Emotional Intelligence – What the heck is it??

If the talent and passion is there, I think EI is next most important factor of a great team.

I also think it would help the team to have an understanding of what EI is, or at least a common understanding.

How it was described to me is that natural selection has embedded in the human brain a “fight or flight” instinct when you feel threatened or overly frustrated. This instinct actually shuts down or substantially turns down the logic/thoughtfulness/strategic thinking portion of our brain. So when a human is faced with a charging beast it can survive by instantly thinking “RUN!!” versus slow analytic thoughts of “I need to develop a list of options and determine the most efficient decision for the moment.” and then of course being eaten.

This is a natural instinct has allowed our species to survive thousands of years, but of course can be very destructive to a team dynamic when you need to challenge ideas to vet the best path and the instinct has the questioned person to react with a “lets fight” or completely withdraw response.

My understanding is that EI is the developed skill to control that instinct.

As far as the individual components of EI here are my additional thoughts:

On Self awareness: Don’t disagree although I do have a question of whether or not this includes “presence”. Being aware that your “presence” – body language, facial expressions, short expletive comments dramatically impact the team energy in a room and being self aware of what your “presence” is. We have this issue of “presence”. Usually 2 or 3 times a meeting. I don’t believe the team member is even aware that is the message they are sending.

Self management: Again don’t disagree, my belief is that the majority of team struggle more with awareness than self-management. I can feel be aware that I am feeling intense, excited or frustrated and that those feelings are impacting the room, but I sometimes struggle to unwind it. I admire a couple team members in particular for their skill in this area, because they seem to be able to control themselves better once they are aware. They rarely repeat an EI issue once made aware of it.

Empathy: I agree.

Social skills: Yup.

Leadership assertiveness: Yup

I think one thing missing in this is the “Team Support” factor. And I think this is the challenge of EI dynamics in a team. When our natural tendencies start influencing a meeting negatively how do we as a team “have each others back”. So when someone clearly is having EI issues in a meeting, how we: recognize it; forgive the person or at least not be offended by “their moment”; pull them back from the edge and re-engage them on a positive business-like track?

Thank you for your comment – it is filled with great topics for conversation for all executive leadership teams.

In response – when discussing self awareness with teams, I often talk about our fight, flight and freeze response. So just as one member may want to ‘run’ another may want to ‘stand still in their tracks’. Each response giving the individual very strong and instructive messages to further develop the signals to self awareness.

Once these triggers or messages are identified, the individual can start to choose different behaviours for their response. Hopefully, more effective behaviours so that they then can navigate with increased empathy, social skills and leadership assertiveness.

You write that your understanding of emotional intelligence is: “it is a developed skill to control that instinct”. I think there is much more to emotional intelligence.

You have described a good understanding of self awareness and the beginnings of self management now we can build onto that with empathy, social skills and leadership assertiveness. For example: as an executive leader at the strategic table, it is an effective choice for me to voice my self awareness and clearly identify the action that I am choosing to manage my awareness in lieu of, choosing to “control my instinct”. With this I can build the foundations of trust because my fellow team members know ‘what is going on for me’ and we can proceed with the meeting. When I choose to ‘control my instinct’, I may hold onto my position, shut-down, disengage and that has significant unproductive consequences for our meeting.

So, let’s continue the conversation about emotional intelligence and add to your understanding the value of empathy, social skills and leadership assertiveness.

With solid foundations of emotional intelligence, an executive leadereship team can begin to add norms for communication and direct, corrective feedback to increase ‘presence’ and ‘team support’.

PS. What exactly does ‘don’t disagree’ mean? Does that mean you ‘agree’?

Renée Safrata

Renée Safrata

Thank you for your comment. You are right on! Understand ourselves gives us the tools to navigate the tough stuff with our co-workers. Sometimes feels a bit painful but boy, is it productive and energy producing! I agree let’s get to it!

You are right increased levels of emotional intelligence will improve things.
Productivity soars when team members hold themselves responsible and others accountable to the development of emotional intelligence.
Renée Safrata
renee@reneevations.com

I am totally in agreement – everyone on our team needs to know which way the wind is blowing and how to adjust their sails to maximize individual performance to add to the teams overall goals. I know personally, I want to look at each situation and decide how I will adjust to situations that come up (make more, less, or nothing) of the situation at hand.

How does EI impact the team?
I believe it impacts the team currently in how do we get ourselves to the goal of bringing forward all 5 elements into our daily interaction. I think a lot of us can recognize these are important elements, but how do we get there? Or is this part of the journey, and we will learn in future lessons.