11 steps to make you an emotional leader

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

This will be a 30-minute express course for a young life hacker on people management. Read and share with your friends! Down with dull and nasty managers. Let's make the world of leaders more diverse and fun. Go!

This article will be especially useful for IT people. Why IT people? It seems to me that this is the most striking example where the development of emotional leadership is required. It is the IT sphere that is the place where the leaders become the fastest. At the age of 22–23, children are already beginning to lead small teams, and by the age of 25–30 they can be heads of large divisions.

So, you just recently became a project manager or team lead in a successful IT company, now you have a team of 10-15 people under your command, and you think that you can finally take a break by handing out tasks to your employees.

But suddenly something went wrong. Employees do not want to follow the "subordinate - manager" algorithm at all, they begin to challenge tasks, their motivation to work decreases, deadlines are delayed, and they begin to look for a new job. Familiar situation? This is a sign that you are not using your emotional intelligence to manage people.

In fact, you already know how to apply your emotional intelligence, but you have not yet applied it for various reasons.

Therefore, here I will show you how you can apply it.

Step 1. Show your emotions

Leaders always use emotion in managing people. A good leader is a leader or a leader who yells obscenities at his subordinates, emotions are an amplifier of information. Emotions always help to pay attention to what you are saying, to involve, to inspire.

Compare the two options:

Option 1. Alexander, you have to prepare the management report by Friday and so that I don't have to redo it. If you don’t, I’ll fine you.

Option 2. Alexander, my friend, only you are capable of doing this, and I decided to entrust you with the task of saving the world. Our management needs to prepare a super report so that the mosquito does not undermine the nose there. You are the coolest analyst with us, and that is why I decided to ask you to do it. Save the Universe, report back by Friday.

Sometimes, just a few emotional words are enough to make the employee want to complete the task.

Step 2. Convince with emotional arguments

If you want to convince someone of something, forget about arguments. Arguments cannot be convinced. You can justify your point of view, but the person will still remain with his thoughts. We have been driven by emotions for a long time. A great example is the multi-billion dollar iPhone sales. You've probably seen comparisons like these:

But nevertheless, the iPhone always wins, and the reason for this is the emotions of the buyers.

To remember how this worked for you, I suggest doing a little exercise from Case Western Reserve University.

Take a piece of paper and cut it in two. Write in the left column what the leader did who, in your past, helped you discover your strengths. This could be one of your leaders, teachers at the school, parents or acquaintances. And in the right column, write what the leader did, who, on the contrary, prevented you from revealing your potential.

Usually people write the following.

In the left column:

• he inspired me;
• it was fun with him;
• he gave me a sense of belonging to something meaningful;
• he trusted me;
• he protected me when I needed it;
• he taught me not to be afraid to take risks;
• he stimulated me with difficult tasks;
• in some issues he showed competence, but more often he simply knew who and how to turn to so that the problem was solved.

In the right column:

• they found fault with every little thing;
• engaged in micromanagement;
• they blamed us for failures;
• showed hostility and negative attitudes;
• their words were repulsive;
• we felt that we were treated only as cadres, but not as individuals;
• are fixated on themselves.

You will see that the leader has always applied emotions, supported you. And what is most interesting, you already intuitively know what you have to do to be an outstanding leader, since you already have positive examples of leadership in your head.

Step 3. Enter resonance

An example of a resonance in a team:

Outstanding leaders are also called resonant leaders. These are people who can resonate with other people. Getting into resonance is quickly becoming one. Getting into resonance is to inspire and inspire. After communicating with you, people should feel inspired. If not, you cannot be an effective leader.

Step 4. Inspire through mission and vision

All outstanding leaders demonstrate to employees the value of their work by linking it to something larger, showing how their work will affect the activities of the whole company.

Let's do a simple exercise: formulate a problem for your interlocutor (husband, wife, brother, son, friend, neighbor, colleague) who is nearby right now. Let it be a request to do something for you: wash the dishes, write a report, take your watch for repair. You, of course, have already read books on management and you know that tasks should be set according to the SMART principle.

You will most likely get an average result. Your interlocutor may agree to do it, but without much enthusiasm.

Now try to do the same, but using the information that emotional leaders inspire. Here are some phrases to help you make your speech more inspiring:

Most likely, you ended up with something like this:

Option 1. Darling, please take my watch for repair next week so it will be ready by Friday.

Option 2. Honey, I really need your help. My watch needs to be repaired. I have very important negotiations next Friday, and my Omega watch will help to make them more effective. I am counting on you very much, because I cannot myself, I have a whole week to prepare for the quarterly report. I'm sure you can definitely save me!

Step 5. Charge emotionally

First, watch the video:

A good mood is conveyed. I am sure that after watching the video you started to smile. It's the same with managing people: a leader empowers his employees emotionally. Emotions are always passed from person to person. Any of your emotions will be broadcast to your employees.

Just remember the time when you yourself tuned in to the emotions of another person. When you were sad and someone very funny influenced you, or vice versa.

Often, shop assistants are told the phrase "Leave your emotions at home." Unfortunately, this never works. The only way to help a salesperson is to tune in to other emotions. That is why everyone loves employees who can continuously tell jokes, joke and enjoy life.

Here's another great example on this topic:

If you still doubt that emotions are contagious, here's another video:

Yawned?:)

Step 6. Start recovering from stress

As you can see, being a leader requires a lot of emotional involvement, using your emotions, and communicating your emotions to others.

This is why the work of leaders is considered one of the most stressful. Welcome to the club!

That is why you need to devote more time to restoring your own strength, otherwise you will not be able to be a leader - you will be a driven horse. Well, or a pony. Like on a picture.

Here are some tips for recovery. Remember that every day you must have one from the list.

Example from your favorite movie:

Step 7. Train Your Social Intelligence

In modern science, emotional intelligence, which is responsible for managing a person's emotions, and social intelligence, which is responsible for interacting with other people, are divided. Social intelligence has a simpler name - empathy.

Social intelligence consists of several components. The most important are the ability to listen to other people and the ability to work in a team.

Here's how training and mentoring works:

Teamwork:

Step 8. Use your cognitive abilities

You do not need to be ashamed of your mind and mega-abilities, trying to be an ordinary person. They made you who you are. Therefore, apply them in your work. This is called “cognitive competence”.

This is how they work:

Step 9. Help your employees see their better future

International Change Theory says that people are constantly changing, but that change does not occur linearly. Employees don't get a little better every day. This happens in leaps and bounds (very often it happens when changing jobs: a person was a bad employee in one company, he changes jobs and becomes one of the best there). If you do not see immediate changes after your efforts, after trainings, your feedback and so on, just wait.

People change through insights. They get an insight one day and their behavior becomes completely different. It's about the same as how people quit smoking.

All successful attempts to quit smoking were made not after the gradual reduction in the number of smoked cigarettes, but after the person woke up in the morning and realized that he would not smoke anymore.

There is a working scheme for how a person changes. By putting it into practice, you can improve your subordinates.

Help your employee see their best selves. Talk to him about who he wants to be, what his career goals are, what is his most ambitious career dream. Say that you believe in him, give support. Spend a lot of time discussing with the employee his future image.

The next step in development is realizing oneself as real. Help the employee identify their development zones. Give him feedback on what he could improve. Remember positive and trust. Apply active listening.

Now help the employee create a development plan. Talk about what books, trainings will help him. What new tasks can he perform in order to improve his skills.

Start setting tasks for your subordinate as if he has already changed and achieved his ideal image. But here I will give an analogy with the gym: the load must be increased gradually. 1 kg per week. The same is with the employee: increase the complexity of tasks, but do not overload.

Celebrate the result with him when he achieves his goal. And here's another video showing how employee changes take place:

Step 10: stop bullying your subordinates

The stupidest thing I've ever heard from a manager is the phrase about carrots and sticks. No carrots and sticks. It doesn't work with humans. Even with animals not always. There is even a cool book on this topic, I highly recommend reading:

Well, research on diabetics showed that bullying them into dieting didn't work at all.

The patient recovers much faster when the doctor helps him to imagine himself healthy, sympathizes, and shares positive emotions.

Use an example from your past. Remember when they tried to change you through the "scary story".

Now remember the situation when you were happy with yourself and your life. When I was proud of something.

Now think, in what mood and state would you be ready to do more? Where would you be more productive?

Therefore, as a leader, you should only use tools to engage and inspire employees. You need to create a special atmosphere by communicating with subordinates.

Experiment on your friends. Ask them questions from the list below and pay attention to their condition. Do you think they would be effective employees in such a state of excitement?

Step 11. Start changing yourself

Now apply for yourself the knowledge of how people change. This is how the entire change process looks like:

Ask yourself a question:

See which of these needs to be developed first:

Take an example:

Unlike leaders, who have the opposite:

Therefore, make a small schedule for yourself for 10 weeks, put there 10 qualities that you want to practice these 10 weeks (the list is a little higher), and practice one quality for a whole week.

Week 1	Quality 1
Week 2	Quality 2
Week 3	Quality 3
…	…
Week 10	Quality 10

»

And remember:

Of course, many will say that all this does not work for us, that our employees are completely different, lazy, and so on. But this is nothing more than a reluctance to change. Don't be one of them, change!

And the last inspirational video:

P. S. What video did you like the most? Write in the comments.