Daniel Goleman's Blog, page 6

Measuring Your Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence – how we manage ourselves and our relationships – marks high-performers and leaders in organizations around the world. This set of human skills matter enormously, in many ways. For instance, in making the crucial connections we depend on to work well, all of the components of emotional intelligence come into play: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

I listed the main emotional intelligence abilities in an article in the New York Times.

Ask yourself how you do on these:

Emotional Insight and Self-Awareness. Do you know what makes you angry, what triggers sadness? Developing such insight can be a lifelong process, but this simple exercise can build your self-awareness muscles. Set a timer for several times during the day. When the timer goes off, tune in for a few moments to notice what you are feeling and your first guess at what triggered that feeling.

It might be frustration with a colleague’s performance, excitement about a new project, or sadness about something going on at home. If this exercise feels challenging, consider working with a therapist or coach. Before you can manage your feelings and tune in to another person’s feelings, you need to recognize your own.

Emotional Balance and Self-Management. When you feel sad or mad, do you blow up or burst into tears? We can’t always avoid situations that trigger distress, but we can control how we respond. It helps to understand what’s going on in our brains and bodies when we’re in the grip of intense feelings.

University of Alabama psychologist Dolf Zillmann did foundational research on the anatomy of rage. Zillmann sees two main ways of defusing anger: challenge thoughts triggering the surges of anger and cool off physiologically by waiting out the adrenal surge away from further triggers. Seeking out distractions also helps since distraction is a highly powerful mood-altering device.

Empathy and Social Awareness require Good Listening. When someone is talking to you, how well do you focus on them and what they are saying? If self-absorption or preoccupation shrink your attention, you won’t notice other people’s feelings, let alone respond with empathy or make a connection.

Whether in person, or on the phone or a video conference, put aside distractions and attend to what the other person is saying. It might feel inefficient, but the payback in understanding is great. Leaders of large corporations such as General Electric recognize good listening skills as one of the top characteristics of skillful leaders.

Teamwork and Collaboration: Key Relationship Management Skills. How well do you work collaboratively with others? Do people feel relaxed working with you? If your colleagues laugh easily around you, that’s a good sign. And, it means you’ve made an emotional connection. One way to assess your teamwork skills is to ask for feedback from coworkers you trust.

The stronger our emotional bonds with someone, the more effective our interactions. I’ve learned a great deal about the importance of emotional connection for high performance leadership from my friend, George Kohlrieser, who is a professor at IMD in Switzerland. It all comes down to emotional intelligence.

The Chemistry of Connection

I will explore how our emotional and social intelligence matter for powerful interactions in an upcoming workshop, The Chemistry of Connection, at the Garrison Institute. I’ll join my wife Tara Bennett-Goleman, horse whisperer RJ “Bob” Sadowski, Jr., and conflict resolver Aaron Wolf to explore inner and interpersonal tools for developing greater connection in all of our interactions.

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Supplemental Reading

What Makes a Leader: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters

The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights

Daniel Goleman: Measuring Your Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence – how we manage ourselves and our relationships – marks high-performers and leaders in organizations around the world. This set of human skills matter enormously, in many ways. For instance, in making the crucial connections we depend on to work well, all of the components of emotional intelligence come into play: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. I listed the main emotional intelligence abilities in an article in the New York Times. Ask yourself how you do on these: Emotional Insight and Self-Awareness. Do you know what makes you angry, what triggers sadness? Developing such insight can be a lifelong process, but this simple exercise can build your self-awareness muscles. Set a timer for several times during the day. When the timer goes off, tune in for a few moments to notice what you are feeling and your first guess at what triggered that feeling. It might be frustration with a colleague’s performance, excitement about a new project, or sadness about something going on at home. If this exercise feels challenging, consider working with a therapist or coach. Before you can manage your feelings and tune in to another person’s feelings, you need to recognize your own. Emotional Balance and Self-Management. When you feel sad or mad, do you blow up or burst into tears? We can’t always avoid situations that trigger distress, but we can control how we respond. It helps to understand what’s going on in our brains and bodies when we’re in the grip of intense feelings. University of Alabama psychologist Dolf Zillmann did foundational research on the anatomy of rage. Zillmann sees two main ways of defusing anger: challenge thoughts triggering the surges of anger and cool off physiologically by waiting out the adrenal surge away from further triggers. Seeking out distractions also helps since distraction is a highly powerful mood-altering device. Empathy and Social Awareness require Good Listening. When someone is talking to you, how well do you focus on them and what they are saying? If self-absorption or preoccupation shrink your attention, you won’t notice other people’s feelings, let alone respond with empathy or make a connection. Whether in person, or on the phone or a video conference, put aside distractions and attend to what the other person is saying. It might feel inefficient, but the payback in understanding is great. Leaders of large corporations such as General Electric recognize good listening skills as one of the top characteristics of skillful leaders. Teamwork and Collaboration: Key Relationship Management Skills. How well do you work collaboratively with others? Do people feel relaxed working with you? If your colleagues laugh easily around you, that’s a good sign. And, it means you’ve made an emotional connection. One way to assess your teamwork skills is to ask for feedback from coworkers you trust. The stronger our emotional bonds with someone, the more effective our interactions. I’ve learned a great deal about the importance of emotional connection for high performance leadership from my friend, George Kohlrieser, who is a professor at IMD in Switzerland. It all comes down to emotional intelligence. The Chemistry of Connection I will explore how our emotional and social intelligence matter for powerful interactions in an upcoming workshop, The Chemistry of Connection, at the Garrison Institute. I’ll join my wife Tara Bennett-Goleman, horse whisperer RJ “Bob” Sadowski, Jr., and conflict resolver Aaron Wolf to explore inner and interpersonal tools for developing greater connection in all of our interactions. * * * * * Supplemental Reading Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence - Selected Writings What Makes a Leader: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights

Daniel Goleman: Beyond Words: What’s Missing in Online Connections

“I think she’s a GREAT candidate for the job. ;)” Faith texted her co-worker, Stan, after interviewing people for an opening in their department. Stan’s response: “What did you like about her? How did she stand out?” Faith frowned as she texted back, “Didn’t you see the wink? I was being sarcastic.” Stan’s brow furrowed as he picked up the phone and called Faith, “So, she’s not a good candidate? What do you really think?” Imagine if Stan was in Faith’s office and she said those same words. Her sarcasm would have come through in her timing, tone of voice, and facial expression. And Faith would have picked up Stan’s worry and confusion from his furrowed brow. But only in person, if they were face-to-face. None of those emotional cues go along with a text or email. While the missing emotional information in Faith’s message didn’t cause a big problem, such miscommunication can have serious consequences. Transmitting emotions doesn’t happen through words or the rational part of the brain. Emotions operate through the subcortex, a part of the brain that operates independent of the part that speaks or texts. We transmit and read emotions unconsciously and instantaneously. A large percentage of the information shared in any face-to-face conversation flows through our nonverbal exchange of feelings. When we communicate through text, that content is missing. Why Communicating Emotions Matters To convey technical information, words and numbers serve well. But if you’re trying to make a decision as a group, resolve a conflict, present difficult news, or build support for a company’s mission, emotions matter. Empathy is the ability to tune into and understand someone else’s emotions. As I put it in my book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, “Our circuitry for empathy was designed for face-to-face moments. Today, working together online poses special challenges for empathy. Take, for example, that familiar moment in a meeting when everyone already knows but has not said, ‘Okay, then we all agree on this.’ Heads nod. But coming to such consensus in an online text-based discussion requires flying blind, without relying on the continuous cascade of nonverbal messages that in a real meeting let someone announce aloud the as-yet-unspoken agreement.” Online we can base our reading of others only on what they write. What we don’t get in online text-based communication is emotion. Get in the Same Room Clay Shirky at New York University studies the internet and society, including how groups can work effectively across distance. One thing he talked about during our conversation for Socially Intelligent Computing is a shift that’s occurred in business meetings and conferences. Professor Shirky noticed how professional conferences include briefer presentations and Q&A periods to convey information and emphasize the type of interactive time that happens informally in the hallway. He said, “Meetings have become more balanced towards emotional valence and less towards information transfer because there are better ways to transfer information than getting people in the same room but there are not better ways to create emotional valence.” Choose wisely how best to communicate with others. If you want to share facts and figures, send it via text or email. If your goal is more complex or emotionally important, find ways to bring people together in person or by voice and video conferencing. The Chemistry of Connection I will explore the many routes to better communication in an upcoming workshop, The Chemistry of Connection, at the Garrison Institute. I’ll join my wife Tara Bennett-Goleman, horse whisperer RJ “Bob” Sadowski, Jr., and conflict resolver Aaron Wolf to explore inner and interpersonal tools for developing greater connection in all of our interactions.  * * * * * Supplemental Reading Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence - Selected Writings What Makes a Leader: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights

Daniel Goleman: Put Back the Chemistry in Your Connections

Ask yourself: Do you send someone an email at work, even though you could walk over and talk with them? How much of your time do you spend on work-related email, texts, or other digital media – versus actually meeting with people? Have you had misunderstandings because you emailed rather than had a face-to-face talk? Have More Human Moments The trends for most all of us tip more and more toward virtual contacts and less and less to real ones. And that endangers the “human moment” – that in-person connection where we feel the closeness that allows bull’s eye contact, the kind of interaction that resonates, moves people, and makes a lasting impression. Such moments allow a powerful psychological encounter that simply cannot happen online. Of course all the digital links between us are convenient, efficient ways to communicate. But their ease can be seductive, leading us to reach out digitally when we should reach out in person. It doesn’t matter if you’re a high-level leader, in sales, working with clients, or part of a team, or just one of many in an office – the face-to-face encounter has real value. [READ - Leaders: Learn the Art and Science of Rapport] These are points that might seem obvious, but bear repeating as the social norms for connection are slipping away from people being together to digital connections. Ten years ago people were miffed when the person they were with answered a cell phone call while they were talking – and today that personal disconnect has become standard. The human moment combines physical presence with mutual attention. The result is rapport. Research at Harvard finds there are three ingredients of rapport: 1) full attention by both people 2) a nonverbal, automatic synchrony of movements 3) a feeling of mild pleasure. In rapport, whatever we’re doing goes smoothly, feels good, and has a special power. Just being present won’t do it – you can ride next to someone on an airplane for hours and never connect. It’s the attention that makes all the difference. The social circuitry of the brain was designed for face-to-face interactions, in person. Those circuits track a multitude of signals about the other person’s emotions, intentions, and the like – which gives us an immediate, unconscious but powerful, sense of what’s happening with them, and what best to say and do next. There is a steady loss of these signals as we move to phone calls (good but not best) to email, where there is zero emotional signal – just words. A classic Harvard Business Review article instructed executives on how to have a human moment: Step 1: Set aside what you’re doing, e.g. put down what you were reading. Step 2: Disengage from your laptop, or any other digital distraction. Step 3: Abandon your daydream or other random streams of thought. Step 4: Focus on the person you’re with. Good advice. Daniel Goleman will be one of the presenters at a workshop on The Chemistry of Connection May 26-30 at Garrison Institute, Garrison, NY. Additional Reading Glad, Mad, Sad? Teams Catch a Leader's Mood Connection: The Key to High Performance Leadership How to Manage Relationships That Push Your Buttons Three Ways to Avoid Crossed Wires at Work

Daniel Goleman: How Self-Awareness Impacts Your Work

Through my research in emotional intelligence and brain function, I’ve developed a model of the mind as a three-tiered building. The first tier is the foundation and where you’ll find the brain, the control center. The second tier contains the four realms of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skill.

And above that, at the top tier, are leadership competencies. These come from a methodology called Competency Modeling, one of the main developers of which was my mentor at Harvard, David McClelland. Following this model, we identify who will be best in a specific role by evaluating those who have excelled in that position—using whatever metric applies—and then comparing them with people in the same role with mediocre success. This allows us to identify the competencies found in the stand-outs that you don’t find in the average… these are the leadership competencies we’re seeking. Then we hire people with those competencies.

 

In the decades since McClelland proposed this, it has become standard operating procedure for identifying leadership competencies in most world-class organizations. When I was conducting research for my book Working with Emotional Intelligence, I had access to about 200 competency models that companies use to identify star performers. These are all proprietary since they provide each organization with a competitive edge, but I was able to identify common themes. For example, emotional self-awareness is a leadership competency that shows up in model after model. These are the leaders attuned to their inner signals, recognizing how their feelings affect them and their job performance. They integrate their guiding values into their work. They can deduce the best course of action. They see the big picture and they’re genuine.

I had a discussion about this model—and particularly self-awareness—with my colleague Daniel Siegel, who’s a psychiatrist at UCLA and whose research informs much of my work in emotional intelligence. I asked what his research had to do with the parts of the brain that are self-aware. I’ve paraphrased our conversation below.

What’s particularly exciting about this model is how it asks the question, “How does emotional intelligence create a bridge between competence creation and the brain?”

First off, people hear about the brain and they become glassy-eyed; they think it’s going to be too complicated. But I think there are some basic statements about the brain that can make us feel much more comfortable… Remember that the brain is actually the social organ of the body. Everything that allows us to be social is mediated by certain circuits in the brain. Also, your experience—just the subjective quality of being alive—has a lot to do with how you use your brain. Let’s take self-awareness, as you mentioned. When someone is aware of how feelings affect his reasoning, thinking, and ways of interacting with other people—he has self-awareness. This is one component of emotional intelligence. And we know that there are circuits in the brain that allow you to be aware of your mental world that are distinct from the circuits that allow you to be aware of your physical world.

During medical school I knew certain professors who were aware of their internal experiences, and subsequently could also be aware of the experiences of their patients. So if someone was given a difficult diagnosis, they knew to stay with the patient and be attentive to their feelings. Other professors acted as if it was just a diagnosis. And it struck me then that some people could see their minds, and some people couldn’t. I termed this ability mindsight.

So as I said, with self-awareness, we know there are certain circuits that map your mental life. These are very different from the brain circuits that map what you physically see, for example. Some people have cultivated these mindsight map-making areas beautifully and have great self-awareness, because it’s a learnable skill, and other people haven’t. Some mindsight may be innate, but studies also suggest that your experiences with your parents can generate the kind of reflective competencies upon which self-awareness depends.

Keep in mind that self-awareness isn’t just navel-gazing. It’s the presence of mind to actually be flexible in how you respond. It allows you to be centered, and know what your body is telling you.

The physiological state of your whole body can drastically affect how you respond in a given situation if you don’t pay attention to it. (For example, a study in 2011 indicated that judges hand down stricter sentences when they’re hungry.)

 

This is also true when we’re threatened or challenged at work: The brain quickly judges people who are not like us in one certain way, and those like us in another way. If you’re not aware of that as a leader of an organization, you may find yourself making all sorts of gut-based decisions that require more reflection.

Read my full conversation with Dr. Siegel in my new collection, The Executive Edge: An Insider's Guide to Outstanding Leadership. Or watch the interview in my video series, Leadership: A Master Class. Apply these concepts with Leadership: A Master Class Training Guide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Additional Resources

The L&D Primer

The Coaching Program

The C-Suite Toolkit

The Competency Builder

The EI Overview

Additional Reading

Self-regulation: a star leader's secret weapon

How emotionally intelligent are you?

How leaders build trust

A relaxed mind is a productive mind

Daniel Goleman: Help Young Talent Develop a Professional Mindset

[THE CHALLENGE]

There is a chasm between what business leaders expect from recent graduates, and what these new hires offer. In a Hay Group study of 450 business leaders and 450 recent graduates based in India, the US, and China… a massive 76% of business leaders reported that entry-level workers and recent grads are not ready for their jobs.

In most cases, these hires are intelligent, ambitious, and technically savvy. They have proven their ability to accomplish the work. They’re committed and passionate about rising through the ranks. So what are these new professionals missing?

They’re lacking soft skills. These are the traits and behaviors that characterize our relationships with others. Specifically, these new grads are not ascribing enough value to emotional intelligence’s place in the workplace. And we know that these qualities are necessary for strong motivation, sustained focus, and productive collaboration. As organizational structures evolve and globalization speeds up, these soft skills are going to be more crucial than ever before.

Now, here’s the rub. Most new graduates and hires don’t realize how much leaders value these skills.

[THE FACTS]

Consider these statistics about recent graduates in the workforce:

69% believe that people skills get in the way of doing their jobs well.
70% believe that their technical skills are more valuable than their people skills.

While business leaders and HR directors report the opposite:

90% believe that employees with strong people skills deliver a better commercial impact.
85% see technical skills as the basic necessity for new hires, while soft skills are what sets them apart.
91% believe that employees with refined people skills advance faster.

When organizations conduct inquiries into the skills that make certain employees stars, they generally find that emotional intelligence-based competencies matter more than those based on technical and reasoning skills. It’s evident that a strong intellect and relevant experience are basic capacities – what someone needs to land a job. But they’re not what make that person soar.

For example, Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a global hiring expert, did a study of C-level leaders who were fired. He concluded that the majority were hired for their cleverness and hard experience, but ended up being fired for their lack of emotional intelligence. (You can learn more about the study here.)

These EI qualities manifest in various ways. Here are some characteristics of a person with a robust cache of soft skills:

Collaborates well on a team .

As a business leader once told a consultant at McKinsey, “I have never fired an engineer for bad engineering, but I have fired an engineer for lack of teamwork.”

Adaptable .

The ability to adjust to change signifies good self-management.

Interacts easily with dissimilar people.

An emotionally intelligent person will generally have smooth interactions with co-workers, customers, and clients from different groups or cultures.

Able to reason under pressure .

This requires a mix of self-awareness, focus, and quick stress recovery, which puts the brain in an optimal state in difficult circumstances.

Lucid, compelling communicator.

An effective communicator is a great listener and has the ability to understand how another person thinks. This is an aspect of cognitive empathy.

[THE SOLUTION]

So how do you equip recent grads with these skills?

Promote self-regulation

Self-regulation is a fundamental aspect of emotional intelligence. If you learn to manage your emotions, you will recover quickly from stress. This means that when you feel a strong emotion surface, you’re aware of it, you can name it, and let it pass without reacting instantly. Doing so allows you to re-focus with a nimbler mind and relaxed body. And a state of relaxed alertness is optimal for performance.

For this, I strongly encourage an emotional self-management method, like a daily session of meditation. This helps in a few ways. First, it resets your brain so you are triggered less easily and less often by other people. Second, it trains your brain to recover quickly. Third, it gives you a tool you can use immediately in moments of high stress.

Teach Time Management

Offer your new employees very specific methods for time management. A professional workspace is a unique environment and it’s crucial they don’t become too scattered.

Here’s a tip I like. When you’re interrupted, practice asking yourself: Can this wait? Can I put it aside? You’ll find that the answer is almost always Yes. Then communicating this with goodwill is a great training practice. Because leaders need the capacity to decide what matters now and then make that clear… kindly.

Create a feedback culture

It’s important that new recruits feel comfortable in a feedback culture, where they’re able to give and receive feedback. (This must of course include both the positive and the negative.) Hay Group recommends that you start building self-awareness in your recent grads from the get-go; give them feedback on their interview performance!

Set up a mentor program

The best part about having a mentor is hearing about the mistakes they made along the way. This is a great opportunity for new grads to hear interesting career stories, make connections, and practice face-to-face communication. This will also give them a chance to see another aspect of the organization, offering a bigger picture perspective.

Train them

The best news here is that emotional intelligence can be taught. It’s been shown that interpersonal skills, stress management and even empathy can be learned, with quick results. In their Journey development program for new young hires, Hay Group offers tips, feedback and exercises to do just that.

Not only will these soft skills boost performance and potential at work, but they improve relationships and levels of contentment outside of work.

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Remember that self-discipline, resilience, empathy, collaboration, and communication skills are all emotional intelligence-based competencies that distinguish star performers from average. An organization that underscores the importance of emotional intelligence in their new recruits will attract the type of talent that knows how to stay engaged, adapt, and excel much more quickly than employees with expertise alone.

Additional resources:

The L&D Primer offers a mix of practical instructions and best practices for fostering emotionally intelligent leadership skills, based on the latest research and expert insights. Ideal for emerging leadership training.

Thriving on Change: The Evolving Leader's Toolkit integrates the necessary proven-effective skills, tools, and practices to ensure leaders expertly respond to uncertainty, conflict, and inevitable distraction.

The Competency Builder program was created to assist workers at all levels learn how to work more mindfully, improve focus, handle daily stresses better, and use these skills to increase their effectiveness.

The EI Overview offers actionable findings on how leaders can foster group flow to maximize innovation, drive, and motivation to deliver bottom-line results. 

Daniel Goleman: How to Overcome Communication Breakdowns

A leader’s role can get a bit messy. We all know it’s not just about leading by example, living your values, and giving pep talks. A leader must also be able to identify her team’s weaknesses and find practical solutions. In my experience with organizations, a very common vulnerability is the frequent breakdown of dialogue. Why can’t we connect? Why is there so much conflict? How will this project ever move forward?

I spoke with my colleague George Kohlrieser—Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at one of the world’s leading business schools, the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland—about what gets in the way of healthy, worthwhile dialogue. The kind of dialogue that ensures work gets done and measurable progress is made. I’ve summed up his responses below.

When dialogue is great, it allows participants to discover a greater truth. This can be done between two people, or among a whole group of individuals. But to arrive at that greater truth, both sides have to meet certain criteria and not engage in blocking behavior. There are various ways to impede useful dialogue, which I break into two categories, primary and secondary.

Passivity. This is simple. If one party is passive, that party is not engaged, and a real dialogue just won’t be possible.

For example: Prepare yourself to be fully present for a dialogue. Remind yourself to put your phone away, make eye contact, and sit still. Focus on what the person is saying, not what you’re about to say.


Discounting: Whenever there are putdowns or disrespect floating through a conversation, its participants are being discounted. Being respectful is an essential part of dialogue, as is not being taken hostage by a discount, which can happen in a second.

For example: Plan your words carefully. Think about how you sound. “Well I just don’t get it” can be taken as a discount. It would probably be wiser to say: “Can you explain this idea a bit more?”


Redefining: Not answering questions or blocking them is also called redefining a transaction. This never works for having a great dialogue. And how many meetings are filled with people who don’t answer questions?

For example: people may react to how a question is asked, not the question itself. If asked with a gruff tone, people may shut down, tune out, become defensive, or change the subject. Notice your mindset. If you’re angry or frustrated, take a moment to get into a neutral state before starting a difficult conversation.


Over-detailing: giving more details than actually are necessary. Now if you think about meetings… and you think about limiting the amount of details shared in them, it would be incredible the amount of time you could save!

For example: know when to cut your answers short. If a colleague asks how a call went with a particular client, and you feel yourself ready to vent, take a breath and remember it’s not the time.


And finally, The Four Sentence Rule. It’s become pretty clear that a person can really only maintain maximum full attention for only four sentences. Whenever you’ve gone beyond four sentences, be aware that the listener’s brain is on over-alert, and he or she is probably getting exhausted.

For example: If you want to be heard, keep your statements concise. When someone has to expend a lot of energy to listen, they tend to just shut down. Your potential for a great dialogue is immediately lost.

And then there’s what I call secondary blocks—generalization, rationalization, exaggeration, and lack of honesty. These also get in the way, but to a lesser degree. Watch out for them.

But when you work to eliminate these primary blocks—over-detailing, redefinition, discounting, and passivity—you will start having much better dialogues. Try it.

How do you overcome dialogue breakdown in your organization? Share your insights in the comments, or tweet them to @DanielGolemanEI.

Additional Resources

The Executive Edge: An Insider's Guide to Outstanding Leadership

The HR and EI Collection

Leadership: A Master Class Training Guide

What Makes a Leader: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daniel Goleman: How to Negotiate with Yourself

Erica Ariel Fox is a New York Times bestselling author, a negotiation lecturer at Harvard Law School, and a senior advisor to Fortune 500 companies. Fox’s essay is featured in The Executive Edge: An Insider’s Guide to Outstanding Leadership, and I’m adapting it here to highlight her research on self-awareness in leadership.

Accessing Your Inner World

Understanding the diverse nature of your inner world takes a lot of work. And business leaders operate in an environment of incredible complexity, uncertainty, and pressure... so they usually don’t have time to study the underpinnings of this inner world. But after advising leaders for 20 years, I know that they can improve their performance by learning to turn inward and negotiate with themselves.

My goal is to make this journey a bit easier for business leaders. I want to equip them with a user-friendly tool to develop self-awareness and, in turn, to take more effective action.

Your Custom Archetypes

Take the notion of archetypes, for example. Archetypes are a simple shorthand way of expressing universal elements of the psyche. For instance, Peter Pan is an archetype. Peter Pan represents the archetype of the eternal child and that little part in us that would like to never grow up.

I’ve found that identifying personal archetypes is a highly valuable exercise for leaders. It requires self-discovery and self-development, and it allows people to access aspects of themselves they may not have used very much before. The best metaphor is a top-level corporate team of executives.

Imagine the roles on a corporate top team. There are:

a CEO who holds the vision and sets direction for the future
a CFO who analyzes data and manages risk
a CHRO who manages people
a COO who makes sure everything gets done

At a meeting, these leaders bring differing expertise and priorities. If any of them missed that meeting, the team would make decisions that lacked a perspective vital to the company’s success.

Leveraging Your C-Suite

So just as people on a high-level team bring their opinions and agendas to a meeting, you have a high-level team functioning inside of you. These are your inner negotiators.

The members of your inner team operate in a similar way, bringing their own interests and values to the table. Sometimes they dialogue. Sometimes they get into a screaming match. But you do have these distinct voices, with these unique functions, just like the team that runs your company.

Most leaders start realizing these impulses come from different parts of themselves. Valuable parts of themselves! For a lot of professionals, this is brand new territory, far from what they studied in their MBA program or learned when they trained as an engineer. It’s always inspiring to watch groups of high IQ, quantitative thinkers step into the unknown waters of self-exploration. Naming these four parts of the self makes things concrete where they used to seem too messy.

Using this exercise with thousands of people over the last ten years, I’ve found that if leaders can work nimbly with these four archetypes, then in most business situations they will have what they need to get positive outcomes. That same principle applies in personal life, too.

Fox’s entire essay can be found in The Executive Edge: An Insider’s Guide to Outstanding Leadership. You can also watch my conversation with Erica in Leadership: A Master Class (Getting Beyond Yes).

Additional Reading

Self-Improvement Begins with Self-Reflection

How to Hear Your Inner Voice

The Brain Science Behind Gut Decisions

Can Self-Assessments Predict Effective Leadership

Daniel Goleman: How Leaders Build Trust

I spoke with my friend Bill George, Senior Fellow and Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School, about what it means to lead ethically. His responses struck me as especially salient in our current business landscape, so I’ve paraphrased them below. (You can read the entire conversation in The Executive Edge: An Insider’s Guide to Outstanding Leadership .)

Trust can be fleeting - especially the trust we instill in leaders. A leader might spend 30 years building trust, and then watch it disappear in 30 minutes if he’s not careful. And when leaders flagrantly violate trust, it’s often never recovered.

Consider the epidemic of distrust caused by leaders putting their self-interests above all else. You’ll even hear some economists argue that this makes sense, because we’re all motivated by money and that’s just how the market functions.

Well, I disagree. Greed is not the market operating. Greed is actually disgraceful. But unfortunately, many leaders get away with it. Then all the people that depend on them—customers, shareholders, communities—are betrayed. Often a whole enterprise is destroyed.

To me, if you’re privileged enough to be in a position of leadership, it is paramount that you maintain the trust of the people for whom you have a responsibility. And if you violate that, then you have failed.

Now, here’s the catch. We all fail. But we can recover. Leaders can bounce back, but they have to prove themselves. I like to think that the virtues you live by when things are going well don’t matter.

The real test is how you behave when times are tough. And if you’re a leader, your constituents want to see what you do under severe pressure. If you can stay true to your values then, people will trust you again. You’ll be viewed as authentic.

[Watch Bill George explain why difficulty is an opportunity.]

In fact, there’s a correlation between being an authentic leader and getting great results.

Here’s an example. When Anne Mulcahy—former CEO and chairperson of Xerox—was faced with bankruptcy, she reconfigured the whole company and made some really daring decisions. She decided not to cut R&D, not to cut customer support, but to invest in the long term. They ultimately had to trim up and have fewer employees in the end, but they came back. They avoided bankruptcy and achieved great success, in fact. And Mulcahy didn’t have finance experience - she rose through the ranks, starting as a salesperson out of college. Authentic in her virtues and loyalty to Xerox; she made many bold decisions and went on to be voted one of America’s Best Leaders by US News and World Report in 2008.

How to Build Trust

So how can you do this? It requires a few qualities.

You’re willing to get experience doing the work of your team. This doesn’t mean giving rousing speeches, putting out strongly worded press releases, or releasing polished promotional videos. This means you actually spend time with the people doing the work.
You honor those people by listening and responding in earnest.

When I was at Medtronic, I gowned up and saw between 700 and 1,000 procedures. I’d put on the scrubs, met with the doctor, and watched an open-heart surgery, a brain surgery, or a pacemaker implant. And that’s how I learned the business.

When I was on the board of Target Corporation, the former CEO, Bob Ulrich, explained how he walked about 14 store floors a week. He didn’t tell them he was coming. He just put on a sweatshirt, walk around, and watch the store run.

And take Dan Vasella at Novartis. He’d be down in the labs all the time with the researchers asking, “What are you working on? What are the barriers?”

Instead of being the invisible entity who spends his or her time at black tie CEO events in DC, this is a leader who delves into the real day-to-day functions of the business. And that’s the type of leader who builds trust.

To maintain that trust, you need care about your team, want to be out there with them, and love the business. You really do have to love it! I can’t stress that enough. If you don’t love it, don’t do it.

The Executive Edge is available now on Kindle, iTunes, nook and in print from morethansound.net. You can also watch my conversation about authentic leadership with Bill George here.

Daniel Goleman: What it Takes to Become a Socially Intelligent Leader

The Enraged Employee

When a workshop organized by an HR department drew an unexpected standing-room-only turnout, they acted quickly to move the meeting to a larger space. The trouble with the new space was that it wasn’t well equipped for easy viewing and clear acoustics. Some had trouble seeing and hearing the speaker, in particular a woman who spoke up during a break. She approached the head of HR in a rage, explained how she hadn’t heard or seen a thing, and declared the workshop a total failure.

The head of HR quickly realized that her best option was to listen, acknowledge the woman’s frustrations, and express empathy. Then she spoke with the audiovisual staff—thoroughly tempering these complaints—and tried her best to at least elevate the screen for better visibility.

At the end of the workshop, the woman approached the head of HR again to say that she saw her working on adjustments at the A/V table and really appreciated it. The woman still pointed out that her viewing experience was subpar, but she felt more relaxed after seeing the HR director advocate on her behalf.

The Right Approach at the Right Time

Socially intelligent leaders have the ability to respond deftly in these types of situations. When colleagues express frustration, a socially intelligent leader—like this head of HR—knows how to listen carefully, empathize, and take measures to help improve conditions.

[Watch my conversation with Bill George about authentic empathy.]

Even when these measures fail, they can provide emotional support to the person in distress. Paying attention to someone’s concerns actually allows that person to process them faster, shortening the time spent ruminating. But by ignoring these demonstrations of anger and frustration, a leader will only encourage the person to seethe… and then seethe some more about being ignored!

Keep in mind: As a socially intelligent leader, you can do this even when a person’s complaints seem truly unfounded. You don’t need to condone a reaction; but you should acknowledge the emotions behind that reaction, and suggest a couple of solutions. This will at least decrease the magnitude of any harmful emotions.

Studies show that socially intelligent leaders do more than just make people happier at work. In a survey of employees at seven hundred companies, the majority said that a supportive boss mattered more than how much money they earned. This study also showed that caring bosses drive increased productivity and encouraged employees to stay with their companies. It seems that most people don’t want to work for hostile bosses, regardless of the pay.

How Do I Become Socially Intelligent?

You probably already are. If you don’t agree, know that you can cultivate social intelligence. First, learn how to focus. Socially intelligent leadership begins with being engaged and focused on your work. If you’re disengaged from your role, you won’t be able to put others at ease. An engaged leader can tap into her innate social intelligence - discerning how people feel and why, expressing appropriate concern, and interacting skillfully to encourage positive states of thinking.

[Gauge your emotional intelligence on SlideShare.]

There isn’t a fool-proof formula for doing this right in every situation. You can get better at it over time, especially by staying in synch with your team. This is imperative to being a socially intelligent leader.

Now, more than ever, organizations are in a key position to promote socially intelligent leaders. As people work longer hours—connecting nights and weekends via mobile technology—businesses start feel like a substitute family. But many of us can be ejected from this substitute family at any moment. That uncertainty means that hope and fear run rampant. That’s why social intelligence matters.

To manage people effectively, a socially intelligent leader pays attention to these undercurrents of ambivalence because they affect people’s abilities to perform at their best. And because emotions have a ripple effect, leaders at all levels must uphold their responsibility to maintain a productive environment.

The Executive Edge: An Insider's Guide to Outstanding Leadership is now available on Kindle, iTunes, and nook. Pre-order your print copy from More Than Sound. (Available Friday, August 7, 2015.)

Every leader needs threshold abilities to get by at work. But in today's complex business landscape, getting by isn't enough.

It’s the distinguishing competencies that are crucial for success: elements that you find only in the star performers.

The Executive Edge examines the best practices of top-performing executives, and offers practical guidance for developing the distinguishing competencies that make a leader outstanding. As a collection of Daniel Goleman's in-depth interviews with respected leaders in executive management, organizational research, workplace psychology, negotiation, and senior hiring; it contains the necessary research findings, case studies, and shared industry expertise every motivated leader needs.

Daniel Goleman in conversation with Teresa Amabile; Erica Ariel Fox; Warren Bennis; Claudio Fernández-Aráoz; Howard Gardner; Bill George; George Kohlrieser; Peter Senge, and Daniel J. Siegel.

Additional resources:

The HR and EI Collection

Thriving on Change: The Evolving Leader's Toolkit

Leadership: A Master Class Training Guide