Since Daniel Goleman introduced the concept of emotional intelligence (EQ) in 1995, the concept – of EQ has been known worldwide. His research showed that 80% of successful leadership is determined by EQ rather than IQ which has long been assumed. In a future that is changing at an ever-faster pace and becoming more complex, emotional intelligence in our leadership is becoming increasingly crucial. Emotionally intelligent leaders create vital and healthy organizations in which information is easily shared, trust prevails, people dare to take healthy risks and in which relevant feedback enables group/team learning. Emotional intelligence is a key competency for leadership coaching.

Emotional inability   

An agile leader can respond quickly, flexibly, and adequately and adapt to new circumstances easily. Agile leadership stands or falls with a leader’s capacity for emotional intelligence or emotional maturity, but unfortunately many of the organizations suffer from emotional inability: a limited ability to deal adequately with feelings and emotions.

Our personality as a protection of our vulnerability

One of the functions of our ego or personality is to protect us from rejection and vulnerability (perceived threats). We develop all kinds of control mechanisms and habitual patterns in our personalities to prevent our vulnerability from being exposed in public through fight, flight, or freeze-response. Unfortunately, this leaves us out of connection with ourselves and with others because we resist being vulnerable. We disconnect because we cannot handle emotions and because we feel the environment is not safe enough to be vulnerable.

Emotional Competencies

• Emotional self-awareness: registering and recognizing your feelings and emotions.
• Self-expression: the extent to which you can express your feelings and emotions.
• Self-management: the extent to which you are capable of self-control.
• Empathy: ability to feel the feelings and emotions of others.
• Social skills such as creative and innovative capacity, conflict resolution, influencing, negotiation, collaboration and connecting communication and thus effective leadership. 

In fact, all teamwork skills presuppose the capacity for emotional intelligence.

EQ is therefore one of the energy sources from our potential as a vital person, next to IQ (mental vitality), FQ (physical vitality) and SQ (meaningfulness).

Developing EQ is not an easy task

Developing emotional intelligence is not easy for several reasons:

• We develop the foundations of our EQ in early childhood by following the example of our parents and other important educators in our social environment. The extent to which we have been taught how to deal with emotions and feelings often lingers into the here and now for a long time. 

Check: how did you learn to deal with emotions and conflicts in the past and to what extent does this linger in the here and now.

• Developing new skills takes time. The language of feelings and emotions is completely different from that of reason and analysis. Developing this vocabulary and aligning it congruently with what is happening in your head, heart and stomach is a skill. 

Check: which people in your environment do you know with a high emotional maturity? What characterizes these people?

• We develop a professional self or image (the way we think others want to see us) with the help of our personality, in interaction with the existing organizational culture, all kinds of implicit assumptions and hidden beliefs about emotions and feelings. For example, showing emotions is sometimes labeled as emotionally unstable/a sign of weakness and it could be barrier if you want to move up in an organization. 

Check: what do you believe about showing feelings and emotions in work situations? What are the core beliefs about showing feelings and emotions among top management in your organization?

• An emotionally safe environment is crucial for showing emotions. This emotionally safe environment includes complete confidence that you can say anything that is in the team’s or company’s best interest and that showing emotions will be valued and encouraged rather than frowned upon, laughed off or judged negatively. And here the well-known saying applies once again: ‘trust arrives on foot and goes on horseback.’

Check: how do you experience the emotionally safe environment in your team and organization? What does it take to reinforce this?

Emotional Safety

It is important that we use as much creativity and potential of our people as possible for the complex issues of this modern age and future. The task of the management is to create a safe environment in which people dare to conduct self-examination. Unfortunately, fear is the greatest suppressor of human potential. When security is lacking, people engage in self-defense instead of self-examination. It is therefore a top priority to create an emotionally safe environment in which employees can speak up, be themselves and dare to use their imagination. This calls for management and leadership innovation: a completely different way of organizing in which the role of management and leaders is filled in completely differently, starting with emotionally intelligent leadership.

Bring mindfulness to organizations

How do you develop an emotionally safe environment in which people’s emotional intelligence has a rich breeding ground? One of the sources of inspiration for me is Rasmus Hougaard with his book “The mind of the leader”. Hougaard advocates for bringing mindfulness, selflessness, and compassion to organizations. He summarizes this as Mindfulness, Selflessness & Compassion/MSC leadership:

• Being mindful is being attentive, being in the here and now with a calm, focused and clear mind. It has a positive influence on our mental and physical well-being and on our professional performance. When we are mindful, we can resist our natural tendency to wander. We are aware of our thoughts when they arise and judge much better what to focus on and what to let go of. Just one second can be the difference between a good and bad decision.

• Being selfless is a combination of self-assurance and a certain humility to serve others.

• Being compassionate is a quality that means that you want the best for others. You want to be of service to others, you can put yourself in others’ shoes and therefore support them better. It goes beyond being empathetic.

MSC leadership contributes to creating an environment of attention, relaxation and connection in which feelings and emotions can be used as qualities and source of creativity and potential. From relaxation you register feelings and emotions more easily, which is the first step on the way to emotionally intelligent leadership.