Published on September 1st, 2022
When it comes to improving your leadership skills, IQ and technical skills definitely matter to get the job done.
However, for a manager or leader to be truly successful, it’s important to develop a key area that is often overlooked in the workplace: emotional intelligence.
The cost of low emotional intelligence can be quite high, including a high employee turnover to toxic behavior among employees.
As a leader, taking steps to improve your emotional intelligence can have a big impact on your performance and results, including better relationships with your employees, better conflict management and resolution, and improved communication skills across the board.
Consider Courses
There are lots of courses to consider taking as a manager or leader that are developed to help you boost your skills in terms of emotional intelligence, understanding more about what it is, how to use it, and how to improve it.
Many of these courses are not geared at managers in particular, but can be useful for learning skills that you can apply either in your professional or personal life.
There are also several courses that you can take to help you develop your skills in areas that require a high level of emotional intelligence to handle effectively such as conflict management.
This conflict management certificate, for example, will help you create a more harmonious atmosphere in the workplace.
Develop More Self Awareness
One of the key factors that will come into play when it comes to developing your emotional intelligence is the ability to manage yourself, understand and regulate your own emotions.
Successful leaders are good at leading themselves first before they begin to lead others. If you want to get better at this, then mindfulness is one of the best things that you can do to help you develop a deeper awareness of what’s going on within yourself emotionally and mentally.
Once you get better at this, you can notice smaller changes within yourself more quickly, and understand how your environment and the people around you might impact you.
Get Better at Accepting Feedback
For many people, it is natural to feel a bit defensive if we get feedback that’s not great or we were not expecting.
However, being able to take and accept feedback without getting defensive is an essential skill for an emotionally intelligent leader to have.
One of the biggest leadership problems that companies face today is that many leaders are unable to admit that they need to make improvements, even when faced with evidence.
Improving your emotional intelligence will help you control your emotions in these situations and see the bigger picture, rather than taking the feedback as an attack on yourself.
As you develop this skill, you will be able to see feedback as an invitation to learn something new and improve yourself instead.
When it comes to good leadership, emotional intelligence is an important skill that sadly is often overlooked. While your technical skills are important, emotional intelligence is often what sets good leaders apart from the rest.
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