Tanaya Walters, Consultant, on Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

Emotional intelligence is the latest business trend, and for good reason. Being emotionally intelligent is crucial for business success, especially for leaders. For your company to succeed, you need to have measures in place that encourage emotional intelligence and will help develop your leaders to act accordingly. To build emotionally intelligent leaders, here are five things your company needs to do.

Develop inner strength

Leadership relies on inner strength. Leaders must be able to understand themselves while learning, growing and pushing themselves in new directions. A strong leader needs to be self-aware, adaptable to their surroundings, have a positive energy, and practice self-control and transparency. Leaders should be empathetic and service-oriented, and adjust their approaches based on the needs of others. All of these necessary skills are components of emotional intelligence.

Create a culture of compassion
In the workplace, employees need to feel acknowledged and valued for their contributions. Showing vulnerability to employees creates a culture of trust in the office. Compassion should guide all of the decisions made in the workplace, especially the difficult ones. This creates a higher level of transparency and outcomes that are embraced by everyone. Credibility and trust are essential to creating a culture where everyone feels heard and included.

Invest in and encourage continuous learning
Working with leaders to build their emotional intelligence also develops their skill as a role model for others to look up to, helping others to display their leadership skills. A leader should always be looking to expand their knowledge and skill set. Leadership is a journey, not a destination, meaning leaders need to be willing to develop their knowledge continually.

Enhance relationship building
Building and nurturing long-lasting relationships is necessary for leaders. Connecting with individuals outside of your department and throughout the chain of command should be supported by tools and resources that help leaders to do so more effectively. Giving a venue where relationships can be built between coworkers allows for social competence to be mastered.

Reinforce metrics to measure outcomes
Having data analytics makes it easy to make a case for supporting development initiatives. Trouble handling change, the inability to work in a team and poor interpersonal relations are the three most common reasons executives careers derail. All of these three areas are addressed through emotional intelligence.

About Tanaya Walters

Tanaya Walters, Ed. D. is the CEO of TW Enterprise Group, LLC and an an Emotional Intelligence Specialist. Her boutique business helps individuals and organizations improve their emotional social capital to impact results and maximize their performance through coaching, consulting and training. Before starting TW Enterprise Group, Dr. Tanaya Walters spent more than two decades working in Higher Education.

This article was originally published on TanayaWalters.com.