Most entrepreneurs are skilled at starting things – they keep pushing to move a project forward, but they sometimes realize that it’s not working, so they go back to the beginning and start over. As a leader, you know that it is important to make sure the concepts of vision, alignment and execution are entrenched in your mind.
Doing so makes it possible to build and grow instead of being caught in the familiar feedback loop that always ends up at square one. This is where the concept of emotional intelligence, or EQ, becomes important.
When you think of the most successful leaders of organizations ranging from start ups to Fortune 500 companies, almost all of them have worked very hard on developing their EQs.In fact, there are very few great leaders in the world who haven’t developed a refined EQ. At the very least, they realize that EQ is something important to work on.
The majority of leaders possess some kind of technical skill in a specific area, but they work incredibly hard on the emotional intelligence aspect of life. Following are six key points that leaders are encouraged to consider in order to develop emotional intelligence more fully:
Be receptive to input regarding how you can improve. As a leader, you understand the bottom line – it all begins and ends with you. Meet with your board, visit with your peers and speak with your managers to receive an honest assessment. It is crucial to be able to understand the areas in which you can improve.
Take a look at ways you can help your managers. Think about methods for coaching them and fostering improvement. Also, think about how you can improve your assessments. After all, if you aren’t willing to realize something is broken, how is it possible for you to fix it? Think about different areas where there’s room for improvement, and don’t be afraid to use an outside set of eyes.
View leadership as a program of continuous improvement. There is never an arrival or a destination. The great basketball coach John Wooden has said, “It’s what you learn after you know everything that counts.” You simply never arrive.
Understand that no individual can ever be great at everything. Of course, you might be more adept at the vision side of things, or perhaps you are more skilled when it comes to alignment or execution. You might be better at one thing, but you have to realize that it is necessary to improve in other aspects as you develop your team with the goal of filling in gaps.
One important key is to be open and honest about developmental needs and your weaknesses. Admitting your shortcomings is not a liability; it is, in fact, a strength because everyone understands that you possess those weaknesses anyway. Admit them at the outset, and do what it is necessary to prepare your team to fill the gaps.
Communicate your message over and over again.
Traditional, conventional performance management no longer exists. If you want to consider your vision while creating alignment and enabling execution, you need to think of alternative methods for communicating those concepts to the people in your organization.
Eliminate annual reviews, which often don’t occur at 12-month intervals anyway. Instead, create a mechanism through which real-time feedback can be given and received. This creates alignment, plus it inspires your team.
Additionally, it allows you to give and receive feedback so you can ensure that your vision is understood, and it gives you the structure that you require for success. These concepts are essential to developing healthy emotional intelligence, which can have a positive impact on every aspect of your organization.