- Knowledge Centre

Emotional Intelligence Coaching for Leaders

Emotionally Intelligent Leaders are needed now more than ever in organisations.

The fast changing organisational landscape, the uncertain economic climate, the evolving ways that buyers actually buy products and services, and, lets not forget, how employees at each and every level remain emotionally engaged in their work and relationships, or not.

Of course, Emotional Intelligence is not a replacement for technical competence of expertise. But I have witnessed just through watching business news media interviews, so many technically brilliant, credible leaders, are completely missing the target when it comes to creating and communicating a clear message which resonates with their intended audience. Why? Partly because they are speaking from a single perspective rather than considering multiple perspectives such as employee, investor, stakeholder, customer, regulator etc, and partly because the language they tend to use doesn’t include a healthy level of Emotional Expression, Empathy or Reality Testing.

Emotional Intelligence for Leaders

Market leading games developer Mediatonic Ltd realised the value of developing Emotional Intelligent leaders and managers in their fast-growing business. And this realisation that developing healthy and balanced levels of Emotional Intelligence for employees led them to invest in the EQ-i 2.0/EQ 360 Certification training programme.

You can read the feedback from People Director at the company below.

Emotional Intelligence for Leaders – Benefits?

The benefits are many. And as the EQ-i 2.0 psychometric assessment involves 15 specific EQ competencies (rather than the ‘4 pillars of Emotional Intelligence’ you read about in books), it’s not about how high or how low a leaders Emotional Intelligence is. No, no. It’s about creating balance across the 15 competencies.

For example, if a Leader possesses a high level of Empathy and a low level of Stress Tolerance, what might a risk be? S/he may risk their Empathy becoming Sympathy and be so focused on maintaining harmonious relationships with others that they begin to become stressed. Tough talks which may deserve to happen, are unlikely to happen. Or even if they did, the impact of their communication may be so ‘soft and fluffy’ that the real meaning, value and seriousness of the message may be overlooked or completely missed altogether.

Another example is if a Leaders possesses a high level of Assertiveness and low level of Impulse Control, what might the risks include? Perhaps that s/he cannot wait to communicate, to command, to control, to even force compliance when recommending (or insisting on) a course of action or decision.

Assertiveness in its EQ sense means we can defend a position, speak our truth, communicate candidly. Excessive Assertiveness though, partnered with low Impulse Control can quickly lead to employee disengagement, blind compliance with authority and a trail of damaged relationships too. Employees are likely to be wondering when the next ‘punch on the nose from the boss’ is coming. It’s not healthy and it hurts rather than helps a leaders’, a teams, an organisations ability to perform optimally.

To find out more about how developing Emotionally Intelligent leaders in your organisation can deliver genuine value, why not get in touch?

To learn more about how you can become a Certified EQ-i 2.0 & EQ 360 Practitioner, take a look at the EQ Certification training.


Find out more about EQ-i 2.0 Emotional Intelligence Coaching or call us on 0845 052 3701

The specific outcomes I set for the project were delivered much more quickly than I anticipated.
P Gilroy
 - Head of Community Support Services, Denbighshire County Council