How are you? It’s a question you ask or are asked dozens of times each day and yet how often do we stop, pause, reflect and answer the question in an honest and open manner? Doing so is important as the question and answer help us connect with others and to get things done. Once you have a good answer to “how are you?”, it is important to match those feelings to connect and achieve goals, to understand the meaning of these feelings and then to actively manage these feelings. These four skills are described by the theory of emotional intelligence first proposed by Jack Mayer and Peter Salovey in 1990. This session will begin with a set of questions to illustrate these four hard skills and we will then apply these skills to your most challenging situations. The model itself is simple and straightforward – the challenge is to apply these skills at a high level of skill, in real time, on a consistent basis and under stressful conditions.
We will also explore these ideas: 1) feelings are not facts, but emotions are data 2) while moods can interfere with decision making, emotions can facilitate thinking and decision making, 3) the advice to “trust your gut” is bad advice, and 4) emotions can be smart and intelligent. The ability model of emotional intelligence views emotions as a form of information and specifies a set of four hard skills. Leaders often ignore emotions but emotions exist and influence everything you think about, do and decide. In this session, we share skills to help leaders be smarter about emotions. Leaders must be good at “reading” people, connecting with them, creating the right emotional climate to get work done and manage people’s emotions, from calming fears to inspiring hope.