Last week we looked at the first two important points to learn about Emotional Intelligence – Self-awareness and Self-regulation. This week we’ll cover the final three points Motivation, Empathy and Social Skills.
Motivation
Great leaders set goals because goals are a great way to achieve the things you want in life. They also set high standards for themselves and make sure they work to this high standard consistently. So, how can you improve your motivation? Well, there are some simple things you can do to make sure your levels of motivation remain high:
- Make sure you have a job you enjoy – this is a no-brainer really, if you don’t like your job, it’s likely that you’ll not be able to find the motivation to work well for any length of time. But, don’t immediately assume that you need to find another job, maybe you just need to remember what it is you love about your job. You can do this by asking yourself questions such as
- ‘What is my favourite part of this job?’
- ‘What attracted me to this career in the first place?’
- ‘What did I want to achieve in this role?’
You get the idea. Once you’ve done this, you should have reminded yourself why you love your career. If you haven’t, then maybe it’s time to start looking for something else.
- Determine whether you really want to lead – some people do and some people get pushed into it, which are you? Did you ask for the leadership role or was it foisted upon you? If you really want to lead, you’ll be motivated to learn about the latest leadership techniques, how to apply them and how effective they are. You’ll also be interested in doing the best for your staff and bringing out the best in them too. If you lack any of these motivations, maybe leadership is not for you. Mindtools has a great test for checking your Leadership Motivation Assessment
- Be Optimistic – great leaders need to be optimistic. They have to be able to find the positive in any situation. If you are pessimistic, those you are leading will become pessimistic too – they look to you, as their leader, to drive them forward and keep upbeat no matter what the circumstances. You have to be able to pick out the positives in any situation, even a disaster.
Empathy
Being able to put yourself in the position of others is vital if you want to be a leader and earn the respect of your team members. It’ll allow you to help them develop to their full potential, which benefits you and the business you work for in the long run. Managers that are able to express empathy also seem to give more constructive feedback, listen to their team members and challenge team members who act unfairly. If you think you need to practise showing empathy, here are some things you can do:
- Pay Attention to Body Language – this means both yours and the others person’s. It’s probably worth reading up on body language and how you can convey a huge amount of information, often without even realising it. Do you, for instance, cross your arms when you are talking to people? You may see this as nothing, just something you always do. But how does the other person interpret it? They may think that you are unhappy with what they are saying. Why? Because crossed arms can be seen as a defensive action.
- Understand the feelings of others – the best way to explain this is with an example. If you ask one of your team to work over lunch time to prepare an important document for an afternoon meeting, listen to how they respond. This can give you a really good idea of how they really feel about the idea of having to work over lunch. They may say it super enthusiastically, which is great. Or they may say it in a really down-hearted way. If they do, explain that you understand it’s asking a lot and you appreciate their effort. It might also help if you explain that working this way is not something you like and in future you’ll do everything you can to make sure it doesn’t happen.
Social Skills
Leaders with good social skills are able to resolve conflicts and manage change effectively. They are as willing to hear bad news as good and are approachable at all times. If you think you need some help with your social skills, you can:
- Improve your conflict resolution skills – this not only helps you keep control in office disputes, but also when conflicts occur with vendors or customers too. There are many places you can learn these skills and if you check back for next week’s blog I’ll cover this topic.
- Improve your communication skills – great communication skills are pretty vital in any role, but when you are managing a team, they are even more important. If your team misunderstands what you are saying, or feels that they cannot talk to you, it’ll not be long before the team goes awry. Without direction, they will make their own minds up about what, how and when they are supposed to do things. You can check your communication skills using this test
- Praise people – if someone does a good job, tell them they are doing a good job. Credit where credit is due – it’s as simple as that!
As mentioned above, next week we’ll look at effective conflict resolution strategies. So, until then, have fun and do get in touch if you have anything to add to this post.
