Want to take your leadership to the next level? The world’s best leaders – not necessarily the ones that are running Fortune-sized organizations – have a secret sauce that makes people want to follow them. Their magic is in their emotional intelligence skills. That’s the ability to connect emotionally with other people. It is through that connection that they are able to get people to move toward common goals with an aligned purpose, as one engaged team. These are the same leaders that are in demand wherever they go, and if they find themselves out of work, they have no problem getting a new role.
Some call it charisma. Some call it being a people person. Whatever you want to categorize it as, the bottom line is that these leaders are able to get results that are consistently far above others. Whether they are leading a large organization, a department, or coaching a little league group of kids.
Cognitive intelligence has little to do with it – in fact, I have seen my share of Mensa or genius IQ’s and PhD’s fail at achieving results usually only to blame the people around them as being stupid or uneducated. These genius have the best resumes (or CV’s) with a long list of credentials; however, they have a limited shelf-life because they almost always lack the emotional intelligence to deeply connect with the people they manage.
Emotional Intelligence or EQ is inside of us all; however, for most of us, it takes nurturing and life experience to get it to its full potential. Some of us develop our EQ earlier than others. Women for example, seem to develop their EQ earlier than men. Biology plays a role in this, in so far as the frontal lobes of female brains fully mature during their mid-twenties, whereas men not until their early thirties.
Here is my list of 5 things you can do to start developing your EQ to a deeper level:
You can do it. You just have to commit.
Robert Murray is a Vancouver, BC based Business Strategy Consultant, #1 Best Selling Author, International Keynote Speaker, and TEC Top Speaker of the Year for 2018. For further advice, insight and inspiration on how to unlock your inner leader, follow Robert on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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Tags: Authenticity, Business Culture, Business Goals, Business Strategy, Emotional Intelligence, EQ, Focus, Growth, Happiness, Inspiration, Leader, Leadership, Life Lessons, Management, Personal Branding, Purpose, Respect, Responsibility, Robert Murray, Robert S. Murray, Self-Awareness, Success, Team Work, Values