Emotional Intelligence
– A Leadership Perspective

People have different philosophies when it comes to measuring success. One paradigm that we believe in as an organization is that every human being wants to give their best and succeed.
Whatever their role is in life, whether an employee, a partner, a parent, a spouse, a boss a sibling, or a caretaker, we want to bring out the best in ourselves and elicit the same response from others to have a respectful existence. There are sometimes circumstances that inhibit our true contribution or patterns in our life what we call habit that stops us from reaching our true potential. Having said that, the need of the hour is to support and empathize so that everyone can reach their full potential. That requires suspending judgment or what we call mindfulness. It means intentionally pausing to give the benefit of the doubt to the other party and not being reactive. This does not imply that we do not maintain boundaries to achieve our overall goals. It is more of a controlled response so that we can breathe to de-escalate the situation and come to a resolution with calmness. It is often said that emotional regulation is a key to effective leadership. An anecdote to the effect is when two people are in a state of conflict and an outsider taps one of them to ask whether they would want water or fire in this particular situation; The response usually is water to douse the anxiety, emotionally intelligent leaders choose water in volatile situations. It reduces stress and maintains the flow of things.
We can train our minds, specifically the prefrontal cortex to make better decisions if we can regulate our emotions and have better outcomes.
In the words of legendary Daniel Goleman- who wrote his breakthrough book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ as he defines it, EI has four parts: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. These words need no elaboration, it all begins and ends with better relationship management and social skills. Undoubtedly socially skilled people, are adaptive, resilient, and great at managing teams resulting in improved organisational effectiveness.

Preeti Gilhotra
Co-Founder, UBelong Consulting.