The High-EQ Leader: 5 Ways to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence

As a leader, you influence the behavior and performance of your employees and the overall mood in your organization.

Employees look to their supervisors and managers for emotional leadership to guide their work. If you lack key emotional competencies and don’t set a good example, you will notice low employee engagement, high turnover rate, and other effects that are detrimental to the overall performance and success of the company.

Having a high emotional intelligence or EQ, therefore, is a trait you must have to run a business like a well-oiled machine and ensure its success.

Mastering EQ also means you can work well with others within and outside your organization and continue to advance your career.

Increasing Your Emotional Intelligence

Below are five ways you can boost your EQ and become a better leader:

1. Take the right leadership courses.

Leadership courses come in different types. Choosing the right ones allows you to develop and master the skills and qualities you need to become a great leader, including various emotional competencies.

When choosing which courses to take, go over the topics and modules. Look for ones related to EQ, such as influencing skills and enabling and encouraging others to act.

Also, find out how the course is provided. Ideally, you should be given opportunities to apply what you’ve learned.

If not, you should be able to get support from the trainers regarding applying the concepts and skills you learn in your workplace and other settings.

2. Work on your self-awareness.

Before you can lead others effectively, you need to know and understand yourself first.

Here are some tips for doing so:

• Respect yourself. Know your limitations and look for ways to achieve balance in all areas of your life. Also, look for ways to overcome your shortcomings and be open to change.
• Establish your visions. Listen to your inner values and dreams to create a list of your most important goals.
• Trust yourself. Try to avoid compromising your values to achieve your goal or for other momentary gains if you find yourself in challenging situations.
• Cultivate your passion. Learn to be motivated by your internal compass rather than external influences.

3. Be an expert in managing your negative emotions.

All leaders should be experts in regulating their emotions. When you are capable of doing this, you won’t get overwhelmed quickly.

You will then be able to make smart decisions anytime, even in the most distressing situations.

Moreover, you won’t be prone to attacking others whenever you’re upset and avoid compromising your values under pressure.

To be more adept in self-regulation and managing your emotions, practice mindfulness at work. Also, make it a habit to look at situations, particularly stressful ones, objectively so that you don’t get riled up easily.

Identifying your stressors can also help you manage your emotions at work. Take note of the things that stress you out and find a way to avoid or minimize them.

Following these tips will help you change your perspective and have a more positive mindset all the time.

4. Be mindful of your words.

Being a great leader means having excellent communication skills. However, this trait goes beyond having an extensive vocabulary and communicating well with and listening to others proactively.

You also have to choose your words wisely when speaking since a wrong one can hurt or confuse others, which can lead to a variety of problems.

One way of doing this is choosing more emotionally accurate words to convey what you’re feeling in the moment. For instance, you may say you’re angry at a particular situation, but you’re more irritated by it.

By narrowing down your emotion to irritation, a less intense feeling, you will find it easier to manage it and stay calm under pressure.

Also, make it a habit to use more specific words that can help communicate deficiencies. Make sure you help address these deficits, regardless of who owns or causes them.

5. Enhance your social awareness.

Be mindful of how your actions and opinions affect others. Moreover, be aware of the power you have to motivate others.

Here are some ways of improving your social awareness:

• Show genuine concern for your team.Always be empathetic and listen actively. Doing so allows you to create stronger and lasting bonds with your employees who will work with you instead of against you.
• Share your vision with your team.Ask their input and advice when setting your goals so that they can understand what you want to achieve and motivate them to support your plans. Make use of everyone’s best qualities by giving them the right tasks and responsibilities that they excel in.
• Acknowledge others.Let your team or individual employees know when they have done a good job. Also, always recognize and reward excellence.
• Help employees expand and hone their skills.As you work on being a better leader, support your team members who want to acquire more competencies and achieve career advancement. This means providing them opportunities for training and self-development. Encouraging them to sign up for a management development program is a good start.

Boosting your EQ is a continuous process. Continue putting into practice whatever you’ve learned, and looking for ways to improve as a leader.

Your hard work will pay off since you will be able to achieve further career advancement and you will contribute more to the growth of your team and the company.

Speak with one of our staff today to know more about our leadership and management courses.