind.  Here is a quick summary of his story.  Gage was a supervisor of a railroad crew, considered one of the best, for punctual work and leadership skills.  In an on the job accident, while tamping gunpowder into a blasting hole, the gunpowder exploded, sending a 43 inch long tamping iron of a full one and a quarter inches diameter through the frontal lobe of Gage’s brain. Amazingly, Gage lived to tell the story!  It was a miracle that he lived to tell the story, but very quickly, others realized that he wasn’t the same man.  Instead of his famed emotional control and leadership, Gage now lost his temper quickly, becoming emotionally unstable at the slightest provocation.  He would curse like a sailor under stress, creating tension and chaos among his crew, responding to challenges radically different than his previous leadership style.  He went from being one of the best of crew leaders to being unemployed, simply because of his lack of emotional intelligence.  Gage, unlike us, had an excuse, he literally lacked the frontal lobe where reasoning took place.  Meaning it was physically impossible for him to reason through his feelings, but the many EQ impaired people in life, do not have the same physical excuse.  EQ is a simply a choice.  A choice to slow down and think through the issues before reacting with feelings only.  Yes, the senses will hit the ‘feeling’ part of the brain first, but with patience, one can wait for the senses to hit the ‘reasoning’ part also, responding with the whole brain in a high EQ style.  Leaders refuse to react to the emotional stimulus only, but choose a response after feeling and thinking, in other words, with a high emotional intelligence quotient.

How many times have we witnessed people lose their cool, at work, at the airport, or during a sports contest, naming just a few?  Is this type of behavior drawing people towards the potential leader or repelling them?  No one enjoys spending time with a hot-head anymore than one enjoys walking on pins and needles.  People build friendships with people who have predictable behaviors.  Meaning, its hard to be friends with someone who will hug you one day, and hit you the next.  People with low EQ, having not mastered their own emotions; therefore, they cannot lead themselves, let alone, lead others.  All great victories in life begin with a victory over self.  What happens when pressure builds in your life?  How do you respond to the stress?  If you don’t like the answers, welcome to the club, but the good news is that you can change.  Before reacting to the stress emotionally, take a deep breath, forcing the mind to be still until one has time to reflect rationally, responding to the situation like a leader.  It will take practice, but the results are well worth the investment.  When a person lifts his EQ, it has the opposite effect from Phineas Gage.  Gage lost his EQ, when his lost that portion of his brain, but we can gain EQ, by gaining the functionality of this portion of our brains through patient practice.  It almost as if we gained an extra portion of brain matter, since it was practically unused. Learning to respond with EQ is one of the biggest changes in a person’s leadership journey, quickly noticeable to those following your leadership.

Learning Agility

The second soft skill that every leader ought to develop is learning agility. Learning agility is an individual’s readiness, willingness, and ability to learn from experience. Since everyone makes mistakes, it’s the ability to learn from them that separates the winners from the losers in life. When a winner suffers a setback, he uses the experience as a teachable moment to improve. Unfortunately, however, when a loser suffers a setback, he quickly uses the experience to blame someone or something for his defeat. Evidently, people who blame others cannot comprehend that they are their own worst enemies. Indeed, when a person blames others for any situation, he absolves himself from responsibility, thus ensuring further failures in the future. A much better alternative would be to accept personal responsibility for the outcome and ask what he could do better in the future. There is always an answer to this simple question, and it leads to personal growth when applied, which is the key to leadership development!

This, in truth however, isn’t the whole story when it comes to learning agility. For there is a second part of learning agility that is just as important, namely, learning from the experience of others. Because a person cannot live long enough to personally experience every teachable moment, he must learn to borrow experiences from other winners in the game of life. Thankfully, this can be achieved through reading, listening, and associating with winners. This, in fact, is what the LIFE business is: a ready-made path of reading, listening, and associating! Indeed, with nearly 25% of all monthly subscriptions moved to customers that are not part of the LIFE Compensation Plan, our materials have proven to be viable, valuable, and affordable in the marketplace. Materials include CDs, DVDs, books, online videos, and live events, which the LIFE business has packaged into reading, listening, and associating segments to grow a person’s learning agility.

For instance, the Mental Fitness Challenge, at $220 for the 13-week course, is a steal at twice that price. Why then, does LIFE sell its world-class information for such a ridiculously low price? Because all of the LIFE Founders started their personal development careers with little to no money and had to stretch personally, professionally, and financially to achieve success. We vowed that if we ever started our own company, we would do it differently. Finally, when the doors opened to start our own leadership and personal development company, we fulfilled that vow. Learning agility, then, is not just learning from one’s own experiences, but also borrowing the experiences of others who are growing personally and professionally. There is no better way to do that than by joining the LIFE community as either a Customer or Member and reading, listening, and associating one’s way to success.

The LIFE business is no longer an unproven theory. For thousands of people have experienced the positive effects of learning agility in their lives. Finances have changed, marriages have improved, and leadership has been developed. By any leadership standard, learning agility is certainly one of the keys. The question is: What is the reader doing today to enhance his personal leadership agility? Remember, the quality of one’s life is in direct proportion to the quality of questions asked and answered.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Here is the first promised article on the ten soft skills of leadership. The LIFE business builds each one of these into its customers and members. Each subscription sold reaches another person with life-changing truth. It is time for a LeaderShift, and it must begin inside each of us. In any event, here is the self-awareness article. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

3 Stages of Self-Awareness

The first soft-skill principle is self-awareness. Leaders must cut through the illusions most people suffer when it comes to their own strengths and weaknesses in order to identify areas to change. Interestingly, potential leaders swing to one of two extremes when attempting to see themselves as they truly are. On one side, they delude themselves into seeing no issues to work on and quickly blame those around them for any lack of results on the scoreboard—a sure way to never grow personally. However, on the other side, are the people who see others’ strengths and only their own weaknesses; hence, they beat themselves up and never fulfill their potential. The secret is to move from the extremes into the middle point of comprehending one’s strengths while working on one’s weaknesses. This is captured in a simple quote I developed nearly a decade ago:

Find a victory in every defeat to remain hopeful and find a defeat in every victory to remain humble.

Read that quote several times. This is one of the key principles I have utilized to grow in all areas. For in this quote is the secret to the Plan, Do, Check, and Adjust process: a humble, yet hopeful attitude. Since we are humans, we will always make mistakes—this keeps us humble. However, if we work consistently, we will improve greatly and produce phenomenal results, but these will never be perfect so that should also keep us humble. Indeed, John Wooden said to strive for perfection knowing that we will never attain it. Accordingly, humble and hopeful is the proper spirit to attack the leadership obstacles preventing a person from achieving his potential. Nonetheless, the extremes of self-love or self-hatred seem to be the rule, and this is the reason most people do not achieve leadership excellence.

The assignment for today is to peek inside the mental wall created by each reader to help them survive in this world filled with more discouragement, setbacks and haters than encouragement, achievements, and lovers. Even so, a leader must be self-aware and evaluate himself as he truly is so he can move to where he truly wants to be. Here are some questions to ask:

1. What areas of my leadership, if I changed today, would create the most growth for my community?
2. How can I feed my own heart encouragement to continue the change process?
3. How can I be a better encourager for those around me to pour oxygen into their spark of excellence?

Remember the “victory and defeat” quote above to stay humble and hopeful while moving ahead in 2013. Andrew Grove once said, “Only the paranoid survive.” I interpret this quote to mean that those who are self-aware and willing to see things as they truly are will grow, change, and survive. At any rate, are the readers ready to grow? Self-awareness is the key to beginning the change process.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Jean Leslie, a senior fellow with the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), identified ten soft skills for successful business leadership. Each one of these ten skills is taught in the LIFE business. In fact, I believe the soft skills are the difference makers in a leader’s success. Performers can get themselves to do the necessary tasks, but a leader must develop the soft skills to create a culture of success in an organization. Over the next several weeks, I will be diving into these ten skills to identify how to improve in each one. I have had a front-row seat in encouraging and mentoring many top leaders today who have worked on their soft skills. LIFE is life training for everyone to grow and become the leader he or she was called to be. Here are the ten soft skills.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

1. Self-awareness: Leaders must have an accurate picture of their strengths and weaknesses.

2. Learning agility: This is an individual’s readiness, willingness, and ability to learn from experience.

3. Emotional intelligence: Emotional intelligence is a constellation of abilities that help leaders deal with their emotions and the emotions of others.

4. Resiliency: Bouncing back from adversity.

5. Building relationships at all levels: Being able to show compassion, sensitivity, and a sense of humor with others—above and below in organizational structure—and being able to cultivate these relationships toward positive business performance.

6. Political savvy: The ability to influence people to obtain goals. The heart of being politically savvy, according to CCL, is networking, reading situations, and thinking before speaking. Not every leader likes politics, but it’s present in every organization.

7. Motivating and engaging others: How many leaders have been successful when they cannot motivate their teams?

8. Building and leading effective teams: This is one of the top challenges CEOs report, according to CCL. Building trust, setting strategic direction, and breaking down silos are some of the micro skills needed.

9. Creating a culture of trust and respect: This has become a big challenge since the rise of virtual communication, yet trust and respect among team members—and chiefly among leaders—is paramount.

10. Communication: Voicing goals and inspiring others is vital—but so is listening.