Category Archives: Emotionally Adept Leadership

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Know Your Followers

How much do you know about your followers?

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know-your-audience

One of the factors that were most important for me back in the days when I was a professional speaker was a maxim that I learned from the former actor that taught me all I needed to know about professional public speaking. He taught me that I needed to “know my audience” before I spoke to them. Those were wise words.

What do you know about your followers?

Leaders, how well do you know your followers? Just what do you know about them? Do you even know them at all? These are tough questions. But, they are questions that we need to consider. Knowing them will provide us the insights into their lives and personalities that we need to be a better leader.

How do you get to know your followers?

Let’s assume for a minute that you accept the value of knowing your followers. How can you get to know them better? Consider the following ideas:

Go to them — Go and visit them. If you regularly have 1-on-1’s with your followers, consider having the next one at their office or sitting at their desk. Why? You will see the things that are important to them by what is on display at their desk. Is it a picture of their family? Their motorcycle? Is their favorite sports team obvious? You may not ever know some of these pieces that make up the whole person unless you make the effort to go to their space.

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20 Things You Need In A New Leader

Is it time for a change in your organization?

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20-things-you-need-in-a-new-leader

Perhaps we don’t really “need” a new leader. Maybe we just really “want” it. Do you ever feel that way?

Change is inevitable. I know, that is so cliché. That doesn’t make it any less true. Leadership change is often needed when organizations have plateaued, been through a crisis, or leaders have taken themselves out of the picture for various reasons. In each of those cases, someone must take a hard look at the organization and the needs of all the parties concerned and select another leader.

What are some things that an organization should consider in selecting a new leader? Consider with me the following as a partial list of key skills, abilities, traits, or tendencies. It is not an exhaustive list by any stretch. But it may spur some thoughts and ideas as an organization moves forward with seeking and selecting new leadership.

They must possess Leadership Abilities– This one almost goes without saying. When selecting a leader, make sure they have demonstrated leadership somewhere and some place before you bring them into your organization.

They Must Demonstrate Past Performance / Results – When searching for a new leader, do your research. Check out the leadership candidate. Has he/she demonstrated strong leadership in the past? Do they get results?

They Must Realize That They Are Part of Something Bigger – Each of us is a part of a much larger organization. And we should consider that we are building something that is larger than our local organization and it should fit well with the larger organization.

They Must Show That They Have Learned From Past Mistakes – Everybody makes them. How does the leadership candidate show that they have learned from mistakes made in the past?

They Must Show That They Can Fit Within the System or Personality of the Organization – Does the candidate mesh with the organization’s overall system or personality? If not, you are destined for conflict.

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Be Polite and Be Approachable

Leadership Basics

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Be Polite Be Approachable

Welcome to the second in a series of Leadership Basics that we all should reflect on now and again and that we should make sure are a part of our every day repertoire.

Be Polite

“It doesn’t cost anything to be nice.” Those words have been quoted by many and attributed to many. The one attribution that I am most fond of is the late great football coach — Paul “Bear” Bryant.

Coach Bryant is legendary. For the folks in some parts of Alabama, his stature is almost god-like. And for folks here in Texas, he is legendary as the coach who took Texas A&M from a 1-9 record his first year to winning the Southwest Conference Championship 2 years later.

He tells a story about one of his first recruiting trips after he became the head football coach at Alabama. I will not recount it here. But the short version of it is that he ultimately recruited a very talented young football player years later because of the kindness that he showed the boy’s grandfather on his first trip to that part of Alabama by stopping at his humble cinder block restaurant and fulfilling his promise to send the old man an autographed photo to hang on the wall of the restaurant.

Consider this quote as well before I move on to my next Leadership Basic:

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Emotionally Adept Leaders

The Case for EI is the Case for EA

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Emotionally Adept Leaders

To make a case for one of them is to also make the case for the other. Because to truly grasp Emotional Intelligence (EI) and not put it into practice in every area of life would be to deny by your actions that you really “get it” when it-comes to the topic of EI.

I am in the process of writing a book on the topic of what it means to take Emotional Intelligence beyond just “knowing” and onto the important steps of incorporating that knowledge into our daily lives. In other words, becoming emotionally “adept” and not just full of knowledge that is never applied to how we live our lives. I am terming this, becoming “Emotionally Adept” and it is part of the overall process of becoming an “Emotionally Adept Leader.”

However, before I continue and expand on what it is to be emotionally adept, I should probably set the background for those not familiar with EI or reset the background for those that are familiar.

High-level Summary of EI.

By now, many of you have read the book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves. So, just what is emotional intelligence? The quick answer is to say that there are four components of emotional intelligence that best define it. The first two are about yourself, while the remaining two are concerning others or those around you.

Self- consciousness (Being aware of one’s own emotions) 

Knowing yourself and being conscious of your emotions is the first component of emotional intelligence. Becoming aware of

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