Technical skills and IQ can help you advance in your career and become a manager but once you are there, it's soft skills that you will need to be able to manage your teams and build positive relationships. Emotional intelligence is a quality that can help you with coaching, problem solving, and cooperation with your team members. Let's take a closer look at what emotional intelligence is exactly and why is it important in leadership. 

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. People with high emotional intelligence are able to recognize their emotions and calm themselves as needed. Leaders must emotional intelligence in order to build effective relationships with all kinds of team members who might have different personalities. Emotionally intelligent leader can avoid unnecessary conflicts and outbursts by being able to be always calm and control himself. Moreover, he is able to recognize the emotions his team members are having and help them calm down too. 

Emotional intelligence is often divided into five components:

  • Self-awareness
  • Self-regulation
  • Motivation
  • Empathy
  • Social skills
By developing the skills in each of these areas, leaders can increase their emotional intelligence and become better leaders. 

Self-Awareness

In order to help your team to reach their full potential, you should be able to reach your full potential yourself. Self-awareness means understanding and recognizing your own feeling and how they can impact others around you. You should know your own emotions that are happening inside of you. 

So what actions can you take in order to become more self-aware? 

  • Start a journal. Every day write all your thoughts and feelings in your journal. You can start with just describing your day and everything you did or planning to do that day. Then you can move on to describing your different emotions regarding different situations and calming yourself down. Through writing in your journal be a good listener and psychologist for yourself. All of this will improve your self-awareness. 
  • Slow down. When you become angry or experience other powerful emotions, take a moment to examine them and think about the reasons why you might be feeling them. There are a lot of things we can't control but we can always choose our attitude and how we react. Remember that's where your power is. 

Self-Regulation

Self-regulations means being able to manage your emotions as they arise. It's being able to stay calm and peaceful in stressful situations. 

Leaders who are good at self-regulation don't abuse others verbally. Self-regulation means being in control. 

How you can become better at self-regulation?

  • Know your values. Take a moment to reflect on your values. What do you consider to be right thing to do and what is wrong? Once you will have a clear picture about your values, you will be able to make the right decisions. 
  • Hold yourself accountable. When you make a mistake or do something wrong, have the courage to admit it and take the full responsibility for it. It will make you more calm and you will be in peace with yourself. You will have a good relationship with yourself and as a result will build better relationships with others too. When other people will see that you know how to admit your mistakes, they will appreciate it and respect you more. 
  • Practice being calm. Pay attention to the situations when you express your negative emotions at the expense of others by yelling at them or saying something negative. When you become stressed or negative emotions arise, try calming yourself down first before speaking to anyone by doing breathing exercises or writing your thought down on the paper. Writing daily helps to get rid of negative emotions and understand what you are feeling and why. 

Motivation

Being able to motivate yourself is a sign of high emotional intelligence. Being motivated is an emotion that pushes you to work harder and with enthusiasm. So being able to create this emotion yourself is the part of the ability to manage your emotions. Self-motivated leaders are able to work towards their goals every single day and they set themselves high standards about how their work should be accomplished. 

How can you become more motivated?

  • Ask why? From time to time remind yourself why you are doing the job that you do. Try to remember why did you choose this job and what do you love about it. How it makes you feel? What kind of skills do you have that makes you good at it? 
  • Be hopeful. Motivated leaders know how to remain positive all the time. When you face some challenging situation or failure, try to stay optimistic and find something to be thankful for. Even if it's a very small thing, it is there. Set yourself a goal to train your mind to stay positive in such situations. 

Empathy

What makes a leader different from other team members is that he becomes like a parent to the whole team. It's crucial to have an empathy if a leader wants to gain trust and loyalty from his team members. In order to be an effective team, everyone should trust each other. Empathy is one of the ways to build the trust. What is empathy? It's being able to feel what another person feels. Not only understand and show sympathy, but to be able to actually experience all the emotions that the other has experienced. Only then we will be able to show authentic care for another human being. 

How can we increase our empathy?

  • Put yourself in someone else's shoes. It's important to do this especially when you don't agree with someone. Think about their life and what they have went through. Looking at the same thing with their eyes might change your opinion about it. 
  • Respond to feelings. Pay attention to the feelings of your employees. What kinds of feelings do they show when they have to work extra hours for example? And show that you are not a robot and appreciate all the work that they do. Talk with them about how hard it must be for both of you and discuss some options how to make them feel better. 

Social skills

Leaders who have great social skills are excellent communicators. They are very open and can talk to anyone about their successes and problems they might have. They are also good at resolving any conflicts without defending anyone in particular. They listen to both sides and try to find a compromise. 

How can you improve your social skills?

  • Learn conflict resolution. Leaders must know how to resolve conflicts between their team members in a peaceful manner. So, learn these skills in order to better able to manage conflicts. 
  • Praise others. Praising others can make them loyal to you. Learning how to do it more effectively is an art that can serve you in a long way. 
  • Improve communication skills. How well do you really communicate with people? Do you know what it takes to be a good communicator? Do your research and learn what can you do to improve your communication skills and practice them.