Being an innovator requires courage – an unwavering commitment to delivering a brand new thing. It requires resilience – surmounting obstacle after obstacle, in service of the idea. It requires an insatiable appetite for self-awareness and personal mastery – otherwise known as emotional intelligence.
Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence is the definitive manual for understanding and cultivating the five emotional intelligence abilities every innovator needs:
- Knowing one’s emotions/self-awareness – even amidst turbulent emotions
- Managing emotions – we have little or no control over emotions arising, but we can impact duration
- Motivating oneself – optimism and hope, which can be learned
- Recognizing emotions in others/empathy – the role of attunement to the people around you
- Handling relationships: organizing groups, negotiating solutions, personal connection
Whose professional life wouldn’t be improved by building more of these skills? For innovators in particular, these skills are essential!
So how do we get there? Goleman describes the keystone of emotional intelligence: “awareness of one’s own feelings as they occur.” Or, to be more precise, psychologist John Mayer says self-awareness is being “aware of both our mood and our thoughts about that mood.”
What does that mean? A person with self-awareness notices, “Wow, this flight delay is making me insanely angry” and then chooses how to behave to address the situation. A person without self-awareness just rages at the gate agent.
Goleman tells us that self-awareness like this is actually quite difficult, “because it takes the rational mind longer to register and respond than it does the emotional mind, the ‘first impulse’ in an emotional situation is the heart’s, not the head’s.” Your emotions can get you yelling before your brain even gets to vote. I’ve been there a thousand times. . .
Goleman’s book offers great tips on how to recognize emotions and calm them, so that you can better engage your mind to drive more of your behavior.
Mastering your emotions is absolutely essential to becoming a great communicator. Self-awareness gives you essential perspective. It enables your mind to make decisions about what comes out of your mouth.
If your emotions are in charge your judgment is lost. At the very least you’ll miss opportunities. More likely you’ll do damage. Without self-awareness, you spend your energy in triage. With self-awareness, every communication is an opportunity – to build better understanding, to resolve thorny problems, to forge a stronger team bond. Self-awareness and the self-mastery of emotional intelligence are the most vital skills a great communicator has.
Communication is the essential last mile in finding and motivating the right teams, acquiring strong allies, powerfully bonding with customers, and capturing mindshare with compelling stories. Nothing will serve you and your vision better than developing exceptional communication skills. Lisa Poulson, poseycorp’s principal, pairs the principles and practices of executive coaching with 30 years of experience in communications – a rare and powerful combination. Lisa is expert at helping innovators become effective communicators.
