Leading by Example

Leading with Emotional Intelligence

Great businesses are headed by great leaders.  There are a handful of charismatic figures who lead high-profile organisations and names such as Jack Welch of GE and Steve Jobs of Apple come easily to mind.  There are, however, many, many more very successful businesses where the catalyst for that success is as effective but less visible to the outside world.

So what is it that these men and women are doing that is different?

How do they deliver performance and shareholder value?

Research in over 200 companies and organisations worldwide suggests that about one-third of this difference is due to technical skill and cognitive ability while two-thirds is due to emotional competence. In top leadership positions, over four-fifths of the difference is due to emotional competence.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is often defined as the ability to use your emotions intelligently – that is, to understand how your emotions impact upon the way you think, communicate and influence.  Emotionally intelligent people create effective working relationships, solve problems and increase their capacity to perform.  The idea that personal development can be enhanced through looking at emotions, first achieved popular acceptance in 1995 when writer-psychologist Daniel Goleman published his best selling book “Emotional Intelligence”.

Leaders with high EQ have been shown to add as much as 127% more value to the bottom line of their organization than average leaders. Indeed, how executives handle their own emotions determines how much people want to interact with them.

Even in jobs of medium complexity studies of EQ have found that a top performer is 12 times more productive than those at the bottom and 85 percent more productive than an average performer.