How to Use Emotional Intelligence Training to Be an Influential Leader
I love this quote from William Arthur Ward, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”
I think it applies to leading as well as to teaching. Whether you’re trying to inspire your clients, your employees or your children, understanding emotional intelligence training is vital for your success. Emotional intelligence training might sound intimidating but it isn’t difficult once you understand the fundamentals for behavioral change.
What does emotional intelligence training include? Here are the three stages, which include fifteen steps that you can use to motivate your clients, employees, children or others to become more emotionally in tune with themselves, others, and the world around them.
Stage One: Preparation and Motivation
- Assess the job. Without knowing what the job involves, you won’t know what competencies are needed.
- Assess the individual. Before you know what needs to be improved, you must know the person’s strengths and limitations.
- Deliver assessments with care. Before giving your assessment, think about the impact your words will have on the hearer.
- Gauge readiness. Not everyone is at the same level or stage in life, so determine if the person is ready to hear and work with you.
- Motivate. Change comes when people want it and to achieve this you must motivate them at a higher level to overcome their reluctance to participate.
- Make change self-directed. People learn at their own rate and only when they see the need. So tailor training according to what they want to work on at this moment, helping them link their goals with their personal values.
Stage Two: Education and Support
- Focus on clear, manageable goals. Show them clearly what’s required to accomplish a goal.
- Give performance feedback. Self-awareness and insight are keys to creating lasting change, yet these are often the pieces that are missing. By giving sincere, well-deserved commendation and points to work on, you’re helping the person create this self-awareness. And when they learn to recognize what pushes their buttons – gaining insight into what irritates and annoys them – they’re able to learn how to control their emotions.
- Rely on experiential methods. “Repetition is the mother of retention” so the more they can actively practice the desired pattern of thought, feeling and action the faster and easier the new habits will become engrained in the brain.
- Arrange support. Continual mentoring accelerates motivation and accomplishment, so establishing a buddy system is vital.
- Provide models. We learn best by watching others, so show them how it’s done by providing good role models, including yourself. An embodied leader wants to model the desired behavior. In order to impact the lives of others, you work on exhibiting congruence in all aspects of your life. This gives you credibility, which is so critical for gaining the trust of your clients or employees. Fairness, respect, and humility, will bring out their best.
- Prevent relapse. Everyone has bad day, so have reasonable expectations and be prepared to handle the downs as well as the ups, and give ample opportunities to practice the new skills.
Stage Three: Transformation and Evaluation
- Encourage use of the new skill. Create a new environment with visual and verbal cues that reminds your clients to use what they’ve learned.
- Reinforce change. Strengthen and support each person as they achieve new skills and levels of emotional competency.
- Evaluate. To see progress you must have a measuring stick to assess it against. To keep them motivated, let them clearly see how far they’ve progressed.
Never think it’s too late to incorporate emotional intelligence training in your private practice, workplace or home. While it doesn’t happen overnight, you can alter deeply engrained habits and social behavior through retraining the brain and body.
If you’re a coach wanting to hone your emotional intelligence training skills or a CEO wanting to improve EI in the workplace, or an individual who want to excel personally, feel free to contact me for help in setting up your emotional intelligence training program.