[00:00:00] Are you ready to scale your business in a way that's aligned with your soul and profitable? I'm Kc Rossi, a business and leadership coach. I've been a full-time entrepreneur for 30 years and love business. I help conscious leaders increase their impact and optimize their lives. Join me each week for tips and deep conversations on cultivating confidence, increasing your visible.
[00:00:28] Elevating your vibration and leading with purpose without burning out.
[00:00:36] Hello. Welcome. Welcome back to the show. I'm excited to talk about today's topic because it's an area that is really powerful and can transform relationships, enhance performance, reduce stress, and improve leadership. We are going to be talking all about how increasing emotional intelligence.
[00:00:55] Dramatically improves leadership. Now, before we dive too deep, let's get on the same page on a couple of things. First is leadership. What makes a good leader and who do you admire? That's in a leadership role and why? And the third question is really, are you a leader? Because I feel that many people resist.
[00:01:19] Identifying as a leader because they're anticipating that this is a large CEO, that's managing a big team or that it just doesn't resonate with who they are and what they do on the scale. They do it. But spoiler alert, even if you are a team of one in your business and you're putting out kind of. You are a leader, you are influencing your followers with each and every post you create article you write and Facebook live that you publish.
[00:01:51] So leadership isn't just reserved for those that manage and lead teams and organizations. If you are influencing, guiding, motivating, and helping people make perspective, shifts you, my friend are a leader. Okay. So take a minute to think about those questions. What makes a good leader? And who do you admire?
[00:02:13] That's in a leadership role and why? So you can even press pause if you like to take some time to marinate and journal on those questions. But I just want to say that many times when people are asked what makes a good leader qualities like empathy, courage, and ability to stay calm are really tap on the list.
[00:02:36] Now, no, these are not technical skills and they don't fall into the IQ arena. Now this is not to say that I queue isn't important because it is, it helps us solve problems and use logic. But an interesting side note here, cognitive intelligence is said to peak around the age of 17 and it doesn't really change much.
[00:03:00] That's fascinating. On the flip side, emotional intelligence or emotional quotient IQ can be developed and rise. It's not linked to achievement. It's not about our vocation and it has the ability to change and develop over time. That's very exciting to me now. Emotional intelligence is a set of emotional and social skills that help us perceive and express ourselves cope with challenges, relate to others and deal with stress among several other positive traits.
[00:03:37] I want to go back to the characteristics of a good leader. According to the center of creative leadership. The top 10 qualities of a good leader are integrity. Ability to delegate communication. Self-awareness gratitude, learning agility. Influence empathy, courage and respect. I would agree. I think those are a amazing qualities.
[00:04:07] And when you have a high E Q, you are positioned well to embody those traits because components like self-awareness emotional expression, interpersonal relationships decision-making and stress management are dialed in. So think about that. When you look back at that list, you're looking at the ability to delegate and communicate self-awareness is a big one gratitude, which really comes into optimism and flexibility, empathy, courage.
[00:04:39] These are really what I think a lot of people consider soft skills. But the interesting thing is these quote unquote soft skills are really what's attributing to characteristics of a good leader. In fact global leadership development from DDI ranks, empathy as the number one leadership skill reporting that leaders who master empathy perform more than 40% higher in coaching, engaging others.
[00:05:09] And decision-making, that's pretty impressive. And I have another stat for you. In 1996, there was a study that was conducted of a global food and beverage company by researcher David McClelland. And he found that when senior managers had a critical mass of emotional intelligence capabilities, so those capabilities we chatted about earlier, their decisions outperformed yearly earning goals by 20%.
[00:05:39] That's really significant. And on the flip side, while division leaders, without that critical mass underperformed, by almost the same amount, this and other research shows a strong link between emotional intelligence and performance. It's been said that I queue gets you in the door, but it's EEQ that will keep you there.
[00:06:08] Interesting. So relationship and connection have always been important if you follow my work at all, you know, that those are two very key core values for me on a personal level. But now in the times of the great resignation. Or as I mentioned in last week's episode, what's being called the great reshuffle.
[00:06:30] Having interpersonal relationship strength is invaluable. It's no longer a nice to have, in my opinion, it's a must have when you know yourself better, you can lead by. And when you lead better, you have a stronger team, better communication and increased productivity. And I want to pause here because I know a lot of my listeners are solo preneurs or entrepreneurs with small teams.
[00:06:57] And so it could be just you and your virtual assistant, but the thing is. Having better communication, increased productivity, and being able to manage an influence are invaluable. Whether, like I said, you are just creating content as a team of one, having a very small team with just a virtual assistant or having a larger team on a different scale.
[00:07:21] So this is all an opportunity to know yourself better. So you can lead better in whatever capacity that you are leading in bigger. Now let's take a look at self awareness because that is one of the components of emotional intelligence. It's one of my favorites. I am a self-awareness junkie. I've been in the personal development arena for many, many years.
[00:07:46] So I feel that this one, especially I want to shine, shine a light on. So by knowing your emotions, your strengths and your weaknesses. You will be able to compensate and act accordingly. Now one simple example is if you know, you crack under tight deadlines, you can plan ways to be proactive and set yourself up for success to avoid those crunches.
[00:08:11] So that's just a simple way of just having some degree of self-awareness that you can. Pivot schedule be proactive in ways that are going to help you maintain that equilibrium. If you have low self-awareness, then you're going to constantly repeat things that cause you stress and agita. Right? So that's Italian for kind of just like an upset stomach.
[00:08:39] Right? So according to a research by organizational psychologist, Tasha. This was an interesting stat, 95% of people think they're self-aware, but only 10 to 15% actually are isn't that incredible. And that can pose problems for your employees. Working with colleagues who aren't self-aware. And this is a quote on, based on your ex research.
[00:09:08] She says that working with colleagues who aren't self-aware can cut a team's success in half and lead to increased stress and decreased motivation. Isn't that amazing. I think that's absolutely incredible. Another big aspect of EEQ is stress management. Now sub scales of stress management include flexibility, stress, tolerance, and optimism.
[00:09:33] So really going back to that gratitude is one of those top of leadership traits and also being able to stay grounded under pressure. This is really where having that high. Emotional intelligence of stress management comes into play. Now we all know there is a great need for increased attention and development in this area, especially given our current global circumstances.
[00:09:57] Now imagine a leader who goes from zero to 60 at the drop of. Who loses their cool and speaks sharply when pressured or resorts to blaming and criticism, when things aren't going smoothly, you probably have had a person in your life, whether they've been in a management role or a leadership role that can instantly pop into your head.
[00:10:19] When you think about these trends. I know I do now think about a leader who has a high stress tolerance that maintains a flexible and optimistic attitude. When something goes awry, they can pivot and problem solve. And this is the interesting thing, and this goes back to mindset. It is not if something is going to go wrong, but it's truly when it's going to go over.
[00:10:46] And are you positioned to be ready to rise to the challenge remaining grounded? So these are kind of skills that show up in real life. When you have your high stress tolerance very aware or dial them now, who would you rather be around during that crisis? Or which one would you rather. I mean, the answer is pretty clean, cut and clear.
[00:11:13] We want to have good stress tolerance, not only for our own nervous system, but for everybody around us. And again, it is really not just about. Team members or employees, but it could be our partner that we're in relationship with. It can be our family. It can be our friends because that whole process of not being able to handle pressure well or to freak out when we're stressed, that has a negative ripple effect, which is really the opposite of what we're going for.
[00:11:46] Now. I think most high-achieving CEOs and entrepreneurs aim to be the best that. I know that I do. That's a strong desire and something that I'm very intentional about when we look at that, when we look at that category, they're putting in effort to stay up on current trends, keep their mental skills sharp and follow the protocols, deemed professional.
[00:12:12] And that's amazing. And there's more because truly exceptional leaders keep digging. They dig past the mental layer and they integrate the emotional and spiritual layers for the best impact for the highest impact they are aware of the multi-facets that make not only excellent leaders, but exceptional human.
[00:12:38] You don't have to be a leader to benefit from increasing your emotional intelligence. I think that's really key to understand, because understanding the EEQ components, like we talked about self-awareness self-expression interpersonal relationships decision-making and stress management benefits, everyone from a mom running her household to the CEO of.
[00:13:03] These are skills that can continue to grow with mindful intention and practice. And I love that anytime we bring. Awareness, we increase that mindfulness. And then the back half of that is the action piece. That's how we get forward momentum, that combination of mindful intention with the action piece, where we continue to practice.
[00:13:28] And I'm also going to add in there that mindset of progress over perfection it's practice, practice, practice with the progress over perfection mindset. That is how we continue to. Facilitate the growth mindset, which is opposite to that fixed mindset of black and white living and thinking. So if you want to learn more about EQ and how to make the most about knowing your specific rankings per emotional and social categories.
[00:13:58] I invite you to reach out to me, I'm a certified EQI 2.0 practitioner that can administer a scientifically validated assessment that measures your emotional intelligence. I've taken the test myself. It was illuminating. I had a lot of aha moments. I've marked up my report. Like a little kid would just like so much curiosity and excitement to learn more.
[00:14:22] Peel back the layers. The best part is you gain the knowledge to help you improve your emotional skills, giving you the edge to enhance well-being improve performance and lead better. I'm going to leave you with a quote from Daniel Goleman, who literally wrote the book on emotional intelligence. He says people with well developed emotional skills are more likely to be considered.
[00:14:50] And effective in their lives, mastering the habits of the mind that foster their own productivity, people who can not Marshall, some control over their emotional life fight battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear. On that note, my friends, I invite you to increase your capacity, to understand control and express your emotions better.
[00:15:15] Like I said, awareness is the first step in any transformation to your never ending improvement until next week, my friends breathe.
[00:15:28] I hope you enjoy today's episode. If so, head on over to love the podcast.com/brilliance to rate and review this. Here's feedback from Andrea Freeman from the U S she says five stars, just so good. Casey is the real deal. Not only is she super committed to the success of others, you know, she walks the walk.
[00:15:52] My conversation with her on the show was awesome. And I literally could have chatted with her all day. Love the show so much. Thank you, Andrea. I appreciate you taking the time to review and rate the podcast. I loved our conversation as well, and I'm going to link our episode four on the listeners to have a listen to that chat again.
[00:16:15] Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to the women, developing brilliance, the spirit of business podcast. If you want to leave feedback, you can head on over to love the podcast.com/thank you.
[00:16:55] ssi
