Mediaboss Marketing

This article was co-authored by Brent Gleeson andDyan Crace, Marketing Manager at Internet Marketing Inc.

There are no extraordinary men just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with. William (Bill) Halsey, Jr.

The ability to be perceptively in tune with yourself and your emotions, as well as having sound situationalawarenesscan be a powerful tool for leading a team. The act of knowing, understanding, and responding to emotions, overcoming stress in the moment, and being aware of how your words and actions affect others, is described as emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence consistsof these four attributes: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

As a Navy SEAL veteran, entrepreneur, and leader of one of the fastest growing digital marketing agencies in the country, I have experienced many emotions and become very aware of how those emotions can have a positive ornegative effect on my ability to inspire and lead a team. Many individuals try to shut off their feelings, but as much as we distort, deny, and bury our emotions and memories, we cant ever eliminate them.

You can learn to be emotionally independent and gain the attributes that allow you to have emotional intelligence by connecting to core emotions, accepting them, and being aware of how they affect your decisions and actions.My past experiences in combat required me to develop emotional intelligence quickly. A skill that takes constant improvement but that has been beneficial in current leadership roles.

Emotional intelligence is widely known to be akey component of effective leadership. Understanding how the brain operates and how the emotional response system works should also be a factorin where we place team members within our organizations. Being able to relate behaviorsand challenges of emotional intelligence on workplace performance is an immense advantage in building an exceptional team. One of the most common factors that leads to retention issues is communication deficiencies that create disengagement and doubt. A leader lacking inemotional intelligence is not able to effectively gauge the needs, wants and expectations of those they lead. Leaders who react from their emotions without filtering them can create mistrust amongst their staff and can seriously jeopardize their working relationships. Reacting with erratic emotions can be detrimental to overall culture, attitudes and positive feelings toward the company and the mission.Good leaders must be self aware and understand how their verbal and non-verbal communication can affect the team.

SEAL training taught me many things, including how to build alliance among a team, make quick decisions in high stress situations, and communicate effectively amidst chaos. Emotions and adrenaline run high in stressful and potentially life threatening situations, but for people that havent had the training, it can be difficult to stay calm and make good decisions under pressure.

To help understand your emotional intelligence competencies, I would recommend determining where you stand on the below elements.

Link:
The Use of Emotional Intelligence For Effective Leadership