September 18th - Emotional Intelligence

When reading through essay 4, "The Emotional Intelligence of Leaders" in On Mission and Leadership, (Hesselbein & Johnson, 2002), I particularly enjoyed the section entitled, "The Anatomy of Emotions."

This section gave a high level description of how the limbic system in our brain processes emotional memory. The sensory information that we take in goes through our emotional memories to see if it is similar to a previous emotional experience. A connection may cause an emergency of sorts that results in some emotional response, but then may be "rephrased" as it is proccessed by the prefrontal cortex which takes information from all over the brain to form a final response. The interesting thing to me was that we have an emotional filter that doesn't allow us to separate thought from emotion. Our emotional brain and thinking brain must work together.

This is significant because it tells me that even the most logical and thought out reasoning cannot truly be separated from our emotional experiences. More specifically, it seems that reasoned thought cannot be separated from experience, and hence worldview. Since worldview is formed from an experiential as well as informational foundation, we find bias and differing perspectives that arise from the same set of "information." (This is very similar to what Stephen Covey talks about in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" when he is discussing paradigms on page 23 of that book.)

The five dimensions of Emotional Intelligence are:

1. Self awareness. This is your minds ability to summarize known information and past experiences to give you a "gut feeling" and then reconcile decisions based on your values, purpose, and mission. Effective leaders will have a good sense of self awareness in terms of their strengths, weaknesses, and abilities, which leads to self confidence and often better performance.
   
   
2. Managing Emotions. The ability to manage emotions has to do with controlling impulses and reducing emotional agitation (like stress, failure to adapt, failure to lead). Managing emotion is having self control which forms the basis for trust, integrity, and other positive traits.
   
   
3. Motivating Others. The root meaning of motive is "to move." Strong feelings or emotion that has goals and perceptions embedded in it, causes us to act. When we demonstrate strong feelings combined with optimism it also incites other's to act, it motivates them.
   
   
4. Showing Empathy. Emotional intelligence can understand where someone is coming from. It can show genuine concern for the other person and their perspective. The ability to sense and articulate the feelings of others helps us to establish trust with them. Trust forms the foundation for further guidance as a mentor or leader. Empathy is something that cannot be faked, but instead must come from a true realization and understanding of the feelings of others. True empathy is genuine concern for others and their needs.
   
   
5. Staying Connected. Harmony within the group leads to trust and team identification. Emotional responses are contagious and a positive leader and team will encourage like mindedness and keep people within the group connected personally to one another.