081 | Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace as a Female Leader

Women of Faith in Leadership - Kingdom Leadership, Workplace Organisational culture, Christian women

According to Mental Health America: “Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to manage both your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you.

There are five key elements to EI:

1. self-awareness,
2. self-regulation,
3. motivation,
4. empathy, and
5. social skills.

People with high EI can identify how they are feeling, what those feelings mean, and how those emotions impact their behaviour and, in turn, other people.”

As leaders, we get super involved in everything that happens with our team, projects, and work. And in a sense, if we don’t set the correct boundaries, we can get emotionally involved. That’s just human nature.

However, the biggest challenges for our emotions are when someone pushes our buttons, does the wrong thing, or has an emotional outburst of their own.

The dilemma with leadership that I personally found is that you’re expected to be perfect—the perfect role model.

So, let’s go through a couple of strategies:

The first couple of strategies have to do with your daily emotions and how you can use these to gain emotional intelligence:

1. Self-awareness
2. Social awareness
3. Empathy
4. Develop active listening skills

What to do when you’re in a heated/emotional moment at work.

1. Take a deep breath
2. Use "I" statements
3. Focus on the issue
4. Find common ground
5. Seek mediation

Finally, if things did get heated and you reacted emotionally, apologise and learn from the situation. Reflect afterwards on why you reacted like that and identify the trigger. Now, devise a plan for how you will deal with that next time

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