Focus On: Emotionally Intelligent Leadership

And it should be! Because selling a vision, developing people and taking them on a journey requires real passion, energy, excitement, momentum, and positivity. And calm thinking when teams face challenges. 

Nobody wants a robotic leader. It’s emotions that drive people and performance; ultimately, people respond to how leaders make them feel. 

And we want leaders who are authentic – who own their values, who are honest and real.

 

So, yes, we want leaders who understand the power of emotion. But, on the other hand, nobody wants or needs leaders who don’t know how to manage and control their emotional responses, or who are so focused on their own emotions that they’re oblivious to the needs of others. 

When used well, emotions can help drive performance, build momentum and fire up a team’s ambitions. But emotions that are poorly managed can have the oppositive effect - and even debilitate teams. They can hijack judgement, undermine social skills, and, ultimately, destroy trust.  

 

Emotional intelligence, that ability to understand our own emotional responses and the emotional responses of others, is therefore a critically important leadership skill. 

In this Focus On, we’re drawing your attention to just a handful of the dozens of training activities and modules in Trainers’ Library® that will help you help managers develop their emotional intelligence skills.

Powerful, short activities unique to Trainers’ Library®? with detailed trainer’s notes to launch your training sessions with relevant light-bulb moments. We’ve picked just one to highlight!

 

This is a simple, but powerful way to demonstrate how our perspective on a situation might be very different to someone else’s, and how this doesn’t necessarily make one party right and the other wrong. A really powerful introduction to emotional intelligence and empathy.

Training activities and facilitated discussion supported by comprehensive trainer’s notes, handouts and any other resources required. 

This one-hour module, with learner-led activities, will enable managers to define emotional intelligence as it relates to self and others - and describe different grades of emotion. It’ll also help them begin to understand the influences on emotional state. 

 

This 90-minute module considers emotional intelligence from the perspective of interpersonal intelligence – the ability to understand and respond appropriately to other people’s emotions, moods and temperaments. This is key to developing empathy as a skill. 

This one-hour module will raise participants' awareness of how their perceptions of situations influence their emotions and behaviours, and equip them with the tools to change unhelpful thinking. 

This 75-minute module increases managers' awareness of how emotions affect behaviour and provides clear strategies for taking control of our own emotions, whilst effectively managing the emotional responses of others. 

A useful precursor to Managing Emotions above, this short session helps managers (and others) recognise the personal triggers that affect their emotional state.

Short, sharp animations to provoke thought and build awareness/understanding.

A clear explanation of what emotional intelligence is, and why it matters.

 

Building understanding of how we react to situations and how to manage those ‘gut’ reactions for the benefit of everyone involved.

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We’ve only space in these newsletters to scratch the very surface of what’s available to support your training on any given topic. If you want other ideas, activities or materials linked to this, or any other topic, get in touch, either by email or through Design Coach and we can help identify the perfect training sessions for you!