Why You Should Lead With Emotional Intelligence - Connection
Despite being an undisputed vitality for an organizational drive and optimal productivity, are you aware that the concept of teamwork is not cheap and handy? Have you not wondered why it is common to walk into a space of people working towards a corporate vision or objective and discover that instead of being a community (of common interest and synergy), they are a crowd of unconnected strength; instead of being a team, they are a group or a collection of people?
No matter how much resources and systems on ground, there’s barely much an organization can achieve, or how far a team can go when there’s no connection or teamwork. The team will always under-perform.
Teamwork makes a team work.
It’s easier (or maybe much natural) for people to do things individually than collectively, especially for the demands of patience and time that goes into carrying each other along. But this is not good for business.
So how does a leader bridge the gap, build the connection or inspire an atmosphere of teamwork – which is an unnatural feat?
Emotional intelligence is the game changer here!
Leading with emotional intelligence avails a stable ground for a team to bond on an emotional level, which fosters teamwork. An emotionally intelligent leader inspires trust, loyalty, and connection, not just between herself and the team members, but even amongst the staff members.
It is laughable, very laughable to instruct or expect employees to keep aside their emotions during work time because we are wired to live, operate and relate by emotions. Emotions are not bad, we can’t deny, discount or kill them, but we can always leverage and utilize them towards our success and productivity both individually and collectively.
So with this knowledge, a leader galvanizes the intelligence of emotions to help a team connect deeply, cooperate efficiently, and conquer tremendously. How possible is it to build a productive and inspiring company culture in the absence of team connection?
By emotional intelligence, a leader through active listening bonds with his followers. EI helps the leader to gain a deep understanding of the team (collectively and individually), culture a close relationship amongst team members, thereby cultivating emotional bonding.
An emotionally bonded team inspires loyalty whereby despite vulnerability, the team members have trust for the team and in the leader for their safety, which would make them perform at their best and deliver on the common goals and vision of the organization.
Another vital aspect of connection that leading with emotional intelligence avails a leader is in rightly positioning (delegating or connecting) the “human resources†available in a team based on an acute awareness of the different individuals and situational demand.
Having complete parts of a car does not make a car. The parts must be well connected and properly fitted for the car to be functional. Even with extra or spare parts, the parts are still useless if they remain unconnected despite being complete. So the optimal functioning of a car is beyond it having complete parts, rather in the parts being well connected.
In similitude to the above analogy, having an organization with the complete required or necessary skill-set, talents or competencies do not outrightly guarantee a functional team operating at an optimal level if the connections are not fixed right.
Beyond completion is the necessity for connection.
Leading with emotional intelligence moves a team from merely being complete with talents and skills, to becoming efficiently connected to complement weaknesses with strengths. Based on the different emotional capacities individuals of a team can possess, an emotionally intelligent leader, having understood his team, knows how to leverage and harness these complexities in delegating and positioning team members (beyond intellectual or skilled competence), thereby creating good connection and optimal production.
When there’s emotional intelligence in leadership, it creates connection; it makes the team fit well.
