Emotional Quotient and You: A Tale of Two Leaders

“The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee, and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.”

John D. Rockefeller

For many in the large company we worked with years ago, it truly was the best of times—and the worst of times.  Two leaders ran the organization:  Jeff, a highly interpersonal leader, and Peter, a competent businessman who seemed to lack basic social skills.*  Together they had built a successful company, but now that Jeff and Peter had passed the startup phase of their business, they needed to direct their attention to the growing Corporate Family™ they’d gathered.

Unfortunately, this is when Peter’s weak interpersonal skills began to impact the entire organization.  He often seemed too self-absorbed to assist other team members who needed his attention, and occasionally his gruff interactions with employees turned into angry outbursts.  Even Jeff began to get annoyed with his business partner because Peter seldom showed any appreciation for the efforts he put forth to make up for Peter’s lack of attentiveness to Corporate Family™ members.

That’s when Jeff took the initiative to contact LEADon. It didn’t take long for us to identify that building some Emotional Quotient (EQ) skill sets would not only benefit Peter, but would also be of value to the entire organization.  We shared our concept about developing emotional competency with their leaders and subordinates—pointing out that unlike IQ, which is mostly fixed, our EQ skill sets can improve over time if we identify areas of weakness and work intentionally to improve them.

In our efforts we included all executive and management teams, along with the entire Corporate Family™ in order to focus specifically on developing emotional competency and a few other skill sets that we believed would improve the cohesion, production, and profitability of their business. In addition, we used our unique EQ metric (a 100 item self-report assessment that accurately measures the twenty-five EQ characteristics of an individual, any relevant team, and the entire Corporate Family™) called the DECQ® (Developing Emotional Competency Questionnaire).

These results from over 20+ years have demonstrated an incredible impact on those that participate.  Executive, Leadership, and Management teams are always amazed at the findings every time we share them. Peter, Jeff, and the other leaders were equally surprised at how useful the specific findings were which allowed them to immediately identify the changes needed and to easily implement them.  We then rolled out the results to the other teams and eventually to their entire Corporate Family™.  This process allowed all the participants of this organization to discover that they have both areas of strength and areas they could improve upon.  We have found that as long as people are available and teachable, each one can learn new habits in order to impact their personal and professional lives in significant ways. In the case of Jeff and Peter’s organization, every team member and individual in the Corporate Family™ was able to quickly identify areas of strength and weakness where they could immediately and effectively begin working.

As is often the case, the leaders of this organization served as terrific role models for the essential development of emotional competency.  Peter pulled us aside and wanted to get some coaching on those weaker EQ areas that many in his company had already noted.  In particular, we created strategies to improve his areas of Self-Control, Team Capabilities, Communication, and Empathy.  Within a matter of months, Peter had made significant changes to his professional life based on what he’d learned about EQ. (His wife reported that he had also made substantial strides at home with her and their children which was simply value-added. We find that these EQ transitions occur both personally and professionally most of the time).

This Corporate Family ™ continues to trend positively, and both Jeff and Peter’s willingness to intentionally work on specific EQ skill sets has improved their leadership abilities and served as an example that other leaders in this organization are following as they cascade them to everyone in their organization.

The same can be true for you.  Once you identify your EQ strengths and weaknesses, you can target those areas that you’d like to improve upon in the days, weeks, and months ahead.  According to research, your emotional competency can continually improve throughout your lifetime.  That’s terrific news for all of us!

We’re going to have some exciting news about the availability of LEADon’s DECQ metric in the near future.  In the meantime, if we can be of any assistance, please contact us.

Please contact the LEADon Team if you have any questions or comments regarding the Corporate Family.

*The names of these leaders have been changed to provide anonymity.