As the leader of your company, you spend a lot of time helping your teams work through issues that can derail progress if not kept in check. This requires a high level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) to do well. Our CEO Peer Group members in DFW have talked about this a lot lately as they work hard to be the best leaders they can be.
“Your ability to identify your own emotions is the most important step in the process.”
EQ helps you:
• Perceive emotions – yours and those around you.
• Access and generate emotions to assist clear thought.
• Understand emotions and emotional knowledge to know the proper response.
• Regulate emotions and responses to promote emotional and intellectual growth.
Your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) helps you lead your team with excellence and is a tool we can all learn to use more effectively.
This is a chart I have in my office to remind clients to first identify their own emotions before moving onto the next step of working out issues. (Email me if you want a copy)
It’s a simple sheet but it helps us get a grip on what we’re really feeling and what to do about it. This process is helpful to clearly identify your own feelings before trying to understand the feelings of others.
The last step, is one that matters most to me – “what response honors GOD.” You may not share this perspective with me but you should know the WHY behind what drives your responses.
I have seen this process done well by many of our CEO Peer Group members here in DFW. I’ve also seen what happens when we don’t identify our own emotion first – the rest of the process becomes skewed and often the issue gets worse. We spend way too much time trying to clean up a mess that could have been stopped at the start.
Taking time to understand your emotions will help you process the rest of the situation with excellence. If you struggle with this, contact me to take the EQ Assessment and lets us talk about how you can improve your EQ and enable you to apply this in your life.
Robert Hunt