Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ

By Daniel Goleman
Highlights: June 3, 2006


"It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

"Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel." - Horace Walpole

"Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – this is not easy." - Aristotle

1. Knowing one’s emotions. Self-awareness

• Recognizing a feeling as it happens – is the keystone of emotional intelligence.
  
• The ability to monitor feelings from moment to moment is crucial to psychological insight and self-understanding. The inability to notice our true feelings leaves us at their mercy.
• People with greater certainty about their feelings are better pilots of their lives, having a surer sense of how they really feel about personal decisions from whom to marry to what job to take.

2. Managing emotions.

• Handling feelings so they are appropriate is an ability that builds on self-awareness.
  
• Chapter 5 of the book examines the capacity to soothe oneself, to shake of rampant anxiety, gloom or irritability – and the consequences of failure at this very basic emotional skill.
  
• People who are poor in this ability are constantly battling feelings of distress, while those who excel in it can bounce back far more quickly from life’s setbacks and upsets.

3. Motivating oneself.

• Marshaling emotions in the service of goals is essential for paying attention, for self-motivation and mastery, and for creativity.
  
• Emotional self-control – delaying gratification and stifling impulsiveness – underlines accomplishment of every sort.
  
• People who have this skill tend to be more highly productive and effective in whatever they undertake.

4. Recognizing emotions in others.

• Empathy, another ability that builds on emotional self-awareness, is the fundamental “people skill”.
  
• Chapter 7 of the book investigates the roots of empathy, the social cost of being emotionally tone-deaf, and the reasons empathy kindles altruism.
  
• People who are empathic are more attuned to the subtle social signals that indicate what others need or want.

5. Handling relationships.

• The art of relationships is, in large part, skill in managing emotions in others.
  
• Chapter 8 of the book looks at social competence and incompetence, and the specific skills involved. These are the abilities that build popularity, leadership, and interpersonal effectiveness.
  
• People who excel in these skills do well at anything that relies on interacting smoothly with others; they are social stars.

Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way

By Robin Gerber
Excerpts: June 9, 2006


Learn from Your Past

• Your childhood is a leadership legacy. Reflect on it and use it to build your leadership.
• Be honest with yourself as you think back to your earliest memories.
• Be as curious about exploring your memories as you are about making new discoveries
• Connect your memories to your leadership goals and values.
• As you draw on your memories, focus on the positive lessons that can help you reach your goals.

Find Mentors and Advisors

• Be proactive about finding mentors. Don’t make excuses that stop you from pursuing opportunities.
• Recognize that you can’t know everything. Look for a mentor who can help in your weaker areas or with a new challenge.
• Remember that mentoring is a reciprocal experience. Look for ways to use your growing leadership skills to help your mentor.
• As you learn, grow, and change, as you become more secure and powerful in your ability to lead, look for opportunities to be a mentor to others.
• Your mentor may be older or younger than you; you may have more than one mentor at a time and will likely have more than one mentor over the course of your career.

Mothering: Training for Leadership

• To talk about leadership, women need to use language authentic to their experiences.
• Mother-leaders are great at multitasking, a key skill for any leader.
• Mothering is a testing ground for the leadership required to foster strong interpersonal relationships and collaboration.

Learning the Hard Way

• You can not avoid your share of personal challenges, difficulties and disasters. It is how you handle them that will determine how your leadership develops.
• Understand that you cannot change or control others; you can only change and control yourself.
• Strive for self-mastery – the ability to help and heal yourself by your own actions.
• Search for optimism and affirmation in even the darkest experiences.
• Use the strength that develops from your sorrow to act. Be a leader in command of yourself, sustained and driven by the power of your experience.

Find Your Leadership Passion

• Finding your leadership passion will depend on clarifying your values. Values motivate great leadership, underpin the actions that you take to build your leadership, and lead to lasting and transforming change.
• Take the phrase “I can’t” out of your vocabulary. Nobody succeeds by expecting to fail.
• Take the word “should” out of your vocabulary. Act on your authentic wants and needs, not on those imposed by others.
• Leaders act within their environment. Every act of leadership based on your mission builds your capacity for making change on a larger and more transforming scale.

Your Leadership Your Way

• Women often lead differently than men. Follow your authentic instincts for leadership.
• Your leadership will be most effective if you stick to the mission of your organization.
• Like all good leaders, you must “challenge the process” by questioning the status quo, looking for ways to be innovative, and exercising creativity. In this way, you can help your organization succeed.
• Stick to your principles and inspire others by acting on them. Demonstrate that you can be trusted and you will get the trust of those around you.

Give Voice to Your Leadership

• Learn to be an effective personal communicator by getting honest feedback and honestly assessing your communications skills. Then use practice to improve.
• Show your sincerity and passion as you communicate in both words and images. If you don’t have the conviction to support your idea no one else will either.
• Don’t hide your light behind anything or anyone.

Face Criticism with Courage

• Build your firsthand knowledge around the issues and ideas where you want to take leadership.
• Reach out to people. Listen and learn about their concerns.
• Be a leader that knows the way before you show the way.
• Understand that leadership comes with criticism. Expect it and be ready for it.
• Handle criticism with less emotion and more intelligence. Be open to constructive ideas. Be strong in the face on unjust attacks.
• Distinguish between criticism that you value and can use versus criticism that is best to ignore.

Keep Your Focus

• Remain true to your leadership passion even when you face drastically changed circumstances. You can adjust your vision to fit the times.
• Embrace change. See it as an opportunity not a setback. Be the person who steps up to the new challenge and brings others along.
• Use every avenue, every method, and every opportunity to advance your vision.
• Build loyalty and a legacy to carry on transforming change by encouraging leadership in other people.

Contacts, Networks and Connections

• Look for opportunities to network wherever you can. Take the initiative in meeting new people and looking for ways that you can help each other.
• Be broad and inclusive in building your network. Sometimes the most helpful contact is the least obvious.
• Understand that networks and alliances are built over time. Be intentional about developing the right networks and alliances for your goals – and be patient.
• Be a “connector” linking people in your networks to each other.

Embrace Risk

• Leaders are risk takers who seek out and accept new challenges.
• Focus on your abilities, your talents, your strengths.
• Accept that there are problems you can’t control and focus on what you can do.
• Lead by example.
• Understand that thinking and talking must lead to action – from yourself and others whom you inspire to act.

Never Stop Learning

• Learn from everyone by inviting others to teach you.
• Be curious. Curiosity nurtures the souls and spirits of people.
• Learn and listen. Leaders who are the best learners are the best listeners.
• Empower others by honoring their ideas with your serious attention and interest.

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

By Don Miguel Ruiz

Excerpts

Be Impeccable With Your Word

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

"Your word is the power that you have to create"

"You go against yourself when you judge or blame yourself for anything"

"When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself."

Don't Take Anything Personally

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

"Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about me."

"Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves"

"You can choose to follow your heart always"


Don't Make Assumptions

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

"The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth"

"We only see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear"

"We make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do"


Always Do Your Best

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

"Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you're expecting a reward."

"If we like what we do, if we always do our best, then we are really enjoying life. We are having fun, we don't get bore, and we don't have frustrations."

"When you do your best you learn to accept yourself"

One Thing…

By Karey Love Shaffer D’Penha
July 2002

One statement.
One action.
One thought.
One idea.
One person.
One thing… to push us to reach our potential.

One action.
One thought.
One idea.
One person.
One thing… to push us.

One thought.
One idea.
One person.
One thing… to reach us.

One idea.
One person.
One thing… to push us to reach.

One person.
One thing… to reach our potential.

One person…

Reach your potential.

Simply Simple

By Karey Love Shaffer D’Penha
May 2002


Black, white, yellow, blue –
Which of these makes up you?

A label here, a label there –
It really seems to go no where.

Why can’t we just accept –?
What makes us happy can not be kept.

On a shelf, in a box or bound in a book –
Why is it so hard to stop and look?

Beyond what we think we see –
Is a person, a soul just wanting to be free.

To express who they are and do as they do –
Why should it matter to me and you?

Why burden other with our opinions and such –?
When all that in needed is kindness – or gentle touch?

Can we celebrate the triumphs of the human soul –?
As valued success, a bit closer to the goal.

To love what is human – tapping the divine
Found in a moment not a bottle of wine.

The beauties of life can be so simple –
Like someone to love and warm food for example.

To conquer fears as required, to truly live –
As one so desires – to allow others the same and give –

Love, life – the very thing that sets us free –
Freedom from labels and the ability to be –

Not what you think, but as I think –
Why is it so hard to understand the kink?

I was born to be me, in a land of the free –
Where eagles still fly – hope to those who see.

Our unity in hope for a world of peace –
Could really be something – but it isn’t for lease.

Enough to believe, but still not willing –
To give up pettiness or the glass ceiling

The struggle for peace, not only a world issue
When neighbors need more than a lousy tissue

Look beyond the labels, the differences and colors –
To the eyes, the soul and no other.

Simple acts of kindness, not only cure the soul –
But a world of blindness, now that is a worthy goal.