It was over a decade ago that a survey by Stanford’s Graduate School of Business found that Emotional Intelligence skills such as vision, building relationships and developing people are more important to leadership success than typical leadership traits, such as external/market orientation, financial acumen and planning. This continues to be the case. We have seen the evolution and popularization of programs for Self Awareness, Self Control and Empathy, (all components of Emotional Intelligence) and also Mindfulness (a practice we teach alongside Emotional Intelligence) as part of Leadership development globally. Working with Leaders at all levels we know that knowing what Emotional Intelligence is (competencies) and becoming an Emotionally Intelligent Leader are two very different things – it takes time to be the change that true understanding brings.
A very recent survey on Leadership at Henley Management College found that “Leadership today is complex, challenging and demanding, with leaders facing ‘wicked problems’ as highlighted by Grint in 2008 – problems with ’no right answer’ and often leaders look for the ‘least worst solution’ where there is no possibility of achieving a classic ‘win-win’ outcome.” their survey also found something we have come to know; that “everything moves faster because technology ensures that there is almost instant communication and 24 hour media coverage, with coverage of leaders’ decisions and actions transmitted worldwide in minutes. This creates a new challenge where it is almost impossible for an individual leader to deal with all the strategic issues in their organisation, so leadership has to become more devolved.”
They found too that Personal leadership development is individual and cannot be forced and that Leaders need time to achieve real personal change – often months and sometimes years. We would agree with this 100% at Adeo Consulting and this is why we work with leaders over time to create insight.
Knowledge communicated and understood by a client is not the same as insight which comes when true understanding is reached with a combination of mental clarity, experience and gut knowing.
We often start a relationship with a client for a 4 month program with extends to a relationship that last for years. Change takes time and when its deep change guidance is often needed.
Its been said to me; “Don’t mention Emotions to our leaders or they will run a mile”. You can imagine the industries and old school companies where lack of emotion is perceived as an asset. Such a skewed perspective is understandable given the way our education system works. But as I often say “Emotion is just information, and this information can be used to your benefit or ignored”. One should also consider what happens if your competitors get on board and you don’t? Leadership gurus such as Bill George continue to push the value of Emotional Intelligence – “Leaders Need a High Emotional IQ to Succeed”. The high level concepts of Emotional Intelligence and the lists of potential benefits have been around since the early 1990’s even before Goleman popularised the concept in 1995. That’s over 30 years and what has happened since is a massive increase in popularity after thousands of research papers and implementation in thousands of Organisations. One of Golemans studies done at Harvard (on Leadership Competency Models) found that 80%-90% of Leadership competencies are Emotional Intelligence Competencies. As he said “the Sine Qua Non” (something absolutely indispensable or essential) of Leadership. So true.