Leadership Development: The Four Corners of Empathetic Assertiveness

Article by Marcia Hughes

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place” – George Bernard Shaw

Successful leaders exhibit skills that may look natural and easy are truly the result of paying close attention and being responsive to the whole environment.  To do so, they learn to be emotionally literate and employ a complex set of skills in ways that may seem innate though in fact are the result of a willingness to work, learn and improve.  Leaders often find that their cognitive intelligence is the threshold for their success, and they do need solid IQ smarts and a good education to get in the door and to keep up with technical and professional developments.  To move beyond that threshold they need to be adept at relationships, influencing and leading staff and teams effectively.  The path for exhibiting this excellence is based in emotional intelligence:

“a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.”

The most powerful and sustainable way to build those relationships requires using the four emotional intelligence skills demonstrated in this graph below.

 

The artful use of these four skills creates a resilient environment and is well supported by using the EQ-i 2.0 with the leaders.  We also find considerable value by measuring team skills as well with the Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Survey^®.  Together these two assessments present a powerful picture that supports developing leadership capabilities.

In a real-life case, Carl (real name is concealed) became the new CEO at a large hospital and faced big challenges such as leading the medical staff, the administrative staff and various boards to work together.  Carl is one smart IQ person and he needs all those smarts!  He was leading new change initiatives, changing reporting relationships and strategizing on how to meet financial challenges that have built up over several years.  He also needs to build loyalty, solid relationships and a desire among a staff of many different backgrounds from neurosurgeons to administrative staff to work together and build a new future together.  Every day, he exhibits skills in all four dimensions of this success diagram.

Empathy
People know he understands how hard they are working and that change can be painful, they feel his compassion and genuine interest in them.

Assertiveness
He is assertive, there is no doubt that the changes are to be made.  His staff knows that they are expected to perform to the new standards and will be held accountable if they don’t.  When actions are unacceptable he makes it clear; however, this isn’t necessary often because he communicates what is needed up front and the requirement of accountability is clear. 

Impulse Control
His expert use of impulse control is reflected by his measured responses when something goes wrong and his thoughtful engagement on complex matters as he helps all involved recognize that big problems take time to resolve successfully.

Optimism
He leaves no doubt about his belief that they will be resolved, thus exuding consistent optimism.  His staff gains hopefulness and inspiration, they know he cares about them and will hold them accountable.  It is a healthy proactive structure that is gradually turning a big ship around since he started six months ago. 

When leaders seek to guide and influence others we know they need to communicate – but how?  The choice that gets the desired results taps into the four corners of empathic assertiveness.  These are four of the fifteen skills measured by the EQ-i and the good news is they can be developed and improved in all motivated leaders.  It is best for the leader and his/her coach to review the results from taking the EQ-i and create a game plan that calls for these skills to be used in synch.  If a leader one day pats an employee on the back and praises him or her. Then next day the leader impulsively yells about a mistake, it can be difficult for the employee to trust the relationship. The leader needs to learn to bring those skills together in a cohesive message.  Let’s assume a leader, I’ll call Mary makes one of the following two communications:

“Nancy, I’m so disappointed with the errors in your report, we worked with you so hard last time and here you are making the same kind of mistakes again.  Now, do it right and have the memo on my desk by 10 a.m. tomorrow!”

OR

“Nancy, I appreciate your desire to get this project completed on time, but quality has to matter just as much as timeliness.  Please take time to correct the errors, get help from others on the team as you need, and give me your proposed final memo by tomorrow at 10 a.m. I know you can get this done well just like you did with last month’s project.”

If Mary was just assertive and didn’t manage her impulses her irritation at the poor quality could cause Nancy to be less resourceful, Nancy is likely to move away emotionally from the project and from Mary rather than moving toward the project and rolling up her sleeves to accomplish even more.  The second message incorporates all four skills and is more likely to lead to success.

How to be successful with the Four Corners model?

Empathy is demonstrated by understanding the emotions people are communicating and responding to them.  This is key to building trust, engagement and passion.  Demonstrating empathy can take just a moment, if you see that someone is surprised, worried or perplexed, acknowledge the emotion, connect it with a reason you believe is related and give the person time to correct you if needed and to respond more.  “You feel perplexed because these two goals seem contradictory.” Also, be sure to give the person time to speak.

Assertiveness is demonstrated by the ability to speak up, to make your points, to say no when called for.  Leaders can develop their skills with assertiveness by intentionally saying what is important to them and by practicing saying no by being clear about their priorities.  A leader’s staff and teams want to hear from him/her, but the way that the assertiveness is communicated will make all the difference in how it is accepted.

Impulse control includes the ability to manage impulses, be patient and to control the desire to be angry. Howard Book writes in his chapter “When Enhanced EI is Associated with Leadership Derailment” (The Handbook for Developing Emotional and Social Intelligence, Hughes, Thompson and Terrell, 2009) that impulse control is a primary skill upon which all other cognitive and emotional skills depend.  Leaders with poor impulse control make haphazard and poorly thought out decisions.  Rich Handley in his chapter “Advanced EQi Interpretation Techniques” in the edited volume presented his research on the relationship between the fifteen EQ-i skills in which he found the EQ-i skill that supports the most successful use of an identified EQ skill, e.g., for emotional self awareness that supportive skill is impulse control.  It turns out that impulse control is the most influential of all the skills.  If someone overuses impulse control they may be risk adverse and just play things too safely.  Someone low in impulse control at best will irritate others and at worst will burn many bridges.  Leaders can develop their impulse control by finding ways to stop and think before they speak.  We often suggest a leader use stair therapy – if they are feeling impulsive or even explosive we urge them to go climb a set or more of stairs before they say anything.  There is no doubt that getting oxygen to their brain and incorporating physical movement will be helpful.

Optimism is the demonstration of hopefulness.  When leaders help their teams believe they will find an answer even when the going gets tough, they are building optimism.  Plentiful research is demonstrating the power of positive mood.  Leaders can build optimism through the way they talk about challenges.  Speak of challenges in limited ways, frame the concern so it’s not so global or big that it can’t be handled and say, “we just haven’t found the answer yet.  The word “yet” creates a presupposition that the answer will be found!

The art of developing successful leadership is created by bringing the right skills together so leaders can experience a resilience that is sustainable even when tested.

About Marcia Hughes

Marcia Hughes is President and CEO of Collaborative Growth, L.L.C., and serves as a strategic communications partner for organizations.  Marcia works with organizations to support strategic decision making and effective communications.  She is an international expert in emotional intelligence for leadership and team development. Marcia is co-author with James Terrell of the Team Emotional and Social Intelligence® Survey (TESI®), an on-line assessment, and several books including The Emotionally Intelligent Team, The Handbook for Developing Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence in Action, and Life’s 2% Solution. She previously operated her law practice and worked on complex multi-disciplinary public policy issues at the national, state and local levels. Learn more at www.cgrowth.com and www.EITeams.com.

Linking Cultural Adaptability and EI

So much rich data suggests that emotional intelligence is linked to success in the workplace – but what if that workplace is abroad? MHS Emotional Intelligence Solutions Division is offering an exciting opportunity to contribute to the development of a new reporting option for the world-famous Emotional Quotient Inventory®.

MHS is developing a Cross-Cultural Adaptability Report as a complement to our original selection of EQ-i® Reports. This new report is being designed with input from professionals who have experienced the many facets of working, living, and adapting cross-culturally. To ensure we are providing a tool that is both effective and easy to use, we are looking for volunteers from around the globe who would be willing to fill out the EQ-i online along with a brief questionnaire about their professional experiences abroad.

We are seeking to determine which personal factors may contribute to success in overseas working opportunities. To do so, we are looking for individuals with overseas working experience in excess of 3 months that can be described as a ‘successful/positive’ or an ‘unsuccessful/negative’ experience. We welcome individuals who are still working abroad, and those who have already returned to their home countries. Participation is not limited to North American nationals – we will be pleased to accept participants from anywhere around the globe.

If you are a qualified EQ-i practitioner, you may be eligible to receive a free Development Report for each client who completes the assessment. You can use this to offer feedback to your clients without incurring the purchasing cost of the report.

For more information or to sign up, please contact Tyrone Williams at tyrone.williams (at) mhs.com.

Resiliency, Teaching, and Emotional Intelligence

I’ve already reported on a number of studies linking emotional intelligence in educators and school principals to various performance criteria, but there always seems to be room for more validation studies. A recent dissertation by Aileen Thompson Bumphus looked at the relationship between resilience and emotional intelligence in educational leaders.

The study was designed to help in advancing the recruitment, identification, development, and retention of effective school leaders. Aileen looked at a group of 63 public school principals from five states – Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. These leaders were administered the EQ-i, a measure of resilience, and a leadership questionnaire.

Aileen found a significant positive relationship between self-reported emotional intelligence and resilience among school principals. When she added school leadership into the model, the relationship became stronger, indicating that school leadership played a significantly positive role in the relationship between emotional intelligence and resilience among school principals.

In addition, a principal’s general mood, as measured by the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) was a significant predictor of resilience. Aileen’s research supports previous studies, which showed a strong positive relationship between a school principal’s emotional intelligence and leadership. Specifically, the strong relationship was found to be between the principal’s self-perception of leadership and the Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Emotional Quotient (EQ) subscales on the EQ-i.

Reference: Bumphus, Aileen Thompson. The emotional intelligence and resilience of school leaders: An investigation into leadership behaviors. Abstract and full article available from the American Psychological Association (APA).

Infusing Emotional Intelligence into FYE Courses at Peace College

The following article has been submitted by Korrel Kanoy, Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Psychology at Peace College. In it she details how her campus has had great success applying Emotional Intelligence with their first year students, and she provides advice for other campuses who are considering incorporating emotional and social topics into their first year curriculum.

Peace College, a private, liberal arts college for women, began infusing emotional intelligence (EI) concepts into our First Year Experience (FYE) class during the fall 2008 semester.  Our class is designed to help students make a successful transition to college and what better way to do that than to equip students with EI knowledge and skills?  We found it easy to infuse EI concepts throughout our FYE curriculum and would expect most colleges to have the same experience. 

Consideration of the value of a liberal arts education becomes meaningful to 18 year olds when contextualized in terms of their goals and ambitions (self actualization) or even the level  of understanding related to why they came to college (self awareness). A discussion of study skills becomes even more relevant if impulse control (study first, party later) also becomes a meaningful part of the conversation.  Discussions about roommate issues and changing relationships with family members become more meaningful when independence, empathy and interpersonal relationship constructs are added to the discussion.  The list goes on. 

In fact, we found it so easy to incorporate EI into our FYE curriculum that it became difficult to know where to stop.  By the end of the semester, my students were drawing connections to EI even when I wasn’t doing so. When we were covering identity development related to career choice, A particularly astute student commented that it would be hard to develop a meaningful career identity without first having well developed self awareness and a certain level of independence from parents who might try to influence choices.

To initiate this program, we trained 21 faculty and staff members to interpret the EQ-i® and each first-year student met with a trained interpreter for 30 minutes.  After completing the interpretation, each student designed a self-development plan based on two EI areas she wanted to improve.  Development plans were shared and discussed with instructors and students began making the connections between EI and their personal and academic success.  For example, one student in my FYE class made the connection that she needed to listen more and talk less during class (her empathy and interpersonal relationship scores were low), and as a result, her relationships with her peers improved noticeably.

One word of caution though – before implementing required EQ-i testing, be sure your Counseling Center staff understands the EQ-i and is prepared for a possible increase in requests for meetings.  Our staff noticed about a 30% increase in appointments right after EQ-i interpretations were completed.  Apparently, students’ self awareness or the desire to get more structured help improving EI led students to seek out our counselors.  And, in a few cases, a score or scores (e.g., self regard)were so low that faculty referred the student for counseling.

One final note – our preliminary analysis of data from these entering first-year students showed that EI skills were predictive in two areas.  First, higher optimism, along with better high school grades and higher verbal SAT score were predictive of better academic performance by mid-term of the first semester.  By the end of the term, two EI subscales emerged as predictors of first to second semester retention.  Higher optimism and better impulse control predicted retention better than any academic measure.   As a result of this preliminary data, we plan to infuse more programming related to developing impulse control and optimism in our first-year orientation programs, our residence life programming and our FYE curriculum.

ICEI Update: Conference Certification Workshops Announced

We have received many ICEI presentation submissions, and conference organizers are in the midst of finalizing the speakers list. Individuals who submitted presentations can expect to hear back about the status of their submissions in the coming days, and we will be publishing the list of presenters on the ICEI site in March.

If you are planning to attend ICEI, you may also be interested in attending one of the pre- or post-conference workshops. Certifications workshops for the EQ-i®, EQ-360®, and MSCEIT™ assessments have been scheduled before and after the conference for the convenience of conference attendees. For more information on the certifications or to register, visit the Registration section of the ICEI site and scroll down to Certifications.

We’d also like to remind you that the special early bird registration rate for ICEI conference registration will only be available until midnight on March 31, 2009. Be sure to register now to receive the lowest rate.

Capitalize on the Link Between EI and Customer Loyalty

Ever since discovering the many ways that Emotional Intelligence can benefit organizations, MHS EI training partner Dr. John L. Avella has dedicated his time to researching how EI impacts customer loyalty. By pursuing this link, he has developed a specialized customer loyalty training process and a certification program to make it easy for consultants and HR professionals to implement his process. Dr. Avella has contributed the following article that details his program and its value to organizations.

Research tells us that a lifetime income stream is generated by the return business from loyal customers, who go on to recommend the companies to which they are loyal. In an economic downturn, such as the one we are currently in the midst of, such a steady, reliable income stream is invaluable.

My approach to customer loyalty focuses on the application of Emotional Intelligence to customer interactions. The result is an emotional connection between the customer service provider and the customer, which is the essence of building customer loyalty. This training process has been implemented in several companies with incredible results and has been the subject of a research study at Columbia University (the results of these implementations and studies are available from Dr. Avella upon request).

Once you are trained to use this program, you will have all the tools needed to market and implement this vital process, and you can begin helping organizations utilize customer loyalty as a strategic advantage.

The training process utilizes tried and true adult learning principles that help create high engagement among participants and effective transfer of learned skills to the workplace. To participate in the training workshop, you will need to be certified to use the EQ-i, and subsequent workshops will include an EQ-i certification unit. The customer loyalty certification will take place over two days and will feature the following elements:

• Skill development workshops to enable you to implement the customer loyalty process
• Strategies for the transfer of learning, and practices for effective delivery
• EQi interpretation and learner feedback for heightened engagement in training process
• Strategies and materials for effective marketing of the process
• Information about post-workshop support.

The first certification/licensing workshop will take place in London on March 18-19, 2009. For more information about registration, or for information on combined Customer Loyalty/EQ-i certification workshops, contact Dorothy Spry  or Dr. John L. Avella .

Announcing a New EQ-i® Report Option for Higher Education

The new EQ-i ^® Higher Education Report (EQ-i HEd) is the product of many years spent working with campuses to fine tune the EQ-i reporting options to meet the specific needs of Higher Education staff and faculty working with students. Higher Education users already familiar with the EQ-i will find that this new report option delivers all the helpful feedback they’ve come to expect from the assessment, except now the feedback is presented in a format more relevant to students and educators.

The set of three reports that the EQ-i HEd renders offers students and counselors school-specific results in a delivery system geared for optimal understanding, ease of administration, and follow-up. Using the new EQ-i HEd, students take the standard 133-item version of the EQ-i and instantly get a 10-page summary of their top three and lowest two results. Counselors can then generate comprehensive reports that provide interpretation and development strategies for all 15 subscales. These reports are ideal aids for coaching students and incorporating Emotional Intelligence into your class curriculum or campus leadership programs.

You can now download free samples of these reports from our website, and if you think the Higher Education Report may be a good fit on your campus, contact MHS client services for more information.

Advanced EQ-i Practitioner Workshop

The EQ-i experts at Career Performance are hosting an Advanced EQ-i practitioner workshop with EQ-i creator Dr. Revuen BarOn on the 7th November 2008 in London, England. The workshop will aim to introduce accredited EQ-i users to some more advanced uses for Emotional Intelligence, including the following:

• Best practice applications of EI in the workplace
• How to use the EQ-i effectively in coaching
• How to identify and interpret cluster scores
• How to manage challenging EQ-i results
• Identifying dangerous score combinations
• When to refer a client to additional support services

This will also be an opportunity to meet with our own Paul Vella from the MHS UK office. Paul will be available to answer questions and will be providing an update on MHS’ latest products and services.

 

For further information or to register, please contact Dorothy Spry at Career Performance at  dorothy@careerperformance.co.uk.

EQ-i Business Report Summer Promotion

Practitioners applying EI in the workplace have been giving consistently positive feedback about how helpful they find the EQ-i Business Report. Roger Pearman, President of Leadership Performing Systems Inc. and past president of the Association for Psychological Type International (APTi), shared the following praise:

 

“The EQ-i Business Report is written in the direct, pragmatic language of business managers and executives, who can immediately use the information to enhance their effectiveness.  The report’s structure is easy to follow and provides clearly defined interpretations for the scores as well as development action steps as needed.  With the inclusion of a goal planning section, the report promotes immediate action on the insights so concisely provided in the report.   As is true with successful business leaders, the EQ-i Business Report assesses, clarifies, and directs to the next level of performance.”

 

Now is the perfect time to try out the EQ-i Business Report in your own practice. Anyone who purchases at least fifteen EQ-i Business Reports before September 1^st 2008 will receive an additional report at no additional cost. Not only will you be receiving the benefit of a report specially designed for feedback in a business environment, you will also be able to choose one complementary Leadership Report, or two complementary Group Reports, for future use.

 

To take advantage of this offer when purchasing your Business Reports, simply quote the following promotional code when placing your order: EIBUS.

Developing EI in Recreational Settings

Many have often wondered whether those corporate getaways in the wilderness doing all those outdoors activities – rock climbing, hiking, and general survival – really amount to anything once you get back to the office. Well, now there’s a clue thanks to a study by Jeffrey Jacobs (California Polytechic State University) and Leo McAvoy (University of Minnesota).

The focus of their study was actually on summer camp staff. Apparently there has been some question as to the benefits of college students spending their summers at camp – basically working as counselors for low pay. Jacobs and McAvoy set out to see if the summer camp experience had some benefit, beyond monetary and fun in the sun, for these youth.  They hypothesized that the experience might also improve the Emotional Intelligence of these students.

Ten million youth attend summer camp each year with more than 12,000 camps across America. These camps employ 1,200,000 college students, teachers, doctors, nurses and others. This study set out to help camp directors better understand the impact these camps can have on staff.

The staff at four different summer camps were asked to complete the EQ-i® both before and near the end of their summer experience. At the end of the season they also completed a questionnaire containing four open-ended questions about how the camp experience may have affected them personally and emotionally. There were 81 respondents included in the study.

This study is unique in that it is one of the very few evaluations of summer camp experience for staff that goes beyond anecdotal reports and includes a standardized measure. The study found that the 8-10 week camping experience resulted in significant increases in overall EQ as well as in eight subscales: stress tolerance, self-actualization, social responsibility, optimism, empathy, happiness, interpersonal relationships, and flexibility.

In the post questionnaires, 47% of participants reported personal gains in increasing their empathy towards others. Significant gains were also reported (in order) in assertiveness, improved interpersonal relationships, and optimism by more than 30% of staff.

Though further research is still needed into the links between EI and team development initiatives that are partnered with recreational activities, this study provides a good starting point.

Reference:
Jacobs, J.A. & McAvoy, L.H. (2008). The relationship between summer camp employment and emotional intelligence. Paper available through California Polytechnic State University.