Being an effective leader is about much more than just keeping your team in line and achieving your goals. Sure you might feel like you’re doing a fine job, but if you want to truly inspire your team to even greater success you’ll have to connect with them on a deeper level. According to a Forbes article on leadership, the most successful leaders inspire their teams through emotion. Expert leaders use emotion to rally their teams behind a common goal, fostering unity between the team members so they can work more comfortably and harmoniously together.
Emotional intelligence
Regardless of how experienced you are as a leader, you should always be aware of your emotional intelligence. This refers to your ability to understand and express your emotions while empathizing with the emotions that the people around you are going through. Leaders with high emotional intelligence are profoundly in tune with their emotional state and manage those emotions responsibly. At the same time, they make an effort to be aware of and respond appropriately to the emotions expressed by their co-workers.
Becoming a more compassionate leader
Honing your emotional intelligence takes practice. Be sure to regularly check in with yourself and honestly evaluate your emotions in the moment. As you become more familiar with how certain conversations and situations make you feel, you will begin to empathize better with the people around you. This in turn will make you a much more compassionate and effective leader over time. However, this is just a start. Sign into your LifeSpeak account to find resources designed to help you learn to recognize and understand the diverse emotions that you might experience or encounter as a leader. If you don’t have an account, please ask your HR team to reach out to us.