How well you handle interpersonal relationships may well be at the top of the list of best leadership skills to work on. Because few things are as costly and disruptive as managers who kill morale, understanding the difference between motivating and manipulating your team has huge value – to your team and you. An emotional intelligence test can be the trigger that helps you identify the tactics you’re using and employ more a positive approach.

Demotivated employees underperform and then walk out the door at the first opportunity. Gallup research shows that 70% of employees consider themselves to be disengaged at work, which is frightening to consider.

Because emotional manipulation can be so destructive, it’s important for you to recognize it in your own leadership style; if it’s there. After all, fostering guilt, employing victim status, and playing the role of a martyr, all tools of a master manipulator (among others), do not lead to positive relationships. Nor do they increase productivity or encourage employee engagement.

If you can learn to better understand your own motivations and impulses, you’ll be more aware of when, and with whom, you use manipulative tactics.

What is an EQ?

An emotional intelligence test will help define your emotional quotient (EQ); that is, your ability to understand your own emotions and those of others, and how the two affect and interact with each other. Unfortunately, being able to recognize different feelings and label them appropriately, to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one’s goals, tend to make manipulative tactics quite appealing.

Yet, relationships are an essential part of life, and work, and the best leaders are heavily invested in building strong, positive relationships. One implication of such an emotional investment in relationships is that you may sometimes hide your emotions or shy away from making decisions that could potentially cause conflict. This can also lead to manipulative behavior as a defense mechanism.

For example, if you were to score high in Empathy and low in Assertiveness in an emotional intelligence test, you will need to work to determine if you or your relationships are suffering as a result of withholding your true thoughts and emotions.

By taking an active, positive role in establishing and maintaining your professional relationships at work, you will likely come to be seen as a “connector”, aware of who does what, who knows what, and who needs to know what. Maintaining confidences, team harmony, and open communication should be a priority for you, making you a motivator instead of a manipulator.

As you continue to build relationships, it’s extremely important to know the boundaries of such interactions. An emotional intelligence test will help you to recognize the points at which your social interactions may prove costly to job performance.

Would you like to find the help you need to improve your leadership skills, with science-based evidence from an emotional intelligence test? If so, let’s chat. Click here to schedule your FREE Discovery Call.