For 10 years the research has told us that, to besuccessful in our personal and professional lives, we need to show emotional as well as cognitive intelligence.
Clear links have also been established between specific emotional skills and outstanding success in the leadership arena.
Of course, as HR professionals, we’ve always known that having great leaders at every level of the business is key to attracting and, most importantly, retaining talent as well as offering an unbeatable customer experience.
But now, findings from the largest Gallup report ever completed in conjunction with the latest insights from a number of emotional intelligence studies, have rocked the behavioural science world by providing surprising data on what really drives leadership performance – and what separates the great from the average.
In an unprecedented study of engagement and well-being conducted among more than 47,000 employees in 120 countries around the world, the Gallup organisation found a strong correlation between emotional well-being, employee engagement and profitability.
Engagement, engagement, engagement
Analysis of the findings reveals that employee engagement scores are closely related to one of the most commonly scrutinised measures of corporate financial health: earnings per share.
Individual companies’ median EPS’ were compared with those of their industry rivals. The differences were stark. Engagement is so fundamental to the equation that even those firms that enjoyed it at a basic level outperformed their competitors by on average 19%.
However, those in the ‘top decile/exceptional growth’ group saw performance leap by more than four times that of rivals on every key metric such as increased productivity, profitability, safety and lower levels of turnover and absenteeism.
It appears that Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, was right – the three rules to business success are engagement, engagement and engagement. But if this is true, it’s also just as true that most businesses across the world are in trouble.
Gallup found that only 11% of workers globally are engaged in their jobs. In other words, only about one in nine employees feel emotionally connected to their workplaces or that they have the resources and support required to succeed.
On the other hand, 62% are emotionally detached and doing little more than they have to in order to keep their jobs, while 27% are actively disengaged, having a negative view of their workplace and liable to spread that negativity to others.
Leadership performance
This situation is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges that HR directors have to address. But these studies also nail the coffin shut on the old belief that it is only technical skills and intellectual capacity that lead to success in business.
Instead the research has shown conclusively that happy workers – people with positive emotional resources or capital – demonstrate higher levels of engagement and productivity, produce higher sales, perform more effectively in leadership positions and receive higher performance ratings and pay.
They also enjoy more job security and are less likely to take time off sick, become burned out or quit.
In our own research conducted over the last 10 years, which examined emotional intelligence in more that 7,000 professionals from 11 regions of the world, we also found 10 key EI skills that drive leadership performance.
When we tested this model further using the Emotional Capital Report™, a psychometric tool designed to measure emotional intelligence and leadership ability, we found that high EI scores were generate by exceptional people and set them apart from everyone else.
But the scores produced by HR professionals were interesting too. When combined, they are significantly higher than the mean scores of all other groups. With a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, HR practitioners scored 112 for total emotional intelligence – almost one standard deviation above the mean.
Emotional capital
But it is not only traditional skills such as relationship-building and empathy that defined them. Other high ratings related to skills such as adaptability (115), optimism (114), self-reliance (110) and self-control (110). Participants also scored well on self-knowledge (109) and self-actualisation (106).
These findings suggest that HR professionals typically possess high levels of the distinctive skills that are associated with effective leaders.
They also suggest that, if having emotionally intelligent leaders at every level of the business is critical in employee engagement terms, HR professionals not only have a responsibility to model these skills, but also to become champions of cultural change and ensure that they are passed on to business leaders.
Knowledge or intellectual capital has traditionally been, and still is, the most highly valued stock in most companies as it is what they understand and use to build products, solve problems and, ultimately, create wealth.
Yet knowledge is only one of two important business assets. The second is emotional capital as it is an organisation’s emotional assets that will determine whether or not people are happy working for it, choose to buy from it or enter into business with it.
And the data demonstrates conclusively that HR professionals are uniquely positioned to add value to this new balance sheet. The process begins by equipping leaders with the skills that they need to create engaging cultures.
As a result, here are seven proven strategies to help build up the emotional capital in your business:
1. Story-telling
When providing leadership training, employee engagement is the single most important consideration. We are drawn to leaders and employers that are able to communicate why they believe in what they believe.
True leaders are really CSOs — chief storytelling officers – and the stories that they tell provide the inspiration that people need to engage with organisational objectives.
This means that HR must craft a compelling tale and encourage leaders to tell and re-tell the story of why they do what they do and what the business is capable of achieving. Most importantly, they need to help people understand the value of their own particular contribution to that story.
2. Benchmarking
Even if leaders feel motivated to develop their emotional intelligence and leadership skills, they are often unclear about how to do so – until they become aware of how they currently perform in this area.
There are many ways of providing performance feedback, but by far the most credible and compelling is to use psychometric assessment tools and benchmark emotional and social competencies. Genuine self-discovery will act as a catalyst for making self-directed change.
3. Sharing goals
Performance improves dramatically if participants in training programmes set themselves explicit goals for change. But the motivational power of defining such goals is greatly enhanced if they are also put into writing and declared publicly.
HR-sponsored leadership training sometimes falters because people fail to set specific goals in terms of the behaviours that they wish to develop. If they are ready to commit to a programme of change, however, setting such objectives will help to ensure that motivation is sustained.
4. Modelling skills
Provide leaders with opportunities to observe the skills that they wish to acquire in practice. Modelling behaviour is a more effective teaching method than simply telling someone about something as it requires more active participation from learners.
But rather than simply copying the tactics and strategy that drive real change, people must also understand why certain behaviours work and how to practice them.
5. Practice makes perfect
Providing clear models of a desired behaviour along with suitable psychological insights is not sufficient in and of itself to affect change. Repeated, deliberate practice of the targeted skills is also essential.
A common mistake that HR professionals make when providing EI training is to assume that leaders will assimilate such behaviour quickly by simply attending motivational seminars. Although these activities may inspire a desire to change, to make the shift requires practice over an extended period.
But offering feedback is also important. Organisational psychologists have long known that consistent constructive feedback is the most effective way to motivate people and provide them with direction.
6. Providing follow-up support
Research has shown that the value of learning is best maintained, if not greatly enhanced, if people receive targeted coaching support from a reinforcing individual or reference group. In other words, providing coaching and mentoring to people who are on the job contributes significantly to generating positive change.
In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the use of one-on-one executive coaching techniques. Providing such support maximises skills transfer and prevents relapses.
7. Evaluating change
An important part of any leadership programme is to measure an individual’s actual performance against the behaviours that are targeted for change. Leaders who have been involved in setting their own targets are more likely to make the biggest advances, however.
Documenting individual progress by evaluating change in each individual’s level of understanding and behaviour reinforces learning, helps to chart a way forward as well as demonstrate a return on investment. Nothing succeeds like success.
Conclusion
Building up emotional intelligence skills in yourself and other leaders adds real commercial value to the balance sheet, which can be measured in terms of emotional capital.
HR professionals and leaders with high levels of emotional capital are able to influence others through a capacity to identify with their emotional experiences and aspirations in order to build a shared corporate identity.
Accordingly, such leaders are able to establish trust and understand individuals’ need to belong to a group, which helps them to set up effective teams. They can create and communicate compelling visions, develop blueprints for action and lead by their ability to inspire people to act together in concert.
In short, emotional capitalists are leaders who are eminently capable of encouraging staff to take action by engaging them with those prime drivers of behaviour – the emotions.
Martyn Newman is a consulting psychologist, author of ‘Emotional capitalists – The new leaders‘ and creator of the ‘Emotional Capital Report‘.
