News Archives

Life expectancy is increasing, and by 2040 this is projected to rise to the age of 85.

That’s great news for me personally as I am now in my 50’s, but as an HR professional I’m also thinking about what these projections mean in the workplace – and what I should be focussing on for the future to benefit employees and to drive business performance.

The ageing population means that there are more midlife workers than ever before.

The employment rate for 50- to 64-year-olds in the UK has risen from 56% 30-years ago to 73% today – and it’s still rising.

We know that knowledge, skills, and experience are at their peak in midlife. And for employers to optimise these, they need to better understand and answer the needs of midlife workers.

Working Carers. Working age people will soon have more adult dependants than child dependants, with 1 in 6 of the workforce currently balancing their ‘day job’ with adult care responsibilities.

The pressures created by this balancing act can be enormous, with many being forced to take a career break.

Midlife workers the most likely to fall into this category, and the pandemic has had a massive impact on them with 81% saying caring responsibilities have grown due to Covid-19 and 74% feeling exhausted because of the increased stress.

Menopause and andropause are a biological fact of life and many organisations are starting to implement policies and workplace principles to support their employees through these changes.

More remains needs to be done, however, to educate managers and those without experience of midlife issues.

Career opportunities. Perversely, career and personal development opportunities for midlife workers slow down at precisely the moment they have the most to offer.

Some organisations offer a ‘returnship’ programs for individuals who have had to take a midlife career break, but these are currently very inconsistent with varied success.

There is also disparity in gender pay – especially if a person has been out of the workplace for some time and then returning.

As a proud midlife HR practitioner my aim is to shine a light for employers on the issues people face at midlife and to provide education, policies, training, seminars, and guidelines to ensure organizations can maximise the performance of an age diverse workforce.

I’m also very privileged to work with companies who are developing products to support businesses with these issues and, in doing so, help us all to live our best life, for the rest of our life.

Diversity brings a range of experience, differences in mindset, background, upbringing, world view, etc. and, as a result, diversity of thinking.

When we talk about the business benefits of diversity and inclusion we are thinking of the removal of inequitable barriers and widening of the talent pool, the richness of culture that a diverse workforce can bring and, from a business perspective, the wide range of viewpoints and ideas which create an engine for innovation and increased profitability.

Harnessing other people’s brains is a key leadership skill, as is also being able to understand others’ needs and appealing to their hearts through defining and articulating a motivating shared purpose.

The yin and yang of leadership – ‘Winning Hearts and Minds’ – should, I believe, be updated to ‘Sharing Hearts and Pooling Minds’.

The drive for diversity and inclusion in organisations is, thankfully, moving forward at pace and will hopefully lead to more diverse humans around the leadership table and thus diverse thinking in the most senior of leadership teams.

In my experience of working with senior leadership teams, there is often a vague understanding of the need and benefits of diversity. They know it’s a ‘good thing’ morally but often cannot articulate why from a business perspective and, even if they get the diverse thinking argument, they fail to fully leverage the benefits.

Many appear ill-equipped to know what to do with ideas different to their own when these appear around the senior leadership table. At its worst, they are confused that the new person that they have invited to share the table isn’t thinking like they are, isn’t towing the party line or ‘fitting in’.

Some leaders seem particularly focused on creating and ensuring team harmony, seeing the strongly held differences of opinion as conflict and to be avoided. They see a team as functioning ‘well’ when there is not dissent. But, as with many things, it is ‘how’ we challenge, not the challenge itself, that is the key. We don’t want harmony at all costs – and we don’t need outright conflict.

What we do need is ‘respectful challenge’. Ensuring that there is plenty of emotionally intelligent and respectful challenge of each other, is in my opinion, a business culture change that we need to make happen and soon.

Respectful challenge sits alongside co-creation but acknowledges that we need to draw differences of opinion out, in order to benefit from them and truly co-create, not bury the differences or paper them over in the name of being collaborative.

I am suggesting that we need to bring differences of thinking out into the open around the leadership table in a productive manner; to make it the norm to challenge openly, honestly but respectfully; to know that we don’t have the only answer, the one and only route; to really listen to and question each other with curiosity; and to find the nuggets in each of our ideas that when combined really are pure gold.

Our aim for leveraging diversity of thinking surely is not to agree quickly and move on, or shout down ideas that don’t make sense to us, our aim is to shine the light on different ideas and opinions, examine and find the optimum ideas for our organisations and then agree how to proceed.

Making the time to listen to multiple ideas drawn from many people may seem to be the antithesis of our fast moving, quickly decisive ways of working currently (and I’m not saying that we don’t have to make quick decisions in times of urgency), but we seem to have a business trend which pushes Pace over Quality – and I believe we are the poorer for it.

I have seen the following range of issues in leadership teams (sometimes several in the same team):-

‘Group think’ – where there is a lack of diverse thinking at all, such that the members are so aligned in their view of the world (same backgrounds, experiences etc) that “there cannot possibly be any other way to do things or think about things” – can there?
Intimidating leader – will brook no dissent, closes down debate, already thinks they personally have all the answers and that their job is to get everyone else to see the merit of their idea and agree with it.
Learned helplessness – often as a result of the intimidating leader, people give up airing views especially those they believe are not aligned with the leader’s viewpoint. They tend to leave the ideas and strategy to the alpha leader. This is dangerous for so many reasons – how good are the ideas from the leader? Harnessing other ideas is likely to create better end results and get buy-in. People are demotivated when they don’t have a voice – even senior leaders – and may leave.
Silent dissent – the team seem to agree with a course of action, or do not surface objections around the table, but mutter dissent outside of the meetings in small groups of allies. As a result, issues return to the table time after time or proceed slowly as people do not agree with the course of action and drag their feet.
Open aggression – the team all sit in their silos only thinking about their own business function and argue their position without listening to each other or focusing on what is best for the whole organisation.

None of the above are particularly healthy or lead to optimum functioning of a leadership team.

So, what are the solutions? Here are a few:

Hire diverse talent and recognise that what you will hopefully get is lots of difference in opinion, thinking and ideas. As a leader YOU need to learn how to best harness the differences and not try to bend diversity to fit into the existing ‘group think’ or shut down dissent. (I coach leaders to manage their concern over dissent and control their tendencies to take over and drive only their point of view).
Really understand that there are individual differences in thinking, not that someone just doesn’t get what you are saying or isn’t as smart as you! Remember that our goal is to understand each of our team’s unique viewpoints on topics precisely because each person truly does not think the same as the next and may have some great ideas and insights that may not occur to us. (I run neuroscience training to help individuals understand this key point.)
Develop the habits of active listening and questioning with curiosity, create team norms around these behaviours. I do this work with individuals and teams.
Encourage and make time for challenge – not conflict – and make respectful challenge a stated behaviour of your leadership team, reminding each other every meeting and interaction.
To respectfully challenge, team members need to feel that the environment is psychologically safe for them to step up and share a different perspective. So, develop your emotional intelligence, EQ – the ‘how’ we interact and communicate with each other – and hire talent with strong EQ or develop the EQ of the whole team. (I run individual EQ assessments and coaching and EQ awareness sessions).
Ensure that whoever is leading the meeting draws out the thinking of all in the group that wish to contribute and allows for different methods of contribution. For example, some people prefer to reflect and then suggest ideas – so send details of the key issues out ahead of the meeting or allow them time after the meeting to come back with thoughts.

Now, the cry I often hear when discussing respectful challenge and co-creation is “it takes so much longer to hear others’ views”. My response to that is yes, it can take time, but the outcomes will be of higher quality, you will innovate more frequently, you will have more buy-in and less instances of having to ‘do-over’ as potential objections and new ideas will have been addressed.

Of course, there will be instances when, in a time critical situation, a more rapid response may be needed – and often this will need to lean on the expertise of one or two people in the group advising the others. That said, in my experience once respectful challenge becomes the norm within a team it becomes quicker to achieve results that truly work as opposed to the delays that arise from the huddles of dissent outside of the meetings.

In summary, in order to really leverage the benefits of diversity we need to develop habits and behaviours which allow us to harness everyone’s unique brains. It’s not enough just to invite diverse thinking to the table and then think ‘job done’, we have to really be prepared to open up our minds to differences of opinion and build a culture of speak up and listen.

We need to build the emotional intelligence skills to actively listen, question with curiosity, build the skill of respectful challenge in all members of our leadership teams, and be humble enough to know that we don’t have all the answers and our job as leaders isn’t to provide all the answers ourselves.

Pride Month had become an affinity month that lives in two places in my mind.

First, it is the celebration of who I am, who I married, and progress towards true recognition and justice.

Second, it is a period where organizations mumble through encouraging statements, high-fives, and rainbow merchandise most of which I honestly won’t wear … and certainly won’t buy!

This duality has caused a bit of an internal struggle, as I watch most organizations take up space in a perceived effort to capitalize on and market to the Queer Community, while never instituting change with the intention of longevity.

However, there remains a huge opportunity for companies big and small to do something purposeful and use this moment to create a meaningful sustainable impact.

The truth is most organizations still do not know what to do to express allyship and inclusivity, but they desperately want direction in this space. So, they show up in June waving the rainbow flag smiling so big like “Hey – look we did it!” Unfortunately for them, we can hold those flags ourselves. The month of recognition is nice to have, but what members of the Queer Community deserve from their places of work are the policies, procedures, language, and systems that not only support who they are, but affirm who they are through company sponsored practices.

OrgShakers know this. In celebration of Pride Month, we would like to affirm the Queer Community by lifting the burden of explanation and ideas.

We are offering a conversation on Applying Allyship with leaders in the people space. This dialog will touch on the topics of where we start, how can allyship be applied tangibly, inclusive language and practices, and providing structure internally to make these ideas a reality.

Therese Procter and Marty Belle, who both have global experience in bringing these ideas to life in many organizations, will be hosting FREE virtual seminars from 10.00am CDT / 4.00pm BST on Thursday June 17 and Thursday June 24, 2021.

We would love to see many of you attend to join our conversation, so please CLICK HERE or scan the QR code below to register.

As the world’s major economies begin their journey out of the pandemic, OrgShakers’ Andy Parsley warns in this Forbes interview that employers are “bouncing back into a labor market at least as tight as it was before Covid.”

Dealing with this will require organizations to think about the longer-term impact of the actions they take to address this challenge.

Phil Mickelson stunned the golf world on Sunday when he finished off his win in the PGA Championship to become, at 50, the oldest golfer ever to win a major championship.

He finished the event shooting six under par. After his win, praise flooded in from across not just the golf community, but from other star athletes and celebrities across the world. His performance was truly inspiring.

What came after, was not so much an explanation of how Mickelson reached the finest achievement of his career, but insistence of how he never believed his time on golf’s frontline was over.

Mickelson admitted ”it is very possible that this is the last tournament I ever win. It’s also very possible that I may have had a little bit of a breakthrough in some of my focus and maybe I’ll go on a little bit of a run. But the point is, there’s no reason why I or anybody else can’t do it at a later age … it just takes a little bit more work.”

This immediately made me think of my father Michael.

At 83 years young, his passion for golf is a strong today as it was at the age of 7 when the Christian Brother monks would give him time off school from so he could caddy for American visitors at the course near his home in Lehinch, Co. Clare in Ireland. He received golf balls as payment and split the proceeds with the monks.

Last year, he won the senior singles competition at his club against a 55-year-old opponent.
He’d previously won the same title in 1996 – but he wasn’t going to let 24 years, two hip replacements, a knee replacement, and COPD get in his way!

Like Phil Mickelson, he believes that there’s no reason why you can’t keep going – and that one day, when the wind is on your back and the sun on your face … you might just get a win!

My dad really inspires me never to give up and to keep on learning. It’s a lesson I’ve taken from him and one I’ve passed to my two daughters and the countless leaders I’ve had the privilege to coach.

My colleague Pamela Kingsland at Orgshakers also talks and writes about how we can keep developing and learning all through our lives and age should never be a barrier.

As a woman who is now mid-life, I’m so encouraged by that.
And both Phil and my Dad are testament to the fact that for all the mid-lifers (and even those who’ve entered later-life) … now is our time!

As I was writing this, a poem I had read some time ago came into my head: ‘Don’t Let Anyone Mess With Your Swing’.

It wasn’t written for golf, but it could have been. It was written about a Boston baseball player called Ted Williams, and this verse is my favourite:

Enjoy your talents. Have your fling.
The seasons change. The years advance.
Watch the ball and do your thing.
And don’t let anybody mess with your swing.

Last week, I wrote about a personal milestone, the 40^th anniversary of my first solo flight in an aircraft aged just 16, and what I have learned about business leadership from my flying experiences.

This first article was focussed on self-awareness, risk mitigation and shared responsibilities.

There are three additional areas that really stand out for me.

The first of these is about effective communication. Pilots are taught to communicate effectively, for example with Air Traffic Control. In order to do this, they have to learn to listen carefully, to allow the speaker to finish what they are saying and to seek clarification of any detail of which they are unsure, no matter how minor.

Effective business leadership and outstanding communication are inextricably intertwined. The strongest leaders spend much of their time listening for understanding, they actively want people to speak up without fear of a negative consequence and they respect differences of opinion and champion the best ideas, regardless of who has voiced them. They also quickly adapt their communication style as circumstances develop.

The next area is about creating the right culture – a culture that facilitates careful consideration and calculated risk-taking on one hand and that also deals constructively with the aftermath when mistakes happen. It recognizes when something has gone wrong, it brings it to the table and focusses on what can be learned, rather than attributing blame.

Most pilots learn significantly from what’s gone wrong for others and consequently have the humility to openly admit to their own mistakes and share what they have learned as a result. In my experience, the best business leaders are comfortable doing the same.

Finally, and most importantly, flying for most pilots is fundamentally about continuous learning and self-improvement. Every experience is an opportunity to learn and become more skilled and more effective than the day before. This goes way beyond any regulatory requirements and can include both formal and informal training, listening to others and active self-reflection. In my own case, it extends to a personal journal that I complete after every flight.

Similarly, business leaders who stop learning stop leading. Business leaders who create most impact tend to look on every business challenge as an opportunity to learn something new for themselves, and then share their learnings so that individuals, teams and organisations can adopt a similar mindset and achieve sustainable growth. They are able to step up from the hurly-burly of the everyday and take responsibility for their own learning and for the learning of those around them. In this way, they also create the strongest legacies.

In business, the overall approach to continuous learning differs by sector, organization and individual. Whatever the approach, mentoring and executive coaching can play a vital role. They help leaders and aspiring leaders develop self-awareness, thinking and understanding, good judgement and communication skills in a safe, thought-provoking and creative way that is personalized to the needs and circumstances of the individual.

They foster a mindset around continuous learning and self-improvement in order to maximise personal and professional potential and, for many people, they ultimately help them become more fulfilled in their careers. For me personally, this is what I most enjoy as a mentor and executive coach.

That day 40 years ago remains vivid in my memory, particularly my instructor stepping out of the aircraft, smiling and signing me off for solo flight. After I had landed, a little stunned at what I just done, his congratulations and just a few words that made a big impact on me, “A textbook first solo, I’m sure it’s the first of many.”

He was correct. I just hadn’t anticipated that I would find parallel learnings in flying and in business.

If you’re interested in learning more about mentoring and executive coaching, or if you have anything to add to this article, please contact me. I’d love to hear from you.

Today is the 40th anniversary of my first solo flight in an aircraft. I was aged 16, in an open-cockpit glider launched by a winch at West Malling in Kent. I hadn’t even been able to drive on the road at that age. Since then, flying has become more accessible and so I’ve continued to fly whenever possible. I’ve also jumped out of a few aircraft (always intentionally!).

Flying is a highly-regulated activity, mainly because of the complexities and associated risks, and it has a unique approach to individual learning and development. As my business career has progressed over the years, I’ve often reflected on what I can learn from my flying experiences, particularly around good leadership starting with self-awareness, risk mitigation and shared responsibilities.

Self-awareness is important because it allows you to accurately assess your own strengths and limitations and to recognize your own pre-dispositions, thoughts and emotions. In flying, pilots learn about “Human Factors”, including the effects of stress, irritation and anger, fatigue and even hunger, and how we each react differently as individuals.

In business, self-awareness is not always considered as important. Some leaders are not receptive to feedback that does not support their own view of themselves. However, self-aware business leaders make sounder decisions, show high levels of Emotional Intelligence, build stronger relationships and communicate more effectively which inspires their teams to achieve greater success.

With risk mitigation, planning and preparation are vital to successfully fly a chosen route or achieve your business objectives. In flying, circumstances can change very quickly – most notably the weather – and pilots have to be prepared for change. If a pilot is determined to stick to the original plan and just press on, he or she may not reach the destination at all (this is sometimes referred to as “press-on-itis”).

In business, we speak about agility, being flexible in your approach, anticipating shifting circumstances, identifying what is changing and being ready, willing and prepared to change your plans, even where this may be uncomfortable or causes some internal disruption. Agility is not incompatible with stability — long term stability requires an agile mindset.

Pilots are taught an approach known as “Threat & Error Management”, which assumes that circumstances will change. Rather than try to avoid threats and errors, its goal is to train pilots to detect and respond to events that cause damage and to mistakes that are likely to be made. It is now being used outside aviation, including in hospitals and surgery, and in business this carefully considered approach can be useful, for example in issues management and detailed scenario planning.

It’s also about recognizing the danger of complacency. In flying, this could be failing to prepare thoroughly for a flight because the pilot has flown the route many times before. In business, complacency comes in all shapes and sizes, such as failing to understand changing market conditions or customers’ or employees’ evolving expectations.

Finally, shared responsibilities are important. In flying, if something isn’t right, it’s everyone’s responsibility to speak up and be part of the solution, particularly when it comes to safety.

As the business world has become more complex and issues increasingly intertwined, globalized and fast-moving, strict hierarchies and reporting lines have become less influential in determining overall success. In a high-performing organization, the success of the entire organization is everyone’s responsibility, the accountabilities are shared and the leader sets the example.

I hope that you’ve found these personal thoughts engaging in a business context. If so, please read my second flying-related article next week on effective communication, culture and continuous learning.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more, including about mentoring and executive coaching, or if you have anything to add to this article, please contact me. I’d love to hear from you.

Julian's Flying Certificate — Proficiency Certificate for Gliding awarded to Air Cadet J. C. Hilton-Johnson on 26th April 1981

Why is Emotional Intelligence important to your business, isn’t it just ‘being nice’, or ‘a nice to have’? We would argue that it is a business imperative!

In 2019 Harvard Business Review published a paper ‘The EI Advantage’ which demonstrated that Emotional intelligence (abbreviated as EI or EQ) is increasingly and urgently recognized as a competitive advantage for leaders and companies that want to cultivate a purpose-driven, empowered, and innovative workforce for the future.

Emotionally intelligent employees are a critical force driving innovation, collaboration and enhanced customer experiences that come from a strong culture of empowerment;
Employees are becoming more discerning about who they choose to work for and what the work environment is like. The combination of self-awareness, self-control, empathy and social skills, the bedrock of EQ, allows us to create cultures and environments where people feel comfortable to innovate and solve problems together;
There is an Innovation Premium associated with developing EQ – Harvard researchers found that Organisations where leaders and their teams have developed their EQ, are more likely than others to have cultural ingredients that spur innovation—high degrees of empowerment, clear decision rights, the right incentives, and tolerance for risk;
Finally, working in a high EQ environment helps create a culture of psychological safety which drives experimentation without blame or fear of mistakes.

EQ is not just something you have or don’t have. It is also not just one thing but is made up of a multitude of facets, some of which you may be more adept at than others. EQ is also measurable, using 360 feedback or high quality EQ assessment tools, and is developable particularly when supported through effective EQ coaching.

40 years of Neuroscience research on brain plasticity confirms our lifelong capacity to develop new ways of thinking and behaving. Our minds are not fixed. The traits that constitute EQ are developable with deliberate practice and coaching.

With many leaders that we coach we use an EQi assessment to help them identify areas of their Emotional Intelligence that they would like to develop and then build a coaching plan which supports this development.

Talk to us to discuss how we can help you and your employees to assess and develop EQ and to gain huge personal and business benefits.

I can be contacted at pamela@orgshakers.com

To book your FREE 1-hour one-on-one online coaching session CLICK HERE.

And for organizations looking to shake up Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in their workplace, CLICK HERE to find out more about how OrgShakers can help.

Do you recognise the emotion you are feeling? Can you manage your feelings without allowing them to swamp you? Can you motivate yourself to get tasks completed? Do you sense the emotions of others and respond effectively?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, it is likely that you have developed some of the skills that form the basis of emotional intelligence.

The term ‘Emotional Intelligence’ (often written as EI or EQ) was first used by psychologists Mayer and Salovey (1990) and refers to a person’s capacity to perceive, process and regulate emotional information accurately and effectively, both within themself and in others, and to use this information to guide their own thinking and actions and to influence those of others.

As the workplace evolves, so too does the body of research supporting that individuals with higher EQ are better equipped to thrive and succeed, deliver results with and through others, deal with change more effectively, and manage stress.

Daniel Goleman (1995) recognised five distinct categories of skills which form the key characteristics of EQ and proposed that, unlike IQ (intelligence quotient) these skills can be learned where underdeveloped and improved upon.

There are several models of EQ based around key areas, some with slightly different labels.

Models include such elements as: –

Self-awareness: the ability to recognize and understand one’s own emotions and their impact on others. Self-awareness is the first step toward introspective self-evaluation and enables one to identify behavioural and emotional aspects of our psychological makeup which we can then target for change. Emotional self-awareness is also about recognizing what motivates you and, in turn, what brings you fulfilment.
Self-regulation: the ability to manage one’s negative or disruptive emotions, and to adapt to changes in circumstance. Those who are skilled in self-regulation excel in managing conflict, adapt well to change and are more likely to take responsibility.
Motivation: the ability to self-motivate, with a focus on achieving internal (intrinsic) motivation as opposed to external praise or reward. Individuals who can motivate themselves in this way tend to be more committed and goal focused.
Empathy: the ability to recognise and understand how others are feeling and consider those feelings before responding in social situations. Empathy is not the same as sympathy. It allows an individual to understand the dynamics that influence relationships, both personal and in the workplace.
Social skills: the ability to manage the emotions of others through emotional understanding and using this to build rapport and connect with people through skills such as active listening, verbal, and nonverbal communication.

Emotional Intelligence has been described as the ‘delivery system’ for IQ.

EQ facilitates our capacity for resilience, motivation, empathy, reasoning, stress management, communication, and our ability to read and navigate social situations and conflicts. Whilst IQ gets you so far in your career, it’s Emotional Intelligence that keeps you there and going further.

And now is a time more than any other time when we need leaders to use their EQ, to meet people where they are and understand their concerns, to enable them to stay adaptable and focused as our ways of working and the work itself changes.

People who use their Emotional Intelligence can manage their own impulses, communicate better, manage change better and build rapport and confidence. Research shows that clarity in thinking and composure in stressful and complex situations is where top performers shine in the workplace.

In addition to individual success there is an Innovation Premium driven by EQ. Organisations where leaders and their teams have developed their EQ, are much more likely than others to have cultural ingredients that spur innovation—high degrees of empowerment, clear decision rights, the right incentives, and tolerance for risk. They have also likely created the culture of psychological safety which allows for experimentation without blame or fear of mistakes.

In a recent article in Harvard Business Review “7 strategies to build a more resilient team”, four clear characteristics were mentioned for developing resilience.

These were: –

Candour: Is your team able to have open, honest dialogue and feedback with each other? They do this respectfully in such a way as not to destroy relationships.
Resourcefulness: When faced with challenges or problems, can your team pull together to build creative and effective solutions? They devote their energy to solutions not on blame and remain focused on outcomes regardless of external conditions.
Compassion and Empathy: Do your team members care for each other and share both success and failure? Resilience is often expressed in deep commitment to “co-elevating” the team rather than seeking individual recognition or success.
Humility: Can your team ask for and accept help from other team members? Resilient teams are willing to admit when a problem has become intractable and ask for help, either from someone else on the team or someone else in the organisation.

What each of these sets of characteristics have in common is their strong link to facets of Emotional Intelligence.

Further support for the Business Case for EQ comes from a paper from Harvard Business Review in 2019 entitled ‘The EI advantage’.

The paper states that Emotional intelligence is increasingly and urgently recognized as a competitive advantage for companies that want to cultivate a purpose-driven workforce for the future. Whether in the C-suite or on the front lines, emotionally intelligent employees are a critical force driving innovation and enhanced customer experiences that come from a strong culture of empowerment.

Emotional intelligence matters for motivation, and motivation matters for success. Whether it is in relation to work, personal goals or health, developing our emotional intelligence enables us to understand the deeper meaning of our aspirations and the self-motivation skills required to achieve them. Goleman (1995) identified four elements that make up motivation: our personal drive to improve, our commitment to the goals we set for ourselves, our readiness to act on opportunities that present themselves to us and our resilience.

While self-motivation is central to achieving our goals, emotionally intelligent leaders within a business can also impact employee motivation. The capacity to recognise the emotions and, in turn, the concerns of others is an invaluable skill to have at your disposal in terms of realising the most effective ways to motivate teams and individuals.

Whilst many companies understand the benefits of having employees with strong EQ, many fail to leverage it in any way. This does not have to be the case.

Over 40 years of Neuroscience research on Brain Plasticity (neuroplasticity) confirms our lifelong capacity to develop new ways of thinking. The traits encompassed by EQ are developable with deliberate practice and coaching.

So how does developing EQ work?

It starts with increasing our self-awareness. While it is commonly accepted that we are often driven by emotions, we do have the capacity for self-management and self-regulation of such emotions; the ability to manage our thinking and to some extent control our responses to situations. We do this work with our coaching clients through increasing their awareness of themselves and helping them to ‘reframe’ the thinking which drives their emotions.

Self-regulation builds on self-awareness and is an integral part of becoming emotionally intelligent (Goleman, 1995). Self-management builds on this further and allows an individual to use knowledge about their emotions to better manage them.

Indeed, leaders with an aptitude for self-regulation are far less likely to be aggressively confrontational and make snap decisions.

This is not to deny or negate negative emotions as their emergence is always a useful indicator of something we need to pay attention to. In instances of negative emotions such as anger, developing your EQ can help identify what you are feeling and determine the cause of the emotion through reflection and self-analysis allowing you to respond in a rational manner.

OrgShakers can support individuals and organisations to develop their EQ.

We use well respected measures such as the EQ-i to assess an individual’s current levels of development for the traits which encompass EQ (we all have strengths and areas for development within EQ), we provide a detailed individual report and build action plans for the development areas. Our experienced Executive Coaches then work with individuals on their development. This is done through working on mindset and behavioural changes as well as action plans to help these changes stick.

EQ can be developed and refined over time with the condition – just like any skill – that it is given the necessary focus and effort to do so. Many would argue that the ability to connect with and understand others is a more powerful skill to possess than cognitive intellect alone.

Emotional Intelligence is not about being ‘nice’, or a ‘nice to have’ but is a personal; and business imperative.

In the words of American civil rights activist, Maya Angelou:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Ask any economist, and they will tell you that data is fast becoming the most valuable resource in the global economy.

Which means that, with most organizations practically swimming in employee data, the HR function can dream of a future where it is able to create previously unimaginable value through its People Strategies.

This video shows how OrgShakers can help organizations unlock that value …

Congratulation to OrgShaker’s Therese Procter for being awarded Chartered Companion status of the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) … the highest level of recognition in the world of HR and people development.

The CIPD’s select group of Chartered Companions are exceptional leaders who have a proven track record within organisations and have demonstrated exceptional impact on the profession over their careers. This is the highest accolade and level of membership awarded by the CIPD professional body and the selection of individuals to enter this group is made directly by the CIPD Board.

For more information about this year’s recipients of this prestigious award click on the link below: