Why Do We Promote (or follow) Leaders Lacking a Critical Attribute?
Poor emotional intelligence, or a total lack thereof, sticks out like a sore thumb. It is particularly confounding when the void shows up in our leaders. Imagine participating in a leadership retreat with senior executives and ownership at a company that is mired in stagnant growth and culture. In my anecdote, this retreat occurs at the culmination of months of poor communication, unarticulated goals, lack of trust, emotional outbursts, and a perceived lack of empathy from the ownership.
The leadership fails to seize the opportunity to collaborate, listen, empathize, be honest, and reset based upon the ideas and open communication from the other members of the organization. Instead, what happens is the ownership goes into ‘bunker’ mode and dismisses the good ideas and honest dialogue only to allow the existing paradigm to live on. This numbness serves to blunt all notions of growth, collaboration, and engagement. Sound all too familiar? It may be a similar refrain for many where there is a lack of empathy and awareness from leadership; in other words, a lack of emotional intelligence.
The rise of data and analysis swirling around this incredibly important attribute is undeniable, and understandably so. Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, gauge, and control your emotions, while recognizing and responding to those of other people. Certainly, a desirable ability for leaders. The widely recognized emotional intelligence expert, Daniel Goleman, suggests that there are four dimensions of emotional intelligence: self-awareness; social awareness; emotional management; and relationship management.
Organizations with healthy cultures, strong retention of talent, and a well-developed succession plan often reflect the high emotional intelligence of their leadership teams. According to a recent study, emotional intelligence was found to be the strongest predictor of performance among workplace skills, revealing a 58% factor of success in all job types. The study further revealed that 90% of top performers are also high in emotional intelligence while just 20% of bottom performers are high in emotional intelligence.
Now, here is the head-scratcher: organizations promote people to positions of leadership that lack this critical attribute! CEOs, on average, have the lowest EQ scores in the workplace. CEOs… THE LEADERS… are lowest!!! Joe Mechlinski, founder of SHIFT and author of Grow Regardless, suggests that leaders beef up their emotional intelligence to create an energy and a culture that is conducive to growth. We live in an age where the ‘leadership pipeline’ is the number one area of concern among hiring professionals. The surge of data compels the conclusion that your organization needs to have emotional intelligence front of mind (pun intended) when promoting and cultivating leaders.
To avoid the promotion of those with dulled emotional intelligence, here are some things to consider:
1. Don’t guess; assess! There are several credible emotional intelligence (sometimes referred to as the emotional quotient) assessment platforms, for this critical attribute.
2. Provide real, practical challenges for the individual in question so that you can evaluate his or her emotional intelligence in action. Use a group project or task where self-management, creativity, diversity of thought, and humility are necessary for the successful completion of the group project. And be sure to survey all team members upon completion of the task.
3. Can they ‘check the ego at the door?’ A sure fire way to find out if a leader should be promoted at all is to determine whether the individual will put his own goals ahead of the betterment of the organization, or insists on getting all the credit himself.
These three steps, if followed, will help to keep those with low emotional intelligence away from the important leadership positions. A lack of emotional intelligence can be dangerous in a leader, but if you strive to cultivate this skill within your employees, and leadership, you’re sure to have quite a powerful team at your disposal.
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As Partner & Managing Director, Chris Steer works to develop and execute on SHIFT’s strategic vision to expand and position SHIFT as a leader in growth and engagement consulting, talent acquisition, and entrepreneurial services.
