Perhaps you've heard the bromide, "Hired for talent; fired for personality." We repeat it often in our work with corporate and organizational CEOs and other executives who are struggling to provide their line managers with the skills needed to manage people effectively. One of the most puzzling features of today's management landscape is that people are usually promoted to management positions based on their high levels of demonstrated skills in the ranks. In hospital settings, they show particular expertise at radiology and, consequently, become head of the hospital's radiology department; in engineering-based companies, they show high competence at designing computer systems and are tapped for managing a high-profile project; in academia, they excel in the biological sciences and are selected for a department chair or dean's role. And, in each of these instances, we've been called in to offer support to the new manager - because, management wasn't the area that he or she had trained in!
The field of management is a specific science, having had hundreds of thousands of books written about its topics and exponentially more papers and presentations made to wide varieties of audiences around the world. Rivaling topics related to the personal management of one's life, about which there are an equal number self-help books printed each year, management topics reside at the top of the charts for popular topical themes that are regularly-requested by the general public. When pondering why this is so, it takes only a moment for those of us who work in management arenas to determine that it relates to the fact that so many people, as they progress through their careers, take on an additional field - that of management. And, most often, they do so through the encouragement of their superiors, who, almost to a person, hold the belief that if someone has exhibited talent in their field, then "they will make good managers." This is far from accurate, although in organizations the belief is widely-held among high-level managers, as though some magic exists that transfers knowledge from one large body of study (for example, radiology) to another (management). Because of these persistent beliefs and the unfortunate actions that are taken relative to them, we regularly work with our corporate clients to disabuse them of these notions. Instead, the CEOs and other high level managers of corporations and organizations who are our clients are provided the processes to enhance their prospects of success by replacing the idea that "anyone can manage" with the sound practice of succession planning, which selects and prepares people form all sorts of fields for the field of management.
Development of Management Expertise
Only when management talent has been developed is it possible for C-level executives to promote individuals to positions of management with assurance of selection and confidence in the outcome. The development of new management potential takes place through a formal, systematic process that first selects a candidate pool of both talented and interested individuals and subsequently prepares them for management roles either through formal, educational preparation or through on-the-job experiences designed specifically to foster new abilities and skills in the management area. The latter option is the stronger one in the long run, because it is carried out in-house and includes the extra benefit of having the CEO and other strong managers in the company or organization serve as part of the coaching team for the fledgling managers. Following this formal preparation process, our C-level clients do find that their new managers have the skills and the range of talents that are required to fill management positions successfully. This is the strategy that we call succession planning. And, for our clients, we assist them in linking these processes with their annual strategy development.
Included in this varied range of processes that make up succession planning are the leadership assessment surveys that are provided for each management pool candidate. Typically there is a battery of formal organizational psychology tools that are used and, among them, as a central feature of the battery of assessments, are the surveys that perform the emotional intelligence assessment function. These include the well-designed assessment tools that hold exceptional track records for their ability to look thoroughly and carefully at the individuals' tendencies in each of several areas, including the interpersonal dimensions of self-regard, emotional self awareness, assertiveness, independence, self-actualization, empathy, social responsibility, and interpersonal relationships. In addition, dimensions of adaptability, stress management, and general mood are assessed.
Recent data from the field of organizational psychology indicate that, with professional implementation of emotional intelligence programs of assessment and follow-up emphasis, overall corporate and organizational performance improves by at least 15% and often our efforts have shown far higher results. This improvement relates to the solid fact that when managers are performing better, their staff's performance increases as well, thereby increasing the overall performance effectiveness of the organization. The reasonable use of the information available from our EmIntel(TM) processes allow us, working in conjunction with a CEO and his/her leadership team, to discover unknown skills as well as potential impediments of both current management staff and management candidate pools, on five essential dimensions and 15 subscales.
Looking at the Reasons for Emotional Intelligence's Importance
Personal behaviors are exhibitions of personal emotions that have been tempered by a combination of our genetics, our environments, and our culture. Emotions are, essentially, impulses to act or the person's formulation of "instant plans" for action that are based on a psychological repertoire of responses that has been developed over the course of the individual's lifetime. For instance, one manager, upon hearing news that he finds distasteful, immediately "blows his stack." Bob Nardelli, former CEO of Home Depot, is a classic example of this kind of reaction to undesirable news in the workplace - and Mr. Nardelli recently lost his job as a result of these tendencies. The inability to channel one's initial emotional responses (what we call the G-R-R-R-R Factor) into more usable forms of communication that can be used with one's subordinates is the predominant difficulty that faces management personnel, across the board, in today's workplaces - whether the managers are attached to corporations, institutions, or associations.
Basic human emotions are: fear, happiness, anger, love, surprise, disgust, and sadness. And, in the workplace, all of these emotions surface throughout the workday. The historical, physiological purpose and function of each emotion is well-known. For example, anger causes the heart rate in the body to increase, blood to flow to the extremities, and a rush of hormones that allow one to grasp a weapon, combat an assault, flee or to take other, necessary preservation measures. When fear is experienced, the body freezes for a moment, a response that is designed to allow assessment of a "flight or fight" decision, and then becomes poised for action. In these situations, blood leaves the face and travels to the large skeletal muscles, in case "flight" is the decision that needs to be made. Surprise, on the other hand, triggers a characteristic lifting of the upper facial structure, and, in particular, the eyebrows, which is an action that permits more light to strike the retina and allows the person encountering the surprise to obtain more information about the event.
These biologically-triggered physiological functions have, since the beginning of mankind, served to preserve the race by rescuing an individual in instances of threat and potential harm. And they still are resident in one's make-up, in levels similar to those of our earliest ancestors - who used them well to combat predatory animals, rival tribes, and other harmful aspects of their environments. The dilemma that faces modern man is that, while the emotions and the processes that trigger physiological and behavioral responses as a result of these emotions remains tied to earlier times, today's modern culture has very little need for these elaborate displays. Where once there was a need for aggressive actions in order to preserve the human race, today, the exercise of strong emotions serves only to alienate one from one's fellows. In today's more civilized work environments, more civilized and less aggressive processes are called for and expected. When an individual fails to adhere to the workplace's cultural strictures, that person receives a cool reception by fellow workers and subordinates and often finds that, if the aggressive behavior persists, job removal is sure to follow.
In instances where our CEO clients or any member of their management team or one or more of their line managers have persistent problems handling their emotions when interacting with their subordinates (or even their superordinates or boards), our strategies are threefold. First, our emphasis will be on interviewing those managers experiencing difficulties in order to determine the existence of appropriate insights regarding the cause/effect factors of the difficulties. This stage is followed by the administration of leadership assessments, which include the EmIntel (emotional intelligence) process. Following, are a series of private, confidential sessions in which our staff of organizational psychologists sit with the managers to discuss the results of their assessments and to map out the action plans for remediation and change/development of each manager. Rather than containing specific details of the confidential sessions, the action plans are developed as a road map for the manager's future with the organization as well as a document that can be shared with his/her boss and other superordinates to assist in articulating a good-faith effort at improvement.
The benefits of becoming skilled in one's emotional intelligence are many. In addition to the fact that the emotions wreak havoc with one's logical thought processes, the potential for a manager who is attuned to the feelings of those with whom he or she deals on a daily basis and the ability to handle both the emotional displays of subordinates and associates, as well as one's own tendencies toward "hair-trigger" responses, operates as a huge advantage in any work environment. Basically, it's as simple as this: when a manager learns to manage personal emotions, this individual suddenly acquires a "lock" on the world. When a level of accomplishment and emotional adroitness is achieved, the manager can then move confidently among the different tasks and responsibilities of the job and only rarely have to give thought to actions that now flow with ease. The manager who has learned to harness natural emotions and channel them into appropriate interactions can put them to good use in both personal and workplace environments. And this "recovering emotional" can have license to forget about the old difficulties that stemmed from unregulated emotions and plagued the management function.
Emotional intelligence is the new form of intelligence that is most needed in modern work environments - it makes work tasks flow easier, teams function much smoother, and individuals and colleagues come to understand and accept one another to a far greater degree. These advantages of behavior also translate into sound productivity gains. Practicing the emotional aspects of intelligence well and successfully garners a "win/win" for all concerned.
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