The Best Way To Create Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

69% of employees report that their manager has a greater impact on their mental health than their doctor or therapist, equating this influence to that of a spouse or partner​.

When you read a statement like that, it's not surprising why Professor Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology & Health at Manchester Business School, said “To enhance wellbeing, we need more line managers with emotional intelligence, or EQ."

This invites the question which comes first - wellbeing or emotional intelligence?

Does emotional intelligence create wellbeing?  Or do we need to have wellbeing to tap into emotional intelligence?

The Path to Creating Emotionally Intelligent Managers

In this post, I'll share three key steps on the best way to create emotionally intelligent managers. Having this knowledge will help you:

• Understand the best way to create emotionally intelligent managers
• Know what to include in your learning and development and HR strategy
• Measure the success of mental health awareness in managers' training

Let's dive in!

What is Emotional intelligence?

Think of emotional intelligence (EI) as the secret sauce that can transform a good manager into a great one. Recently, I met a Managing Director who told me that nothing ever bothered him and that he was happy all the time...he spent the rest of the day getting worked up, talking over his leadership team and behaving in a way I'd describe as passive-aggressive. This is an example of poor EI and a complete lack of self-awareness.

Emotional intelligence is being aware of your own emotions and the impact you have on the people around you.  The truth is managers are always having an impact, but the type of impact they have rests highly on their EI.

We're human, and it's normal that from time to time we find ourselves emotionally hijacked, with feelings of anger, frustration, or impatience manifesting.

Managers with good EI will be aware of their emotional reactions and understand what they need to do to regulate their emotions. 

Emotional intelligence helps in conflict resolution too. Instead of letting disagreements fester, an emotionally intelligent manager can address issues head-on with a calm, understanding approach, turning potential conflicts into opportunities for growth and collaboration. In essence, mastering EI allows managers to lead with compassion and clarity, creating a more engaged and productive team.

When I worked in HR, I was fortunate to have some amazing emotionally intelligent managers. Managers who were calm in the face of pressure, encouraging, asked great questions, and were brilliant if I was having an emotional meltdown! They listened, were fun to be around, and as a result, I would always go the extra mile for them.

Equally, I'm willing to guess you can think of managers you've worked with who are the opposite, who have very little awareness of the impact they have on people. What is it about these individuals? Is it down to a lack of awareness? Something to do with their personality? Or is there something else at play?

The Link Between Stress and Emotional Intelligence

From my own experience of coaching hundreds of professionals in the workplace, stress is one of the biggest factors impacting emotional intelligence. What's also driving this is the lack of awareness that managers have that they are in the stress response. I have a lot of empathy for managers around this topic. It was only when I began studying solution-focused psychotherapy that I realised how much time I'd spent living in the stress response.

Managers who attend our mental health training get a big wake-up call when they have similar realisations. The same can be said for the employee wellbeing webinars we've run where employees have shared that stress can be a good thing or that we need some stress to motivate us. When people start to understand the neuroscience of stress, they realise none of that is true.

Stress is our survival response. Given the name 'survival', it's fair to say the only thing we're concerned with during this time is survival. Now here's an interesting fact about survival. As humans, we're activating the survival response all day every day. But in response to what?

If our lives are not in danger, why are we having a meltdown over IT issues, tight deadlines, or disagreements with colleagues? Why does the word presentation send people into a complete panic akin to being attacked by a grizzly bear?

The truth is that the mind doesn't know what's real and what's illusion. We're activating the survival response based on perceived threats. In the stress response, we only have access to three responses - freeze, fight, or flight.

Think of a time when you or a colleague was in fight mode: defensive, aggressive, direct, abrupt, angry, blaming, pointing the finger, or dominant. Ring any bells? And how about flight? Avoiding situations or other people. Saying you have a problem with your laptop to avoid having to speak up at an online team meeting. Not speaking up for yourself in a bid to avoid getting into potential conflict?

And then there's the freeze response. A little harder to spot with the naked eye, but you may recognise it as being 'frozen to the spot'. If someone's being aggressive in a meeting, you may freeze. It's like the analogy of a rabbit in headlights. Also described as the fight or flight on hold, you don't know what to do and your mind goes blank.

In real threat-to-life situations, the survival response is designed to help us do exactly that - survive. However, according to the data, people are spending up to 70% of their time living in the hormones of stress. In the stress response, access to the executive functions of the brain, responsible for decision-making, empathy, and creativity, is lost, making emotional intelligence impossible. Our brain wave state moves into the beta brain wave state, which impairs logical and rational thinking.

The Best Way to Create Emotionally Intelligent Managers

The best way to create emotionally intelligent managers is to start by learning the neuroscience of stress.

For HR leaders looking to create a win-win, here's where mental health training for managers comes in. The key skills and qualities needed to be a great manager include:

1. Self-awareness
2. Understanding what mental health is and how to proactively address it with their teams
3. Empathy and the ability to create psychological safety with team members
4. Great listening skills
5. Emotional intelligence

Great Mental Health for Managers training programs will touch on all of these aspects, creating a win-win.

Managers who've participated in our mental health training report a newfound awareness of their stress levels, which they previously overlooked. This increased self-awareness combined with newfound listening skills, great coaching-style questions in their back pocket, and the realisation of how to take a prevention-over-cure approach when it comes to mental health and wellbeing in their teams creates a massive win-win opportunity!

If you want emotionally intelligent leaders who are also trained in mental health that's where we can help you!

Connecting With The Hearts and Minds of Your Managers

Our Mental Health Training for Managers is more than spotting red flags and knowing where to signpost team members. It's designed to create empathy, break down the stigma of mental health and provide managers with the knowledge and confidence to proactively address mental health.

"I’ve had conversations with people, and I’ve spoken differently with them and afterwards I’ve recognised I’ve spoken differently – a subconscious change in myself that I’d never spoken like that before." - Manager

 

Fear is cited as the biggest obstacle preventing your managers from addressing mental health with their teams. The fear of getting things wrong or making things worse. A close second is lack of knowledge.  It's like trying to drive a car without having had lessons! A little knowledge goes a long way to empowering managers to take the right steps to address mental health and wellbeing with their team. 

Mental health problems are on the rise, which is increasing workplace absence and driving medical insurance claims through the roof. Our customised mental health training equips managers with the knowledge and skills to take a prevention over cure approach to addressing mental health within teams.  Our science-driven approach to mental health training also directly impacts the stigma of mental health, creating a positive mindset shift in the way managers view mental health.

"People are coming to me a lot more and I’m building on that personal relationship."

Ways of working have dramatically changed, which has created more flexibility but also created a lack of connection.  Managers don't know how to remain connected and spot the signs of mental health challenges with remote or hybrid workers. We provide your managers with practical and powerful strategies to remain connected with team members no matter where in the world they are and provide insight into how to create psychological safety with their team.

---