I’ve had the privilege of talking with hundreds of people around the globe over the last 10 years about their emotional intelligence assessment results and prior to that many years of talking with organizations about what they want in leaders. As I reach the ten-year mark in the EQ world I wanted to try and capture the essence of this incredible experience. The people I’ve spoken with represent a wonderfully diverse group so finding a common thread has been challenging. However, after some time of reflection I feel like I’ve found the connection.,
Every heart wants a home.
Many of the conversations I’ve had with people include a mix of the personal and professional with EQ development benefitting both. In this moment though I would like to focus on the professional.
What led me into the field of emotional intelligence was 13 years of executive recruitment with a focus on leadership positions in mostly technical and engineering fields. When talking with a Hiring Manager about an open position I would always inquire about any internal candidates and the answer many times was that “we have a lot of skilled performers but none are ready to lead.” When asking to clarify what they meant by “lead” they would share some or most of the following, effective communication skills, ability to inspire action, understands our culture, upbeat and optimistic, authentic, able to build collaboration & unity, results oriented, solid ethical foundation. IQ is important and many of their people had it but they were not equally smart about people. IQ and EQ are both needed. If you are going sailing and have a boat, which is more important the rudder or the sail? Both are needed to get to your destination as they perform different functions.
The impact of low EQ can be measured many ways with one being employee engagement. People leave bosses not companies. We’ve all seen the studies showing that lack of employee engagement is resulting in billions in lost productivity. Engagement is connected to intrinsic motivation which we could also think about as passion. Passion doesn’t happen by accident. Inspirational leaders ignite passion within us. Inspirational leaders create a home for the hearts of their team. When our hearts are engaged it unleashes our creativity, we’ll dig deep and go beyond.
In short, emotional intelligence gives us the ability to connect with people, bring them together, unify effort, and lift them to higher levels of performance and success.
The ingredients to build a home for the heart includes, trust, respect, understanding, appreciation, teamwork, empathy, passion, purpose, confidence, awareness, authenticity, decisiveness, perspective, timing, optimism, flexibility, resilience, and so many more words that are used in describing company culture. Many of us are familiar with the quote from Peter Drucker that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. When leaders live the culture, it becomes the heartbeat of the organization.
When this happens, every heart will have a home.
We offer various options for bringing emotional intelligence into an organization and would be glad to chat with you to explore EQ.
Virtual EQ Workshop In Person EQ Workshop EQ-i 2.0 Certification
All the best,
