Sep 23 2022 | Tags: Leadership Development, Emotional Intelligence Training
Emotional Intelligence training for leaders: three key areas of focus
Over the last three decades, Emotional Intelligence (EQ) has risen in prominence around the world. It has now become an unquestionable and essential part of successful businesses aiming to secure long-term growth, enthusiasm, morale, and high performance.
That rise in EQ’s strategic importance has, in significant part, been fueled by the academic rigour dedicated to explaining why it is so powerful.
Some of the world’s leading behavioural scientists have demonstrated the link between advanced Emotional Intelligence skills and consistent high performance among both teams and individuals. Those findings from the last 30 years of academic enquiry are reinforced by real-world case studies and testimonials from high-pressure businesses seeing the benefits of embracing EQ.
Dr Dan Goleman, one of the world’s most prominent psychologists and one of the early pioneers of Emotional Intelligence, says that reaching your potential is largely the result of factors beyond your intellect. Instead, he believes that it's about how we recognise and manage emotion in ourselves and others.
Thankfully, the skills needed to manage emotions in ourselves and others are not innate. With time and practice, they can be learned and developed. And this, in turn, opens up the potential for powerful behavioural change in anyone willing to dedicate themselves to their pursuit of advanced EQ skills.
The three areas of focus
For leaders looking to improve the performance of themselves and their wider teams, there are three key areas on which to focus. Think of these areas as operating like three lenses through which to apply EQ.
Watch the video below to hear Dr Martyn Newman explain more about these three key areas:
1. Inner Focus
Competencies:
- Self-knowing, which is your capacity to recognise how your opinions and attitudes are impacted by your feelings and emotions.
- Self-control, which is your ability to take time to think things through without letting your emotions take over first.
- Self-confidence, which is your readiness to respect yourself and set yourself high standards.
- Self-reliance, which is your capacity to plan and make decisions, as well as take responsibility for your actions.
This area of Emotional Intelligence involves equipping leaders with the skills that help them master their moods and deliver consistent behaviour. When leaders have taken the time to master this area of EQ, they are better equipped to maintain their levels of positive, focused energy. In turn, this results in inspiring people to work at their full potential and generates positive morale.
These skills, which include self-awareness and self-management, are actually the fundamental platform for building a successful leadership culture.
British media giant Sky is one of the leading examples of the impact of developing advanced inner focus skills. Its commitment to Emotional Intelligence saw it develop an innovative and creative leadership culture that brought out the best in its staff, helped it to attract and retain talent, and fostered a growth mindset among all its employees. Overall, it recorded a 25% increase in empathy and a 21% improvement in relationship skills.
2. Other Focus
Competencies:
- Empathy, which is your skill for recognising, understanding and appreciating other people’s feelings.
- Relationship skills, which is your ability to consistently build professional relationships that are both collaborative and mutually rewarding.
- Straightforwardness, which is your capacity to communicate your thoughts and feelings in a clear, easy-to-understand manner.
When Emotional Intelligence training concentrates on the area known as ‘Other Focus’, it is about increasing people’s capacity to be great with other people and to influence others effectively. These are clearly important skills for leaders to possess.
If a leader can strengthen their relationship skills and straightforwardness, while at the same time becoming increasingly empathetic to the situation of others around them, they are well placed to create trusting relationships, extraordinary levels of teamwork, and exceptional employee morale.
For those leaders looking to ensure the success of diversity and inclusion within their workplace, and to enhance the capacity of multigenerational teams to work together, these skills are absolutely non-negotiable. You simply must have them in order to succeed.
When Singtel committed to developing the ‘Other Focus’ area among its leaders, it saw leadership engagement jump by 16% and customer engagement increase by 12%.
3. Outer Focus
Competencies:
- Adaptability, which is your readiness to react well to change and adjusting your feelings and behaviours while welcoming new ideas.
- Optimism, which is your ability to see opportunities where others may see only stumbling blocks and frustrations.
- Self-actualisation, which is your capacity to maintain enthusiastic commitment to long-term goals.
The third area of focus for effective leaders, ‘Outer Focus’, concentrates on equipping people with EQ skills that help them take on new challenges and respond flexibly to new opportunities. In today’s fast-paced business environment, these qualities are increasingly important – and those without them are likely to face frequent problems.
These skills that develop ‘Outer Focus’ are also the skills that drive success in customer-facing roles and increase sales across an organisation.
Oracle, for example, used tailored EQ training to improve the soft skills of its salesforce. After a period of intense learning, it saw rapid increases in positivity (up 92%) and confidence (up 89%) in its sales reps.
“Our sales team are more confident in their approach and this has led to exceptional commercial results.”
Daniel Van den Broeck, Senior Vice President, Applications Northern Europe, Oracle
Training options to suit you
Leaders looking to advance their Emotional Intelligence skills have a range of potential ways to do so. Our EQ training portfolio has been developed to provide options for leaders who may have different learning preferences or diary commitments. With RocheMartin, you can undertake:
- Emotional Capital Report (ECR)
The Emotional Capital Report takes just 10 minutes to complete, but its impact can last for a whole career. This powerful profiling tool acts as a benchmark of an individual’s EQ, allowing them to understand their existing strengths and weaknesses, as well as to start to understand how they can improve their performance across all 10 Emotional Capital competencies.
- Workshops
These half-day sessions are fully immersive and designed for a group of participants, so your whole team can benefit from learning how to advance their EQ skills. Our Emotional Capital Workshop Series includes five standard workshops, as well as the option for our team of world-renowned experts to tailor a session specifically to your needs and budget.
- Certifications
By completing an ECR certification, HR leaders can deliver the ECR to members of their organisation without the need for direct RocheMartin supervision. This enables them to create transformational change at all levels of the business and help to ensure its ongoing success.
- SmartCoach
For leaders who are unable to commit to specific workshop dates, SmartCoach online training allows them to develop their EQ skills on demand – at their own pace and convenience, and with their own goals in sight.
- One-to-one
One-to-one Emotional Intelligence training is hugely powerful and delivers fast, targeted results. Participants complete an ECR and gain access to tailored feedback, as well as support in developing a plan for ongoing learning, directly from either a RocheMartin representative or a RocheMartin certified coach.
Leaders around the world are already benefiting from EQ training. Don’t get left behind.
Klaus Schwab, chairman of the World Economic Forum, is a respected voice in modern business. Emotional Intelligence, according to Schwab, is not simply a nice-to-have skill, it is an absolutely core element of any business hoping to have a long-term and profitable future.
Schwab said: “If businesses are to succeed and thrive in the new world of work, then we will need leaders who have very human qualities… We will need leaders who are emotionally intelligent.”
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