How can Emotional Intelligence help our Leaders and Managers in Crisis Management?

We are facing a global pandemic that’s testing the limits of humanity. Emotionally charged times often force leaders and managers to make hasty decisions with long-term consequences.

We often forget that leaders are humans too, whose evolutionary instincts are to retreat, take cover, or run away from crisis. To understand what effective leadership entails, we must first recognise what a crisis is.

What Is A Crisis?

A crisis is:

• “a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger.”
• “a time when a difficult or important decision must be made.”
• “a turning point, when a critical change takes place … indicating either recovery or death.”
  

Leading through change is never easy, but you can learn it and develop the necessary qualities through effective learning programmes.

What defines a leader is his or her ability to manage a crisis by exercising Emotional Intelligence (EI). And in the midst of it, to inspire, lead, and motivate their team members.

In his book Working with Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman drives a critical message: emotional competence is the MAIN FACTOR influencing success in a person’s professional life.

To assess and identify areas of improvement in employee performance, Goleman developed a performance-based and industry-established model based on the five components of EI.

He defines EI as:
“The capacity for recognising our feelings, and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.”
 

Why Is EI Critical In A Time Of Crisis?

EI equips leaders with unique skills to interpret, work with, or work around highly stressful situations. Emotionally intelligent leaders do not give in to an onslaught of emotions. Instead, they actively look for effective coping strategies for handling challenging, tricky, even unprecedented situations.

Most importantly, a true leader develops actions and management mechanisms through a deep and consistent understanding of the organisation’s goals. Doing this keeps him or her anchored—so when a crisis hits, he or she does not panic, deviate, or make decisions from a reactionary perspective.
 

“Crisis Is Temporary.”

This is the edict of a true leader—to look beyond the challenges and readdress goals with urgency, efficiency, and accurate decisions. The good news is, emotional intelligence can be learned.

Learning how to focus on yourself, on others, and the bigger picture (either your personal goals or your organisation’s goals) is at the core of EI.

As Goleman puts it, “a failure to focus inward leaves you rudderless, a failure to focus on others renders you clueless, and a failure to focus outward may leave you blindsided.”

With this three-pronged awareness, our leaders can be more effective in strategising, innovating, and managing for their teams and organisations.

We at Kaleidoskope can help you embark on a high-performance virtual learning journey with our online session on Emotional Intelligence in Crisis Management—a powerful tool for managers and leaders to be consciously aware and conscientiously trained, in leveraging EI for long-term success.

Spearheading the virtual journey is TEDx speaker, international corporate trainer, and executive coach Nicole Smart. With her high-impact and highly engaging approach, she will bring to life the core themes of Emotional Intelligence and its application to leadership and management.

Nicole gleaned her insights from years of working extensively with governments and corporate institutions around the world. In recent online learning workshops, she worked with diplomats, staff at the United Nations (UN) in Switzerland and senior government officials in Saudi Arabia, empowering them to cope with the leadership and managerial skills to navigate through these difficult times.

CONTACT US NOW to secure your slots
to a high-performance EI learning journey today!