To reach the top in the vast majority of organisations,
you need powerful people skills, whether you work in technology,
finance or sales. People in IT often concentrate instead on getting
technical or industry-specific qualifications, and are then thrust
into managerial and leadership roles without the right
skills.
It is time for all IT directors and aspirants to seize the
leadership crown, as many of their IT colleagues have successfully
done.
"Success" is the key word - defined simply as "achieving that
which is important to you." In measuring and developing the success
of leading people in highly stressful work environments, one
invaluable tool we have found helpful for IT directors is
emotional
intelligence.
Its measurement tool is the emotional intelligence quotient. In
answering the key question "what makes a leader?" we have found
using emotional intelligence coaching highly successful. The health
warning is that low emotional intelligence is the leading cause of
leadership derailment.
So why are some people better able to achieve success in life?
Why do some people who are blessed with superior intellectual
abilities seem to fail in life, while others with more modest gifts
succeed?
The world's most effective leaders are alike in one crucial way:
they all have a high degree of what has come to be known as
emotional intelligence quotient, or "EQ" for short.
What a high EQ leader looks like
Psychologist David Mclelland did some thorough leadership
research that found that executives with higher EQ outperformed
their annual revenue targets by 15-20%, and that 87% of the
executives rated highly on EQ came in the top 33% of
performance-related bonuses.
It is not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant, but
research clearly shows that a person can have the best training in
the world, a sharp, analytical mind and an endless supply of smart
ideas, but they still will not make a great leader without a high
EQ.
Research by Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and author of the
book Emotional Intelligence, shows that EQ levels determine up to
85% of leadership success.
Some characteristics of high EQ leaders
are:
● They cope successfully and proactively with life's demands and
pressures.
● They build and leverage rewarding relationships with
others.
● They are able to set and achieve personal and professional
goals in a manner that is compatible with what is truly best for
them and others.
● They seek first to understand, then to be understood.
● They act with great authority and are not afraid to make tough
decisions.
● They lead by example.
● They are able to get the most out of others.
Coach your EQ
So why use emotional intelligence coaching for IT directors?
First, leadership is a huge responsibility it entails the potential
to create a lot of good, or equally to cause a lot of collateral
damage.
Second, in a "from-good-to-great" environment, small
improvements in leadership skills can have a huge impact on return
on investment.
Third, 80% of problems in organisations have nothing to do with
strategic planning or accounting, but rather with faulty
communications people's inability to understand how they and others
function failure to see matters from someone else's perspective and
failure to grasp the impact of one's actions on others.
Last, successful leaders shine in EQ: good relationships and
coping strategies are the key to our success in every area of human
activity, especially for a leader to bring out the best in their
teams.
Emotional intelligence coaching is coaching designed for
successful IT executives. Indeed, most leaders we work with are
very successful by any standard.
As such, they know from past experience that they can change
their behaviour. Upon closer scrutiny, we observe that they are
successful because of a lot of reasons, and yet in spite of others.
Coaching will often focus on improving an item on the "in spite of
list" in order to release their full leadership potential.
A focus on measurable results
Good news: like your IQ, your EQ can be measured, and unlike
your IQ, your EQ can be improved.
Based on 20 years of research by psychologist Reuven Bar-On and
tested on more than 450,000 individuals worldwide (and rising
rapidly), the Bar-On EQ-i is the most validated measure of
emotional intelligence in the world.
Emotional intelligence is not only about being able to
understand your own feelings, but it is also about being able to
tune into how others are feeling around you, and act on that
positively.
Fear not, the idea is not to get IT directors to hug trees.
Instead, emotional intelligence-based leadership coaching is
focused on success and enhanced performance.
Many leaders feel they have to work longer and longer hours
today. They grind themselves into the ground, get stressed, ill and
cause collateral damage to those around them at work and home. This
is not sustainable. The successful ones benefit from leadership
coaching that gets them to be more focused and try less.
Indeed, the best IT leaders are what we term "leaders who grow
leaders". They spend a significant amount of their time developing
and empowering the generation Y recruits to lead.
This generation works across the lower, and now mid-level, of
our companies they like multi-tasking with multiple media channels
and want to know "what is in it for me" and "how will you develop
me so I am more employable, not just employed?".
A particularly effective leadership style for these IT leaders
is using the "coach approach to leadership", and so giving
themselves and their leadership teams vital skills. The output is
to bring out the best in others, focus on results, have courageous
conversations on high-friction performance issues and give
inspirational feedback.
You can use emotional intelligence to measure and develop
leadership success when it is supported by leadership coaching.
Most important is to get the work/life balance right, and model
good leadership by example by being a leader who grows other
leaders through using a coach approach to leadership.