Emotional Intelligence and Mindfulness: why Emotional Intelligence and Mindfulness are core capabilities for future-fit leaders in an ever-increasingly complex world

Emotional intelligence evolves with humankind.  The need to cope, to adapt, and to get along with others is crucial to our survival as a species.  It’s emerging again not just as a nice to have, but as a necessary skill as we are having to adapt to new working demands during and post-pandemic.

Using emotional intelligence during confinement can help. This area of ​​psychology can act as a crucible of well-being in times of crisis, because this tool allows us to manage emotions, to manage approaches to thinking and others dimensions such as hope and our social and professional relationships.

Emotional intelligence is defined as a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.

As Daniel Goleman points out in books like Focus or his already famous Emotional Intelligence, nothing is more important in difficult times than controlling our attention. When there are so many worries and thoughts getting tangled in our minds, filling us with anxiety and distress, it is a priority to put ourselves in pause mode and to refocus.

It is necessary to train calm, patience, and this constructive optimism to accept the situation and allow us to move forward. The deep understanding of the alchemy of our emotions gives us this essential tool to better cope with difficult days, uncertainty and also our personal responsibility in the face of the present.

Self-awareness

One can be a great expert in a multitude of subjects and perfectly illiterate in terms of emotions. What you feel, what you need, what swirls inside and hurts is unknown to many. This is where the importance of empowering oneself through increased self-awareness comes in.

It is about being aware of emotions and feelings; to detect what the body is feeling and what is going on in our mind, to know how to give it a name, a presence and an acceptance. To be self-aware is to unravel and come into contact with each internal reality.

Attention training: what matters is the present moment

When anxiety makes its presence felt and the mind is captivated, it only anticipates the future. And these predictions are never good.  Thoughts are knotted and we become obsessed with what can happen tomorrow, and with scary and frustrating scenarios.

We must learn to train our attention by focusing it on the present moment. The only thing that matters is the present moment, taking care of the present well-being.

The first step to increasing your emotional intelligence is in mindfulness.  Stop, reflect, perceive what is going on.  Right now especially, as we tend to be stressed, are losing sleep, are anxious, it can be more difficult to harness the emotional intelligence we have built.  We are more likely to snap, to assume negative things and tell ourselves stories that are far from the truth.  Harnessing and managing our emotions in a productive way can help us be more creative and collaborative.  It helps us perform better, remain productive during stressful situations.  Emotional intelligence is a muscle we can build.  Like a muscle, it gets stronger and more resilient with practice and repetitions.  I believe it all starts with being present and mindful.

In his book and ensuing training program at Google, Chade-Meng Tan takes a neuro-scientific approach to leadership, mindfulness, management, self-regulation and awareness.  By branding meditation as a workout for emotional intelligence, he was able to angle Search Inside Yourself as a contemplative training program that would help people better relate to themselves and others, thus providing a differentiating set of skills in engineer-heavy, left-brain cultures like Google. 

Emotional intelligence during confinement: a quality emotional connection

Working on emotional intelligence during confinement also requires taking care of relationship management. This basically means that we need to encourage a quality emotional connection at home and at work.  Relational management in times of pandemic involves taking care of our social ties, whether close or distant. 

I partner with leaders to transform their mindsets and behaviors so that they lead and live wholeheartedly and powerfully.  The focus of these leaders in the last few weeks has been about connecting with their teams.  Leaders are now having to deal with emotions more than ever- theirs and the emotions of others.  They have to navigate the environment of being always-on, always online, in order to create deep and meaningful relationships, thereby enhancing the overall quality of leadership.  They are sharing moments and experience over the phone or video.

Emotional intelligence is of the essence.  There is no other way to decide if the reality you are facing is virtual or real, to create followership, to create your own adaptability.  EQ is the make or break for future fit leadership.  Let us not forget that business is relationships.