Emotional intelligence leads to better results for teams and individuals.
It is a myth to assume you will advance your career if you are good at your job. Technical prowess is what we reward in school, and it’s natural to assume that technical expertise will continue to be the strongest indicator for advancement. But it’s not.
In fact, if you are really good at your job, you might be too valuable to promote. It doesn’t help you to be so productive that no one wants you to move on. It also doesn’t help you advance if you keep your head down while getting things done. Often, the best results happen when people work together.
We have all seen people who don’t seem very productive get promoted. Often, they are the ones you see chatting in the halls, going out for lunches or after-work drinks, getting attention in meetings. For some people, it’s baffling.
These are the leaders who are tuned into people first. In other words, they have emotional intelligence. Their teams out-perform others because team members know what a pleasure it is to work for someone who cares about them, encourages them to be their best every day, and who listens to them. These emotional intelligence skills produce high performing teams with leaders who have time and energy to build relationships up and across the organization. Once they are networked and their ability to create high performing teams is recognized, promotion naturally follows.
Emotional Self-Awareness is Essential to Advance Your Career
Career advancement depends on getting noticed for the right things. A high degree of awareness of your own emotions as well as others’ emotions is the first step toward creating the conditions for high performance. When your team is getting above average results, you will get noticed for the right things.
Emotional awareness helps you remain calm and confident, even in difficult situations. Awareness of others’ emotions helps you build the empathy, safety, and recognition necessary to create an environment to engage and inspire others.
Consider the following statistics:
- Among leaders with high emotional awareness, 92% have teams that are high performing.
- Among leaders with low emotional awareness, 78% have teams that report a negative work climate.
- Studies of priests, doctors, and IT professionals all show that that high emotional awareness and emotional intelligence predict leadership
Studies also find that people with high emotional awareness typically demonstrate high levels of other emotional intelligence skills like empathy, conflict resolution, and inspiration—all behaviors that help you advance your career.
Stop getting passed over for promotion.
Stop being left out of important meetings and conversations.
Stop keeping your head down and focusing on your own output.