How to Use Your EQ to Become a Better Team Leader

As business leaders and managers, we often put pressure on ourselves to be consistently driven, inspiring, and balanced. However, leading a team is a difficult job at times, with countless obstacles to overcome daily, which requires the ability to have top-notch interpersonal skills at any given moment.

Emotional Intelligence (or EI) can help exhausted or challenged leaders reclaim their ability to effectively lead their team, increase professional and interpersonal skills, and become a more well-rounded leader. By considering how the following EI techniques can help boost your leadership skills and keep your team members engaged, you’ll be on the road to a fruitful leadership experience.

How Does EI Affect Leaders?

Having high EI helps leaders to better respond to, and manage, daily situations and challenges. Skills such as self-awareness, impulse control, and interpersonal relationship management assist leaders in navigating interactions to optimize both the outcomes of their own and their teams’ endeavours.

According to Laura Wilcox from the Harvard Extension School, high emotional intelligence is strongly correlated to success. She states that, “high EI bolsters the hard skills, helping us think more creatively about how best to leverage our technical chops.”

How to Level-Up Your EI to Become a Successful Team Leader

There are many reasons that EI greatly impacts leadership skills and capabilities, but its ability to motivate and inspire team members is what moves an organization forward. If you’re looking for ways to use EI to become a better team leader, try implementing the following skills:

Be empathetic. To get into a leadership position, an employee has to be focused, dedicated, and confident in their abilities. However, once in these positions, some people tend to forget that others are working just as hard to move an organization forward and deliver optimal results when completing tasks. By putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, you can gain a perspective into how they make decisions and lead them in a way that feels most organic to them.

Be present both online and offline. In the modern world of business it’s easy to fall back on texting, emailing, and calling team members to share information. However, the lack of one-on-one, personal conversations can create a gap in understanding between leaders and team members. Carve out time every day to get on the floor and connect with your employees over coffee, or simply check-in on how they’re doing.

Practice active listening. With all the hustle and bustle that the average workday provides, some leaders might find it difficult to deeply understand everything that’s being said to them. However, when leaders practice careful listening, team members will know you are invested and engaged in their well-being, and are more likely to share the same sentiment.

Provide recognition where it’s deserved. Team members work hard to achieve new goals and contribute as much as they can to your business. Best-in-class leaders with high EI are able to recognize these efforts, while making sure to provide encouragement along the way.

Being a leader with high EI is a matter of being mindful during your daily routine and when dealing with challenging situations. When you practice the techniques described above, you can not only become a better team leader, but a more engaged individual.

Are you looking for high-quality Emotional Intelligence coaching services? Our team members at EI Advantage are ready to help you reach new heights as a leader. Get in touch today on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter to find out more about our coaching services and how you can plan for leadership success moving forward.