Category: Managerial Skills

How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence, known as a key determinant of life success, is the ability to effectively regulate emotions by accurately perceiving a situation and then understand, apply and manage one’s emotions. There is a difference in such ability across the population and this can be ascertained with psychological testing and perhaps enhanced with appropriate training.

While intelligence (traditionally measured with IQ) is related to one’s ability to learn, the pace of acquiring knowledge and problem solving, emotional intelligence is related to something more basic as decision making. There are many theories that point towards multiple intelligences and there is little consensus on one robust definition of emotional intelligence. In general, emotional intelligence relates to aspects related to the emotions and the way they interfere with our response to situations.

There is a difference between the elements of personality or behavioral preferences such as extraversion, optimism or assertiveness and the underlying capacity to be emotionally intelligent. At some level, emotional intelligence can be seen a skill that can be put through objective measurement and could be used repeatedly in coaching and enhanced through training and development.

Many psychologists and popular trainers linked life success to Emotional Intelligence. Many companies relabelled their behavioral training programs as emotional intelligence programs. While there is a connection between personality and emotional intelligence, what’s important to notice is that emotional intelligence largely relates to the capacity to regulate one’s emotions and not the preferences as purported by the trait’s theory and personality models.

Emotions tend to start automatically, alters our attention and thinking and creates certain physiological differences in the body. Emotions are temporary and prepare us for action. Ultimately, emotions help us survive in our environment. They contribute significantly to the choices we make, to the decisions we make on day to day basis and the responses we give in interpersonal situations.

To Use Emotional Intelligence for Success in Life, Consider the Following Four Points.

    1. The first aspect of emotional intelligence is related to our ability to identify the emotion. It’s the accuracy of perception that matters here. For example, by realizing and naming the emotion we may be feeling at a certain time or in a certain situation, we may influence how that emotion is influencing us physiologically. Because emotions are often related to people’s intent and their expected response, accurately identifying someone else’s emotions may be the key to better interpersonal relationships.
    2. And then emotions influence thinking. Positive emotions help us learn, reflect, be engaged in creative tasks and group tasks. Negative emotions may be more appropriate when we are looking for mistakes or errors and identifying risks. When people differ in their ability to regulate emotions, they may differ in their ability to generate the appropriate emotions for the task at hand. This creates a difference in the level of emotional intelligence of people.
    3. Earlier we talked about identifying emotions and labelling them. The ability to understand emotions assist us in not only labelling the emotions we experience but also understand how they will influence our thinking and how they may progress. There exists an entire vocabulary for emotions that could help us label emotions such as surprise, disgust, shame, guilt etc. By understanding how each one of them show up and how they progress, transmit and subside, we could regulate emotions better.
    4. Finally, regulating emotions is about identifying the emotions, understanding how they may influence our thinking and decision making, understand different emotions and their respective characteristics and staying open to integrating all the knowledge to cope or make the best of every situation.

This openness to adapt and the ability to integrate all the steps above to be more effective in intra and interpersonally defines one’s emotional intelligence. Many authors and psychologists have spoken about how emotional intelligence is a better predictor of life success than intelligence (IQ) in its traditional sense. To sum it up, Emotional Intelligence can influence life success tremendously and can fortunately be developed with appropriate training.

Filed under: Managerial SkillsTagged with: ,

Dream Destination Game

Learning/Application: Icebreaker/Understanding team members/Sharing

No. Of Participants: 5-10

Duration: 45 minutes

Location: Indoors

Checklist Of Items Required

Pen

Paper

Travel Books

Brochures of holiday destinations

Procedure

1.      Hand out a few travel books and holiday brochures to each person.

2.      Instruct everyone to individually work out their dream holiday right from choosing the destination to planning the travel and accommodation arrangements.

3.      After 30 minutes, have everyone share their dream destination, the reasons for why they chose that place and the planning they did for the trip.

Debriefing Notes

Use this activity to help strangers get to know each other better. During the discussion, ask everyone to observe what they learned from the way someone chose a destination or planned a trip. Use this to help the group understand that people are motivated by different things and how this influences the actions they take – for example, a person who finds it stressful to have things go wrong may choose a destination that is relatively familiar or closer home.

For more ideas on team building games and team building activities, log on to www.executivecoachingindia.com regularily. Our team games section is updates frequently with new and exciting ideas for team building activities – including icebreakers, outdoor games and indoor games.

Filed under: Managerial Skills

Why Bosses Don’t Delegate

The higher an employee rises in the organizational hierarchy, the more indispensable they seem to become and it becomes increasingly difficult for them to make time for themselves or to shoulder additional responsibilities. As a part of business coaching, organizations should help their managers and supervisors learn to delegate some of their work to avoid getting into this situation. However, you ought to be mentally prepared for resistance because many bosses do not like

Delegating their jobs for one or more of the following reasons.

1. A Feeling of Insecurity
Senior executives may find it tough to trust that the job will be done in a competent way by the employee to whom they delegate. This is especially true of individuals who micromanage: even if they do give up part of the responsibility because they learned about it in business coaching, they will keep watching over the shoulder because they are scared things will go wrong, and they will ultimately be blamed.
2. Obsession with Control
Some bosses get an ego kick out of being the boss; doing things themselves makes them feel important, powerful and in control. Such people worry that delegating a task to someone else means they will not be able to assert their authority.
3. Desire for the Limelight
Some executives take on tasks that they can easily delegate for the sheer visibility it provides them. If there is a job that helps market their quality or capabilities – especially to the higher-ups – they are loath to delegate this task to a junior employee because the focus may shift from them to this employee and make them appear redundant.
4. Avoiding other Responsibilities
Senior employees may not delegate to show their boss they already have their hands full because they want to avoid some other responsibility. Perhaps the other tasks waiting in the wings are difficult, or require further business coaching, or involve greater responsibility and accountability – whatever the reason, they are unpleasant and the only way to avoid them is to show you just do not have the time to handle them.
5. Not Wanting to Let Go
In some cases, the boss may truly love the task although he has grown past the stage of doing it. In such cases, this attachment and love for the job makes him unwilling to give it up to someone else and business coaching has to focus on helping him make the transition.

Delegation is important and no matter what the reason for refusing to do it, senior executives ultimately need to open up to it at some time. Understanding these reasons can help organizations include training on delegation techniques as part of their business coaching program.

Filed under: Managerial SkillsTagged with: , ,

Change Management – Effects

Change perhaps is the only thing that is constant but it definitely is not something that is immediately welcomed – at least, not by employees. When it comes to organizational change, what management views as a good thing may create an immense feeling of insecurity in employees.

This feeling associated with the change process may often reflect as resistance and unless you understand this concept and manage change wisely, you risk losing valuable employees, time and of course, money.

Why the Resistance

As a leader, you may be convinced that change is what is going to take your organization ahead. However, your workforce may not agree, and for a wide variety of reasons. Some executives may worry about the fact that the level of power they hold would decline or that they would now need to be answerable to someone else.
Other employees may experience anxiety over having to switch to a new job profile with which they are unfamiliar or uncomfortable. People also tend to worry over changes in their designations, the amount of work they will have to do, their salaries and perks and relationships with new staff.

Reactions to Organizational Change

Faced with the prospect of change, most employees react in four different ways:
  • Denial – Some employees find it difficult to come to terms with the news of the proposed changes
  • Acceptance – Others will simply shrug and accept the change.
  • Indifference – Some people remain indifferent towards the entire organizational change.
  • Opposition – Some employees vociferously oppose the change and will not accept it at any cost.
Ultimately, all such employees respond in one of two ways: some realize there is no point in flowing against the tide and try to cope by facing the challenge head-on, doing what is required of them even if they feel negative about it. Others – and these are the problematic employees – insist on resisting the change by shirking their responsibilities, avoiding important tasks, not meeting deadlines, absenteeism and sometimes even quitting work.
An important point to understand here is that all of these responses to change depend on the employee’s perception of what that change means to him at a personal level. As professor of management Angelo Kinicki, of the W. P. Carey School of Business says, “One of the things about communicating about change that is important to remember is this – people will tend to resist change when they don’t understand why it’s happening. So you’ve got to script it out and present it in a way that the average person will understand.”
Understanding this is crucial for leaders who are out to prepare a change management plan.
Filed under: Managerial Skills

Managerial Effectiveness

Managerial effectiveness determines the proactive approach of a manager to handle complex situations and conquer collective challenges within the team. To ensure long term success in business a manager has to focus intently on employee development and performance by meeting their diverse needs through well-formulated communication techniques.

Aligning motivation with work and personal goals and anticipating and resolving conflict situations also come under the jurisdiction of managerial effectiveness. A person appointed on a managerial level has to instill a culture and tradition based on partnership, respect and most importantly, trust. Encouraging and increasing dialogue and initializing constructive feedback from co-employees is a crucial element of managerial skills.

Moreover, to further ensure long term productivity, managers have to master the skill of partnering with their team and delegating work so as to increase performance and individual growth.

Here are some tips to fulfill the objectives of managerial effectiveness with efficiency and smoothness.

Managing a large group of people, with diversified ideas and beliefs, and compelling them to work in co-relation with each other towards a common goal, is quite a taxing job for a manager. However, to perform his duties soundly and perfectly, he has to be courteous and respectful towards his employees who are placed under him. Never make a mistake of differentiating among them on the basis of the status that they hold, their intelligence level, financial responsibilities assigned or other criterion relating to their rank or position in office.

A leader has to radiate and reflect a strong confidence so as to comply with enthusiasm with the staff, especially during times of emergencies for meeting deadlines and adverse situations.

Communicating in a simple and an easily comprehendible language can definitely make things easier for the employees as well as the manager. Using excessively technical terminology to demonstrate one’s power and position may confuse and restrict the working capacity of the employees within the team. So, the best is to keep it simple when communicating and interacting with employees.

As a manager, one should provide rationale reasoning for requests and demands made, which in turn would assist drastically in reducing the manager-employee gap, bridging it up and even breaking the ice between them. This leads to better understanding and adaptability of the present scenario, thereby increasing the productivity of the manager as well as the employees.

A manager should always adopt and use established lines of communication to avoid any kind of future confusions which might erupt due to message distortion or otherwise. The best resort, therefore, is to make every small or big request in writing and forward it to all the concerned departments at the same time.

A person appointed on a managerial post should be open minded in his approach. He should patiently listen to the ideas and feelings of his employees, thereby showing concern and care for them. This would lead to gaining trust and respect of the co-workers who would then respond in a better and more enthusiastic manner to their manager’s requests.

Filed under: Managerial Skills