IN THIS EPISODE:
This episode focuses on developing emotional intelligence for future leaders. The host emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence in handling criticism, praise, and interactions with others. The three areas of focus discussed are self-awareness and reflection, empathy for other decision-making processes, and regulating the decision-making process. The episode concludes by highlighting the continuous growth and journey towards becoming better leaders.
Key Focus Areas:
- 00:00 – Importance of Emotional Intelligence
- 01:28 – Self-Awareness and Reflection
- 04:24 – Empathy for Other Decision-Making Processes
- 09:29 – Regulating the Decision-Making Process
Listen To This Episode:
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Cultivating Emotional Intelligence for Empowered Leadership
In our recent podcast episode, “Developing Emotional Intelligence for Future Leaders,” we delved deep into how enhancing emotional intelligence (EI) can significantly elevate the leadership capabilities of high-performing women. Emotional intelligence is more than a buzzword; it’s a critical skill set that can transform how you lead, communicate, and inspire those around you. This article expands on three key focus areas discussed in the episode, providing additional insights and actionable steps.
1. Self-Awareness: The Foundation of Emotional Mastery
Self-awareness is the cornerstone of emotional intelligence. It involves understanding your emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and the underlying motivations of your actions. This introspection enables you to lead with authenticity and confidence.
- **Practice Regular Self-Reflection**: Dedicate time each week to reflect on your emotional responses and interactions. This could be through journaling or meditation. Ask yourself: What emotions did I experience today? What triggered these emotions? How did my emotions influence my decisions and interactions?
- **Embrace Vulnerability in Seeking Feedback**: Reach out to trusted colleagues or mentors for honest feedback. This can provide invaluable insights into how your emotions and actions are perceived by others, opening pathways for growth and improved interpersonal relationships.
Remember, self-awareness is an ongoing journey, not a destination. It requires continuous effort and honesty with oneself.
2. Empathy: Fostering a Culture of Understanding
Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, is a powerful tool in a leader’s arsenal. It helps in building strong, supportive teams where each member feels valued and understood.
- Prioritize Active Listening: In your interactions, focus entirely on the speaker. Active listening is not just about hearing words but understanding the emotions and intentions behind them. This practice not only garners respect from team members but also provides deeper insights into their needs and concerns.
- Create Safe Spaces for Open Communication: Encourage your team to share their thoughts and feelings. This could be through regular one-on-ones, open forums, or anonymous feedback channels. A safe and open communication environment fosters trust and loyalty, crucial for team cohesion and effectiveness.
Empathy in leadership goes beyond just understanding; it’s about taking actionable steps based on that understanding to support and empower your team.
3. Emotional Regulation in Decision-Making
As a leader, balancing emotional insights with rational thinking is crucial in decision-making. Emotional regulation doesn’t mean suppressing emotions but understanding and managing them to make informed, balanced decisions.
- Identify and Manage Emotional Triggers: Recognize situations or interactions that trigger strong emotions. Develop strategies to manage these triggers, such as taking a moment to breathe, stepping back to analyze the situation objectively, or seeking a second opinion.
- Balance Emotion with Logic: When faced with a decision, consider both your emotional intuition and factual data. This balanced approach ensures that decisions are not just emotionally driven but also grounded in reality and practicality.
Embracing emotional regulation leads to decisions that are not only effective but also empathetic, aligning with the overall vision and values of your leadership.
Integrating these elements of emotional intelligence into your leadership style can dramatically transform your effectiveness and impact as a leader. It’s about leading not just with the mind but also with the heart. As you embark on this journey of emotional growth, remember that every step you take not only elevates your leadership but also inspires those around you to reach their full potential. Let’s continue to foster a world of emotionally intelligent leadership, where empathy, understanding, and balanced decision-making are the norms, not the exceptions.
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Maven Miara (00:03.242)
Hey, hey, Maven Nation, it's Maven Miara. And welcome to another episode of Success With Saneness. Today's episode is going to be about developing emotional intelligence. I'm saying for future leaders, but of course it's for all leaders. I focused on future leaders in the topic because maybe you're a new leader or you haven't yet stepped into management.
And that's something that is in your goal is something you wanna do. So the emotional intelligence question really helps us focus on really for me, the maturity level of your emotional intelligence. How do you handle criticism? How do you handle praise even? How are you interacting with other people? Maybe those are people reporting to you or simply people on your team.
is what I want us to think about. Balancing emotional intelligence is a landscape. It requires us as leaders to be flexible, it could be daunting. Oftentimes, it could even mean putting someone else's emotions ahead of yours. I'm not talking about in a damaging or harmful way, but simply giving someone else the space to
kind of maybe that's let their emotional intelligence, maybe that's not as mature as yours, come to the surface. While you as the more mature emotional intelligence person kind of gives them space to do their thing. So I'm gonna talk about three areas of focus around this emotional intelligence. And the first one is self-awareness and reflection. That simply means
understanding your own emotional intelligence capacity. No one can know that, but you, you hear me saying that. Oftentimes, no one will know what your best is about, what your limit capacity of these things are, but you, no one will know better than you. And maybe you're saying, well, maybe I don't really know that's okay. That's not a problem. Here's how you solve that.
Maven Miara (02:28.23)
You begin to spend time, quiet time with just yourself and you listen to yourself. Just, just listen or watch, be intentional on noticing how you behave, how you react to things. Uh, again, no one is going to understand or know your emotional intelligence better than you. That includes understanding your strengths.
your weaknesses, your drivers, what's critical for you, what you can go, that's good to have, but it's not a big deal for me. Okay, so here's an example of that. I am a quick decision maker. I don't need a ton of data to make a decision. Once I feel like I have the critical pieces necessary to make a solid decision, not a rushed decision or a hasty decision,
but a solid decision, I'm okay to make that decision. Okay. That also can lend to me not being as patient. That's an observation I have of myself with people that do need more information. I call that wanting perfect information. They want to see the data, the backup, the support, read the 10 articles, all of the things. Nothing wrong with that. We don't all have the same.
a decision making style or abilities. But because I know my emotional intelligence of being able to make quick decisions. And even if that decision is the wrong decision, not the best decision, I'm okay to make a pivot, a turnabout, a U-turn, whatever the decision now needs. I'm okay to do that. So that leads me to
being aware, my emotional intelligence, that if I'm interacting with someone that is not as quick on the decision making, and again, I wanna emphasize, that doesn't mean that their decision making process is wrong. It's just not the same as mine. This is where the emotional intelligence comes in. I just simply need to be aware of that, and then I need to have enough maturity to say, I've gotta give that person a little more time.
Maven Miara (04:53.886)
a little more space, whatever it looks like. Now, obviously if there's a deadline, a decision has to be made in a timely fashion, but just because someone isn't with their decisions, I have to have enough emotional intelligence maturity to say they need a little more space, even if they don't ask for it, or maybe they're not aware that they're
asking for more data or for more information or whatever it is, when I might think they have enough information to make the decision that we need to make, I've got to be able to be mature enough to say,
what they need is not going to make us miss a deadline or whatever. I can give them the space to read the extra article or dig through the data a little bit more. Again, your emotional intelligence maturity level has to be understood by you so that you know, um, what, what might be a trigger for you? Um, someone making a slower decision could be a trigger for me. Okay.
but I have to be aware of that. And then how do I give grace or space for that so that I get what I need, which is ultimately the decision made and the other person or team members also if they need more space that they're allowed that. And now we all win. Everyone has gotten what they need in this decision making process and we, and we're fine. But if I,
rush that personal demand that they make the decision right now, or think through the decision process, how I do it. Okay. Yeah, we can come to a decision, but is it going to be a win win? Probably not because that person's going to feel rushed, unseen, unheard, all of the things. So be self aware about your emotional intelligence. And again, know the things that trigger you that cause you to
Maven Miara (07:03.758)
cut off other people, not give them space. Again, that's something I still have to be very on top of is not cutting someone off when they're asking the fifth question or whatever it is. Because in my head I'm like, this is the solution. I see it. Don't you see it? And maybe they don't, or maybe they just need a little bit more reinforcement. I've got to give space for that. That leads to focus area. Number two,
of having empathy for other decision making processes. Again, I'm not gonna say that a person that is able to make quick decision should be the lead or the leader or the best leader. Every situation doesn't call for that. But if we as leaders have to have the ability to again, have the empathy to share with
maybe other people that report to us or on our team or future leaders, emerging leaders to say, maybe we're a mentor or sponsor for someone to give them some guidance. And almost you could look at the foundation of that emotional intelligence maturity or growth at some level of empathy, some level of empathy that again, it doesn't mean that everyone's going to be
where I am because clearly there will be people ahead of me. We should be connected to people that are even stronger than us in this emotional intelligence, um, field in this area that we're talking about so that we can continue to grow. We can also be examples for other people. So just because my emotional intelligence, um, level might be higher than someone else. If I'm not using empathy,
to create space for someone coming behind more that's watching me or connected to me to also grow, then I would say maybe my emotional intelligence is not as strong as I think it is, right? Um, it doesn't mean I need to be critical of others or other people on my team. Create space, use empathy for that. So let's touch on this third area of focus around emotional intelligence.
Maven Miara (09:29.778)
And that's regulating the decision making process, balancing our emotions with rational is the key word here, rational thoughts. Um, because again, it could seem irrational to me that someone could need more information, more data, more time, all of these things. But, but is that very wrong?
rational for me to literally in that scenario, I'm saying to someone you need to be making decisions, how I make decisions that I have the best way to make all the decisions. And that is not rational. And us saying to someone, you know, I'm going to give you space or what is your decision? Let's, let's go with what you think. That's us.
regulating our emotions and using rational, rational again is the key word, thoughts about how we're going to move through this process. Because again, I want you to really think about this as a leader. If your team feels, suspects, and you have a history of showing that only
your decisions and your decision making process is the only way. I think you're shortchanging your yourself and your team. If they don't feel that they have the space to speak up, share their thoughts, their ideas, um, maybe something that's completely opposite of what you've laid out on the table. Then again, I'm going to challenge your level of emotional intelligence that you're displaying.
Okay. And getting that feedback from people you're frequently interact with, um, I think helps us continue to grow and develop our emotional intelligence because I could be thinking because I'm a quick decision maker, that's the best way I'm doing great. And, and what if there's a couple of people on the team that always feels rushed or not heard because I'm moving at such a quick pace. Okay.
Maven Miara (11:53.662)
If we can get that feedback from people that we're working with most interacting with, then we can get confirmation. Yes. You know, I'm using great emotional intelligence, or we might get some feedback that says we're not doing as great as we thought we were. Okay. And that gives us an opportunity to grow, which also shows other leaders.
and inspires them that we're all still growing, all still growing. And just because we have, uh, growth pieces that we do, that we embrace, doesn't mean that we're not, that we're failing in some way. Right. Um, I don't know that this emotional intelligence is if you ever reach the final spot, like I've achieved all. So look at this as a journey.
as are so many other things that we do and develop as leaders, we're on a journey to becoming better. So Mavens, I hope these three focus areas on ways you can build your emotional intelligence can help your leadership style, not just for you, but also for your, for your team, for those you are working with. So keep focusing on leading with empathy, giving space to others to make their decisions.
and grow in their own emotional intelligence. And again, if you're a mentor sponsor for someone, give them that feedback, help them grow in this area. I think us being women, that one of the things, which is a stereotype nonetheless, that we're always being led by our emotions. We're making emotional decisions. I think the more we grow our emotional intelligence,
That's gonna help us with, again, that balance of emotions and rational decision-making so that we're making solid decisions and being solid leaders. So Maiden, thank you again for tuning in to another episode of Success With Samus. Remember, leadership is not just about what you do, but it is also how we connect with others, how we understand ourselves, and how those around us.
Maven Miara (14:18.842)
understand us as well. So until next time, keep doing your BAM thing. Talk soon.
