Back to: Develop Emotional Intelligence for Stress-Free Living | EQ Training Course

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you three ways you can develop your emotional
intelligence and become a better leader.
According to psychologists, emotional intelligence is what separates a good leader from a great
one.
When a company’s leadership team lacks emotional intelligence, it can do significant damage
to the organization, including high turnover and toxic behavior among employees.
Fortunately, you can improve your emotional intelligence, or EQ, with a bit of practice.
Here are three ways that you can develop your emotional intelligence to become a better
leader.
Practice Mindfulness
An essential component for leading others is your ability to manage yourself through
self-awareness and self-regulation.
The most effective way that you can develop your self-awareness and self-regulation is
through mindfulness.
When you raise your awareness of what’s happening with you both mentally and emotionally, you
can better notice a change and how outside influences affect you.
Learn to Accept Feedback
Being capable of hearing feedback without becoming defensive is an essential leadership
skill and one that reflects an emotionally intelligent leader, not only can defensiveness
erode trust, but it also damages the confidence you’ve developed with your team.
To be a more emotionally intelligent leader, you need to learn how to be less defensive
when you receive feedback.
You can do this by pausing for a few seconds when you receive feedback, so that you can
allow the initial emotion to pass.
You can also let your team know that you appreciate their courage to approach you and ask any
clarifying questions that you might have about the feedback given.
Use Downtime to Develop Empathy
To increase your emotional intelligence, you need to learn about your employees on a more
personal level.
This will help you understand and empathize with them better, which is an integral part
of emotional intelligence.
One-on-ones are the best way to do this, because they are the best way to learn about your
employees on a personal level.
You can understand your employees on a deeper level when you take the time and make an effort
to learn how they think and feel.
Going to empathize with your team can help you understand them better and will make you
a better mentor.
The great thing about emotional intelligence is that it is a skill that you can not only
learn but develop.
No matter what you do to build your emotional intelligence, you need to make sure that you
are conscious about how you can improve areas of weakness, so you can move forward and become
the best leader you can be.