32: How leaders can develop their emotional intelligence – Shannon Houde, MBA

Hays Worldwide - Leadership Insights Podcast

How can you become a more emotionally intelligent leader? In this podcast, Shannon Houde, Founder and Managing Director of Walk of Life Coaching, shares her expert advice to help you develop this increasingly important trait. Timestamps: (01:00) To begin with, please could you introduce yourself to our listeners? (01:38) What are some of the main challenges your clients are facing at the moment? (02:58) Can you explain what we mean by the term emotional intelligence? (03:37) Why do you think it's become more important for leaders to be emotionally intelligent? (04:25) What are the benefits that the emotional intelligence of a leader can have, not just for them but on the team and ultimately the wider organisation? (05:56) What do you think are some of the tell-tale signs that people can use to spot when they're working with an emotionally intelligent leader? (09:05) It's an interesting model you've just talked us through there and the first element you mentioned was self-awareness. Just how important is it for leaders to recognise their own emotions, perhaps when they're excited or frustrated, and the impact this can have on their teams? (10:40) I know that our listeners in this podcast are leading teams, departments, and entire organisations. Do you have any tips that you can share on how these leaders can develop and improve their self-awareness? (12:37) What can leaders do to improve their ability to self-regulate? (13:58) And I’d imagine that this self-regulation and accountability, will also help leaders to develop trust within their teams? (14:40) How can leaders understand their own teams drive to succeed? And why does it matter to identify this? (16:03) When you are in a leadership role and you do want to bring your team along with you, or role model your own motivation and commitment to an organisation's ambitions, how do you go about doing that? How do you bring people with you? (17:05) I wanted to talk about empathy which I’ve thought about in terms of my personal relationships and charitable giving, but it's also the fourth competency in the model you mentioned. What can leaders do and what should they be doing to demonstrate empathy towards their teams? (21:03) The final competency that you mentioned was social skills. Just how important is both verbal communication and body language in emotional intelligence when leaders are communicating with their team, whether that's delivering a new policy or in the day-to-day interactions that they have? (23:46) Is there anything else that leaders can do or skills that they need to possess outside of what we've already discussed, to help them develop and grow their emotional intelligence? (25:06) I'd like to finish with a question that we ask all our podcast guests. Outside of emotional intelligence, what do you think are the three qualities that make a good leader? And crucially, do you think these qualities have changed because of the pandemic?