LEVERAGING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE FOR TEAM SUCCESS
A Leadership Point of View
Introduction
Over the years, different psychologists, scholars and researchers have made efforts in explaining the concepts of organizational behavior. Daniel Goleman while working on human psychology explained the understanding of emotional intelligence (EI), and outlined its application.
Emotional Intelligence is about the capacity to control and express one’s emotions. For instance, the ability to effectively handle interpersonal relationships in a workplace .
Great qualities in people with high EI include:
-Being great at decision making.
-Ability to listen with greater attention and therefore responding to situations around them with greater reasoning.
-Empathetic and calm under pressure while effectively dealing with challenges.
Ironically, many leaders have not recognized or appreciated yet how important EI is to team’s success.
In defining EI, Goleman explains it as; “the ability to know and manage one’s own feelings, and be able to effectively read and deal with other people’s feelings”. This is particularly when managing or leading a team.
Emotional Intelligence is about the capacity to control and express one’s emotions, the ability to effectively handle interpersonal relationships in a workplace — for instance.
Studies talk of great qualities among people with high emotional intelligence. These qualities include; being great at decision making, the ability to listen with attention to detail, effective and solution oriented response when confronted with challenges, emphatic towards others and calm under pressure.
Origin of teamwork.
In 1776, Adam Smith came up with the concept of division of labor or work specialization.
Some of the approaches he introduced with this concept are on how to improve team’s commitment, concentration and control on performance. The concept which is still being applied in work environment to date.
Among other advantages, job specialization allow workers to concentrate on jobs they are relatively good or very comfortable at. Such division if labor usually leads to high productivity in workers
Team Leadership
On team leadership, Keith Davis described leadership as; “the ability to persuade others to seek defined objectives enthusiastically. The human factor which binds a group together and motivates it towards a goal”.
In order to succeed in influencing others, a leader requires a set of qualities. These may be natural traits or qualities learnt. It makes more meaning if the leader is self aware of possessing these traits. Since it is only then he can use these qualities to inspire his or her team members. Motivated teams usually find reasons to pursue the desired goals.
A team leader therefore, must not only possess these leadership traits and skills. The leader should also be in a position to apply them effectively and appropriately.
Successful teams are those with clear objectives and have enough resources. Adequate personnel with desirable skill set and material resources is a prerequisite.
In the composition of teams, a leader with high emotional intelligence will take a wholistic approach. Besides focusing on the numbers and skill sets, giving considerable attention to team diversity is equally important.
Diversity ought not to be only intended for compliance. The aim for a diverse representation must be as strategic as is inclusive, for the strength of the team.
When dealing with the question of diversity, it is important that societal realities are taken into consideration therefore reflected. These may include; gender, culture, social diversities, international diversity, persons living with disability and LGBTQ etcetera.
Once the team is in place, the leader is then responsible for inspiring it towards the vision. This is usually achieved by the careful and tactical designing of short, intermediate and long term programmes that should ideally collaborate and overlap into each other as execution takes place.
A leader will then employ a mix of qualities and skills to get things done. Some basic skill traits are; self discipline/dedication, confidence, empathy, knowledge and eagerness to learning new and more effective skills.
In carrying out their responsibilities, leaders should have good communication skills, humane in judgment and the ability to appropriately apportion responsibilities to team members based on merit and capabilities.
Emotional intelligence by the leader and his members is essential and a key component for team’s success.
Emotional intelligence as a team’s success factor.
A workplace is a diverse environment. It is not strange to meet individuals with low emotional intelligence. Such people are often difficult to cooperate, and at times just too critical of their colleagues for no valid reasons.
Notably, their communication style is either too passive or too aggressive, and in most cases they don’t own up to errors arising out of their negligence or actions.
It is simply difficult to deal with a person deficient on emotional Intelligence.
It is ironical though that a good number of academically accomplished people find themselves in this category.
Be as it may, it takes a leader with high emotional intelligence to understand such characters, provide them with the they may need, so that sanity, calmness and productivity drives team success.
However, achieving this requires organizing emotional development programmes. Such programmes would enable each team member to:
- Develop self awareness by monitoring their feelings from time to time. This will help them recognize these weird feelings as they kick in enabling them excise self control
- Manage their emotions, by being able to shake off anxiety or irritability, usually associated with failure. This is key if members are to recover from setbacks, whether real or perceived.
- Motivate themselves by engaging in thoughts and that drive a desire for achievement. This would result in members putting their emotions in check as they strive for best outcomes.
- Recognize and understand other’s emotions, dilemma and being empathetic to deserving circumstances and situations.
- Have social and cultural awareness such that they become capable of handling relationships. Interacting with others sometimes come with its own complexities requiring high emotional intelligence.
Such an empowered team should then come together and function as unit
Members of a well informed and emotionally intelligent team, usually enjoy association and company.
They understand and complement each other, and sense of unity of purpose is very much alive where emotional intelligence exists.
Where EI exists, performance excellence and operational successes are collectively celebrated and recognition equitably shared among team members.
Clearly therefore, EI becomes an important ingredient for team’s success. The entire team membership must hence understand their degree of emotional intelligence.
