The most transformative leaders understand and stay curious about how emotions affect them and understand the emotions of the people they engage with. I call this understanding their emotional landscape.
A critical skill set in being a great leader and in selling (ideas or products) is having empathy for others. Well, you can’t empathize with the emotions of other people if you can’t understand your own.
Also, your emotions are highly contagious. They spread faster than a cold on an airplane. If you are negative and unhappy, you will impact everyone around you including their performance.
What can you do? Spend time cultivating your emotional intelligence by:
- Monitoring your impulsive actions: It’s rising above arguments, jealousies, and frustrations. The number one way here is to wait to respond to others especially when you feel strong emotions coming on. Also, don’t get involved in negativity or gossip. Bridge the conversation to something else if you are in a conversation where someone turns negative.
- Improving your self-awareness: Be aware how your moods, behaviors, and actions are affecting you and other people.
- Being more empathetic: It’s about putting yourself in other people’s shoes and seeing a situation from their point of view. Try to imagine yourself being them in a situation and thinking about how you’d feel and act. You don’t need to have the same experience as them though. It’s about a common emotional experience. For example, you don’t have to be fired to know what disappointment feels like.
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