Your emotionally smart staff can improve your company’s bottom line, which is why EQ is gaining recognition in the boardroom. According to Karen Kelly of Xtreme Learning Academy, people have traditionally separated their work and personal lives.
However, you can’t escape the fact that businesses are owned and operated by people, and the better they interact, the more beneficial for the company.
Modern men and women
EQ in the workplace is a growing trend, regardless of the size of the enterprise. In fact, Kelly says that EQ is particularly important in SMEs who need to show growth, which in turn will hopefully create more employment; a huge focus in South Africa. Growing an SME requires an extremely strong and focused team that buys into management’s vision for the business.
She explains that emotions drive people and people drive performance. Individual relationships create the corporate climate. This means that the person who struggles to understand or express themselves is going to need some development to enable them to manage and understand their emotions more effectively.
Dealing well with life
Emotional Intelligence is about relationships with others and yourself. When you know yourself, you know why you behave the way you do and once you understand yourself, you start understanding others.
This results in you being able to deal with a host of life challenges, including conflict resolution and self-control.
Providing your staff members with access to these skills will ensure that they become resilient to life’s challenges, in their personal and professional capacities. Bottom line, productivity and financial feasibility improves when the team feels that who they are is important to the company.
How employers can bolster EQ
Emotional Intelligence flows down within an organisation as employees follow the leaders’ example. It is highly recommended that corporates train their top level employees and then roll out the programme to key individuals at lower levels.
EQ programmes can be used to identify the employees’ key values, which can be included in the company’s values, ensuring buy-in to the company vision. This enables the business to focus progressing towards the key goals instead of dealing with ‘emotional issues’ because the employee unintentionally sabotages the company vision.