High performance teams are led by people with a high and well-balanced level of emotional intelligence. Staying in the place of empowered leadership grounded in well-being is essential to cultivate authentic and inspiring culture where people have the drive to create unprecedented results.
This means that, to be a good team leader you should have the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, as well as those of the people around you. If you have a high degree of emotional intelligence, you will know what others are feeling, what their emotions mean, and how these emotions can affect other members of your team. This is the very definition of emotional awareness; which is critical to the success of a leader and her team.
Based on the concept of emotional intelligent leadership model EQ-i 2.0 there are two critical components to awareness:
Self-perception
- Self-Regard – confidence
- Self-Actualization – continuous development
- Self-Awareness – understanding my emotions
One of the implications of recognizing your emotions and their triggers is that for you, experiencing an emotion is the result of a cause-and-effect relationship. You know when and why an emotion will be triggered and you know how to use that emotion to your benefit. You are usually in tune with the physiological sensations of emotion, and you are constantly developing your ability to recognize the variety of emotions that arise.
The higher level of Emotional Self-Awareness indicates that more often than not, you feel comfortable expressing your understanding of your thoughts and ideas to your colleagues and, moreover, you know how your emotions can increase individual and team morale. Your colleagues likely understand your stance and value your openness when it comes to how you are feeling. While there may still be some circumstances at work that cause you to be unsure of your emotion, you are capable of exploring what have triggered your feelings in these cases, and what subsequent action needs to be taken.
Self-expression
- Assertiveness – standing up for yourself effectively
- Independence – standing on your own two feet
- Self-expression – saying how you feel
Think of Emotional Expression as the action part of the emotional experience. To increase the level of emotional self-expression, you can strive for a more balanced expression of emotions; that way you don’t appear to be more comfortable expressing one extreme (e.g., happiness) over another (e.g., sadness).
Successful relationships flow from a willingness to openly exchange thoughts and feelings. When you are capable of expressing your emotions in a meaningful way, you are also usually eager to share the thoughts and feelings. In this case, your relationships with your colleagues and clients have open and effective channels for communication; you clearly express your feelings, creating an environment where others feel comfortable doing the same with you. Your team will have more energy to move forward and focus on meaningful communications and tasks, instead of spending this energy in trying to navigate in the corporate “game of thrones” convoluted relationships, that can become toxic.
The more that you, as a leader, manage each of these areas of awareness, the more well-balanced your emotional intelligence and the greater your ability to build high performance teams.
Have you found yourself struggling to remain fully aware of the needs of your team while trying to turn them into a high performance team? Would you like to find the help you need to improve your leadership skills? If so, let’s chat. Click here to schedule your FREE Discovery Call.
