Daniel Goleman's Blog, page 19
July 27, 2012
The emotionally intelligent salesman
A: Effectiveness at sales certainly reflect emotional intelligence strengths in empathy (especially understanding your customer’s needs), relationship-building, and influence. I’ve described this in my book Working With Emotional Intelligence, and go into those EI competencies in my new book, Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence. When it comes to sales the difference in types of empathy matter. Cognitive empathy lets us understand how a person thinks, and so lets us talk in ways they understand – but this can become manipulation, especially in high-pressure sales tactics. While this may make a sale, it loses the customer.
The top sales people, though, apply a different approach: empathic concern, where you sense and care about the person’s needs. Rather than persuade someone to buy the wrong thing, these sales stars make sure they match the customer’s needs to what they offer – and may even send them elsewhere if need be. This builds a lasting relationship of trust – and a customer who returns again and again.
July 20, 2012
The feedback loop
A: 360 degree feedback works best if you ask people whose opinions you value and trust to evaluate your emotional intelligence anonymously – that is, they use a measure they can fill out and give to a neutral third party, who will aggregate the date so you only see averages, rather than the ratings from any one person. This information is immensely valuable for developing further strengths in EI, because is gives you a view of yourself you can never get on your own. You see yourself as others see you.
Then you can use this feedback to find which aspect of EI you will focus on in your development plan. I strongly recommend 360 feedback for development of EI, ideally with a coach or in a group that’s led by someone expert in the process. If you want to improve on EI leadership competencies, I suggest using the Emotional and Social Competence Inventory (ESCI-360) that I co-designed with Richard Boyatzis, my colleague at the Weatherhead School of Business at Case Western, along with Haygroup.
Or you can browse other emotional intelligence 360s reviewed by the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence.
July 13, 2012
Kids these days!
Older generations have been decrying the loss of seriousness and manners in young people since at least the time of Aristotle, several centuries B.C. Today’s older generations – particularly the Baby Boomers, born in the decade or so after World War II – are a case in point: their parents despaired that this generation would shred cultural norms. Didn’t happen. Like other generations, the Boomers matured, married, had kids and careers. I suspect this phenomenon is so robust because there is a period in brain development, roughly from the teen years to early 20s, where the brain’s circuitry for saying no to impulse is underdeveloped, resulting in risky, unruly, or wild behavior which can lead older folks to make judgments about the generation itself rather than this period in development. About the time Emotional Intelligence was published there was a nationwide, longitudinal study carried out over decades that showed an objective dip in teens behavior — more crime, violence, substance abuse, etc. But in subsequent years that drop has largely disappeared; emotional intelligence in today’s young people seems about the same as in previous generations. But let’s see if longterm impacts from the new tech media on self-management and relationship show up in years to come.
July 6, 2012
What makes a good leader?
A: Besides emotional intelligence, every leader requires a certain high level of cognitive intelligence and technical skill. The specifics vary with the particular organization and position, but in general high-level executives need an IQ of around 110 or so to handle the cognitive complexity of their jobs. Beyond that a leader may need to have a high level of competence in particular technical skills – not because they use them in their work, but because they lead people who do, and need to have their respect.
June 29, 2012
Emotional intelligence in the classroom
A: EI is crucial for all life success, including for students in the classroom, because of the basic design of the brain. Our emotions evolved as a tool for survival, and today emotions have a privileged position in the brain. When we are upset the emotional centers can hijack the thinking centers, rendering us unable to think clearly, focus on the task at hand, perceive in an undistorted manner, and even make it harder to remember what’s relevant to what we’re doing (instead we remember easily anything about what’s upsetting us). So whether in the workplace or the classroom, managing our emotions is the prerequisite to learning and focus.
June 22, 2012
Goleman’s model of emotional intelligence
A: My model of leadership has evolved over several years – there is no “Goleman 2000” model, but rather an evolution of my thought. The best source my thinking on leadership is my recent book Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence {MIKE: add link] There you can read my earliest ideas, the chapter “Managing with Heart” from my 1995 book Emotional Intelligence, my 1998 and 2000 Harvard Business Review articles “What Makes a Leader” and “Leadership That Gets Results,” straight through to last year’s The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights.
As I continue to follow the emerging data from neuroscience and psychology, my understanding of the human qualities that allow outstanding leadership has changed. Now I see that social intelligence – empathy and social skill – are essentials for effective leadership, although very often people are promoted to leadership positions because they have gotten excellent results as a sole performer. But if they lack social intelligence they will flounder.
June 15, 2012
Timing SEL
A: Children begin to learn these skills from the moment of their first interaction with another human being. The mirror neuron system, which mimics in our own brain what we observe in another person’s movements, emotions and intentions, lets infants map on their own brain what they see others do – they start learning how to be a human being. With language toddlers get another key tool in learning social-emotional skills – and gain the ability to talk to themselves about it. By the time a child enters school she is a master at learning these basic human abilities. But these lessons must be delivered over and over as kids grow, in ways that are developmentally appropriate.
June 8, 2012
Enhancing emotional intelligence
A: Emotional intelligence competencies are learned – and can be improved at any point in life. But first you have to be motivated – ask yourself if you really care. Then you need a well-structured learning situation where, for instance, you have a clear picture of what you want to improve, and can practice specific behaviors that will help you enhance the targeted competence.
June 1, 2012
Schools and EI
A: Yes, definitely. It’s called “social-emotional learning (SEL),” and teaches the gamut of EI skills. The lessons are, for example, simulations of everyday childhood crises (He stole my crayon! They won’t play with me!) with kids brainstorming what works and what does not. Or reflecting on their feelings and what caused them. Or, say, remembering to pause and think about consequences before your act when you’re upset.
These curricula are designed to embed seamlessly in standard courses, from gym and English to math, as well as stand-alone weekly modules that might last 15 minutes. A meta-analysis of more than 200 studies comparing kids with and without SEL found antisocial acts plummet, prosocial gain – and academic achievement scores go up 11%. When kids learn how to get their emotional and social lives under control, they can pay better attention.
May 25, 2012
Emotional intelligence and leadership
A: No matter what a leader’s strategy or vision may be, it can only be achieved through the combined efforts of everyone involved–never by the leader alone. The leader needs to communicate, inspire, listen, dialogue, motivate. And all those require emotional intelligence.
