🧭 What Makes You a Great Leader

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Good Day, and welcome to The Growth Compass. We are like a paint-by-number kit: giving you the tools and guidance you need to create a beautiful life that is truly a work of art.

Here’s Where We Are Headed Today:

• Dale Carnegie on Emotional Intelligence

• Why You Need Emotional Intelligence to Be a Leader

• What Makes You a Leader (Emotional Intelligence Explained)

• Daniel Goleman on Emotional Intelligence

• Free Mental Fitness Links 👇

• Quick Takeaways from Today’s Newsletter (TLDR) 👇

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Why You Need Emotional Intelligence to Be a Leader

What it is: Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a crucial component of effective leadership. It involves the ability to understand and manage one's own emotions and the emotions of others. This skill set enhances a leader's ability to communicate, resolve conflicts, and guide teams through challenging situations.

Why it Matters: Leaders with high emotional intelligence can foster a positive work environment, which is essential for employee satisfaction, retention, and productivity. Their emotional awareness and regulation also enable them to make more thoughtful decisions and maintain a constructive outlook even in stressful scenarios. High emotional intelligence enables:

• Enhanced Team Collaboration

• Improved Conflict Resolution

• Better Decision Making

• Increased Employee Engagement

• Stronger Crisis Management

What the Science Says:

1. Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Effectiveness - One landmark study conducted by Daniel Goleman in 1998 explored various organizations and assessed the emotional intelligence of their leaders. He found a strong correlation between high levels of EI and leadership success. His data revealed that leaders with higher EI not only retained talented staff more effectively but also led teams that demonstrated higher productivity and morale. This study was pivotal in establishing emotional intelligence as a key predictor of leadership success.

2. EI Showed Improved Performance - A study in 2000 by Boyatzis, Goleman, and Rhee took place within a large organization and focused on the impact of emotional intelligence competencies on leadership performance. The authors analyzed the performance of leaders in relation to their EI competencies. Their findings were conclusive: Leaders who exhibited higher levels of emotional intelligence were more likely to outperform their peers in meeting business objectives. This study underscored the importance of EI competencies in achieving organizational success and effective leadership.

What Makes You a Leader

In the Harvard Business Review essay ”What Makes a Leader?” by Daniel Goleman, the focus is on emotional intelligence (EI) as the key differentiator between great leaders and their peers. EI consists of five core skills: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. These skills enable leaders to maximize both their own and their followers' performance.

Goleman's research in numerous global companies shows that while traditional leadership qualities like intelligence and vision are important, EI is a more potent predictor of success. This is especially true in senior leadership roles where technical skills are less differentiating. A high degree of EI not only enhances individual performance but also boosts organizational results. For example, when senior managers at one company had a critical mass of EI capabilities, their divisions outperformed yearly earnings goals by 20%.

Let’s break down the five core skills:

1. Self-awareness involves understanding your emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and their impact on others. It’s characterized by self-confidence and a realistic self-assessment.

2. Self-regulation relates to controlling disruptive emotions and impulses when they occur. It signifies trustworthiness and integrity and shows you choose to respond, not react.

3. Motivation is the drive to achieve for its own sake, with passion for the work and resilience in the face of failure.

4. Empathy is about understanding others' emotions and it’s crucial in diverse and globalized environments.

5. Social Skill involves managing relationships effectively and leading people towards a shared goal.

The below chart is adjusted from Goleman’s HBR Article

Summary / Action Steps:

You aren’t born with these EI skills, but they can be developed with dedication, practice, and feedback. This is vital as the world increasingly needs leaders with the ability to manage teams, navigate cultural differences, and retain talent. Leaders with high EI foster environments of trust and fairness, are adept at managing change, and have the ability to build and maintain effective teams.

So how can you improve your emotional intelligence?

1. Mindfulness - Practice being present in the moment. Mindfulness helps you recognize your current state within yourself and the emotions of others. It helps with all 5 of the EI skills because you are able to connect better with yourself and others.

2. 360 Degree Feedback - Use a 360 degree survey to gather feedback from your team and peers to better understand how you are doing in each of these skills. This feedback will help you understand where you need to grow.

3. Practice Active Listening - Listen attentively to others without preparing your response while they are speaking. Pay attention to their body language and tone as well as their words.

4. Improve your Self-Awareness - Take time each day to journal or reflect to improve your self-awareness. Write on how your day went and how you are feeling. Understand what you are feeling and why.

5. Continuous Learning - Read books, such as Emotional Intelligence, attend workshops, or seek seminars to understand emotional intelligence better and learn new strategies for improvement.

Daniel Goleman on Emotional Intelligence

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