By Dana Gillis, Executive Coach — The term emotional intelligence is often bandied about by academics, practitioners, and influencers of public opinion. It’s also touted as a panacea for organizational ills caused by poor leadership. Let’s examine how to measure and develop emotional intelligence (EI) skills, following the path to more effective leadership. First, we’ll examine exactly what EI means. 

Daniel Goleman’s writings on emotional intelligence serve as a roadmap for the way in which people interact with each other, relative to emotional stimuli. According to him, “The ability to manage yourself — to have self-awareness and self-regulation — is the very basis of managing others, in many ways.” Innate human responses to the way we communicate with each other have many gradations of reaction between positive and negative ends of a response spectrum. Emotional intelligence allows a leader to make conscious decisions about how she or he responds to incoming emotion-laden stimuli. To choose a response rather than an unreasoned reaction. So consider emotional intelligence as a “reasoned response” to an emotionally charged challenge.

Where Can I Get Some of That?

Like any proficiency, emotional intelligence is an essential leadership skill that you can grow . . .  if you know what emotional intelligence skills you already possess.

According to Marcel Schwantes, there are three indicators that a leader possesses that holiest of leadership grails, emotional intelligence. These are the ability to: respond to issues rather than react to them, exercise self-awareness, and manage personal emotions. Accordingly, consider these as the foundational building blocks that lead to emotionally intelligent leadership. Let’s look at how to measure emotional intelligence and find your “emotional quotient” or EQ.

Emotional Intelligence: Response

As a leader, what happens when you’re presented with a stress-inducing situation? How do you know you’re under stress? How does stress physically manifest itself? Are the decisions you make under pressure the same as decisions you would make under calmer conditions? If you know the answers to these fundamental questions, you can then leverage that knowledge to take stock of a situation. Then, you can respond appropriately, rather than react to circumstances as if you have no control or influence.

Emotional Intelligence: Self-awareness

The ability to empathize with others is an attribute highly indicative of emotional intelligence. However, the self-aware leader must be careful in relying on empathy. This ensures maintaining enough emotional distance to prevent being pulled into and/or becoming part of the issue to be solved. When a member of the team is in a bit of an “emotional hole,” the self-aware leader is keen to keep from jumping into the hole with them — which would require the rescue of not one, but two souls.

Emotional Intelligence: Managing Emotions

The third indicator of the presence of emotional intelligence is the ability to manage personal emotions. This ability is intimately connected to how leaders respond to issues, rather than react. A self-aware leader has developed the capability to identify an emotion or feeling related to environmental input. More importantly, they then exercise the ability to respond in an emotionally responsible fashion.

Measure and Develop Emotional Intelligence for Fearless Leadership

Response overreaction, self-awareness, and managing emotions are three key indicators of emotional intelligence. Leaders who can measure EI in themselves and identify these emotional intelligence skills are already on the path to better leadership. Certainly, self-reflection, time, and practice to master those skills can set any leader on the road to emotional intelligence and Fearless Leadership.

Undeniably, there’s a lot of talk surrounding emotional intelligence . . . do you have a good working definition? Here’s ours: “The ability to accurately identify emotions in ourselves and others, understand and manage our own emotions, and use and effectively communicate emotions and feelings.” Fearless Leaders know that EI matters!

Soft skills matter. If you agree and want to learn more about how to measure and develop emotional intelligence, check out our Fearless Leaders Masterclass®.

It delivers leadership and skill development to increase employee retention and reduce manager overwhelm.

Related Articles