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Emotional Intelligence is considered the next milestone,

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the process of gaining awareness of a new set of facts to optimize your decision making, critical thinking, communication, and complex relationships. 

 

Leaders or leadership systems that have achieved greatness are different from the “run-of-the-mill” tale of leadership because of the judgment they’ve shown, the decisions they’ve made and the kind of relationships they’ve sustained to generate results that have surpassed expectations.  Each of these indispensable faculties are deeply influenced by emotional intelligence.  Suboptimal decisions are typically made when leaders compulsively dismiss the vital knowledge stored in emotional undercurrents.  Great leaders do not ignore such data. 

 

Furthermore, EI drastically improves an individual’s ability to handle emergencies without allowing for the tension, anxiety and irritability to derail the actions, behaviors and decisions necessary to optimally navigate the situation.  The emotional undercurrents generated by the “crisis” are processed at lightning speeds, and the tone and body language that follows (frequently described as nerves of “steel”) inspire followership as much as it distinguishes leadership.

 

Being an emotionally intelligent leader involves effectively processing the “complex data files” that are human emotion.  A common misconception is that emotional intelligence is about staying ‘pleasant’ and nice at all times, but this is far removed from the real work of ‘emotional intelligence.’  ‘Niceness’ doesn’t quite cut it.  Can you name a great leader that is characterized as ‘nice’?  Great leaders spend substantial time pondering so many hidden details of human interaction, potential outcomes, unseen opportunities, pathways of progress, and avenues of possibility that are invisible to leaders who don’t factor in “emotional” data.

 

Lincoln, Gandhi, Ashoka, Akbar, Roosevelt, Einstein, Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet, Hayao Miyazaki , Ratan Tata, John Lassater, Ed Catmull, Aung San Suu Kyi, Howard Schultz, Anita Roddick.  All these leaders, across many disciplines and different decades, who proved themselves against different challenges, all have one thing in common:  an unusually uncanny ability to anticipate relationships between individuals, the potential latent to the historical moment, and the possibilities intrinsic to markets, societies and the future. They all used EI. 

 

To further explore the realm of Emotional Intelligence, click here.

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