Becoming an Emotionally Intelligent Leader

Course Overview

1. Emotional Intelligence Overview

If you want to be on the cutting edge of being a successful servant leader, you cannot ignore emotions in the workplace. Leadership is largely composed of dealing with emotions. IQ will only take you so far in your career, but EQ will help your development potential long after your IQ starts to diminish. Mastering emotions at work is a growing topic, especially at innovative workplaces. This section introduces you to emotional intelligence and why it is a critical competency for your career development.

• Defining emotional intelligence
• Measuring your level of emotional intelligence
• Learning the dimensions of emotional intelligence

Practice Sessions - You will begin this section by completing a self-assessment on your level of emotional intelligence. This assessment will serve as a baseline for the workshop topics. Using your assessment scores, you will identify areas of focus to enhance and develop your level of emotional intelligence. You will complete this section by discussing with your team the dimensions of emotional intelligence and how they apply in your workplace.

2. Dealing with Emotions

There are key ways that a person expresses emotions and it is important for you to understand where emotions are coming from when dealing with your co-workers. Unresolved issues of negative emotions will reduce the ability of people to work together effectively and will impact job performance. However, people's emotions cannot be flung about the workplace haphazardly. This section is designed to help you learn how powerful people's emotions can be in the workplace and how to focus those emotions positively.

• Contributing factors that generate emotions
• Expressing emotions
• Responding to emotional situations

Practice Sessions - You and your team will discuss the contributing factors that generate emotions in the workplace. You will complete a questionnaire related to your emotional hot buttons and discuss your conclusions with the class. Next, you will view emotional situations and determine the impact of these people's behavior. You will complete this section by identifying strategies and tactics with your team for responding to emotional situations.

3. Using Emotional Intelligence to Manage Yourself

To become more effective at developing your emotional intelligence, you must first focus on yourself before trying to manage or lead others. If you are not the master of your own emotions you will not be able to lead others effectively. A servant leader is characterized by portraying effective self-awareness and self-management competencies. This section focuses on how to increase your self-awareness and self-regulation competencies in the workplace.

• Increasing self-awareness
• Improving self-regulation
• Managing your expectations

Practice Sessions - The first exercise will have you assess which techniques you are currently using for self-awareness  including emotional self-awareness and self-confidence. You will use your assessment to identify which techniques you will begin implementing. Next, you will assess which techniques you are currently using for self-regulation and self-control. You will use your assessments to identify which techniques you will begin implementing. You will complete this section by identifying ways to avoid emotional breakdowns.

4. Using Emotional Intelligence to Develop Relationships

The social skills dimension will shift your attention from yourself to now focusing on others. In order to lead effectively, you need healthy working relationships. Without solid relationships, it is difficult or impossible for you to lead others. The foundation of this section resides in being emotionally self-aware and self-regulated. If you jump to this dimension without mastering yourself first, you will struggle with developing solid relationships with peers, managers, stakeholders, or direct reports.

• Increasing social awareness
• Managing relationships
• Nurturing and promoting relationships

Practice Sessions - You will begin by completing self-assessments on your current level of social awareness. With the help of your team, you will identify ways to spot emotional red flags in others as well as strategies to develop solid relationships. Your team will help you identify tactics to maintain solid relationships with all types of workplace professionals. You will complete this section by identifying additional strategies to develop and maintain solid relationships in your workplace.

5. Using Emotional Intelligence to Lead Others

Once you understand how to manage yourself and how to develop solid relationships, you are ready to lead others effectively. Servant leaders know how to communicate with high emotional intelligence, develop teams, and retain team members in a positive environment. The tone you set with others and how you impact the culture of your workplace will determine your ability to lead effectively. This section emphasizes development of your leadership competencies.

• Inspiring people and teams
• Managing disruptions and conflicts with emotional intelligence
• Turning groups of people into cohesive teams
• Making difficult decisions
• Communicating effectively with others

Practice Sessions - With the help of your team, you will begin by examining values that are important to people in a professional work setting and how to determine expectations. You and your team will identify the root causes of conflict and how to handle conflicts with emotional intelligence. You will analyze the process you use to develop individuals or groups of people into a cohesive and producing team by reviewing how to set the tone and establish direction. You and your team will review the process for making decisions and how to communicate any difficult information related to your decisions. You will complete this section by discussing with other teams techniques for communicating with others using emotional intelligence.