Strong leaders use their Emotional Intelligence to increase their effectiveness.

Not all of the tactics below will be relevant to your situation, but undoubtedly, some ideas and strategies will assist you in enhancing your understanding of yourself and help direct you in becoming an Emotionally Strong Leader. 

Improve Your Self-Regard 

Leaders who have high self-regard have an accurate view of their strengths and development opportunities. They are more likely to have a genuine concern for others, share success, and hold themselves accountable when things go wrong. They are confident in themselves and don’t shy away from admitting their development opportunities or mistakes.

Tips and Tools for Increasing Self-Regard:

• Surround yourself with supportive people.
• Integrate more positive habits daily. 
• Believe in yourself, and until you do, act as if you do.
• Challenge your self-limiting beliefs.

Surround Yourself with Supportive People 

Surround yourself with the people in your life who simply “get you” and love you. When you feel bad about yourself, rely on those supportive people to help you counter your self-limiting beliefs or negative thoughts. Solicit feedback about your strengths from your supporters so you can start to appreciate, as much as they do, your natural talents and personality traits.

Integrate More Positive Habits Daily 

This need not be an arduous exercise—in fact, that would defeat the purpose of this building block for increasing your self-regard. The best way to add positive daily habits is to keep it simple, especially at first. Identify the areas in which you are looking to grow or change, and find small ways you can incorporate a new habit or routine into an already existing structure. Do you want to improve your outlook on life? Why not incorporate a daily gratitude statement with your family before dinner? Looking to exercise more? Perhaps plan a walk to fetch a coffee after lunch? The possibilities for small positive habits are endless if you plan and tie them to things you already do.

Believe in Yourself, and until You Do, Act as If You Do

You are capable of achieving amazing things. Believe that you can, dedicate yourself to taking steps toward what you want, and work hard. Create a vision in your mind’s eye. That vision will help you think through your action plan and how your dreams will materialize. Until you feel confident in yourself, act as if you are. At times, you may believe everyone can see your insecurity. But here’s the wonderful truth. It’s invisible—it’s just a thought. As long as you don’t act on that thought, no one can see it. Just act as a confident person would, and start noticing the results.

Challenge Your Self-Limiting Beliefs

Our self-limiting beliefs can control our life choices—what we choose to do and not do. We need to put those negative beliefs aside and work on not letting them rule our life. These destructive beliefs get in your way of being the best version of yourself. With that in mind, think about what you can do, and rather than letting your self-limiting beliefs continue to damage you emotionally, learn to reframe a previously negative mindset into a more positive outlook in your life. For instance, are you are looking at any situation through a negative lens? How could you turn this around and interpret the same set of events in a more positive framework?  

Boost Your Self-Actualization 

Leaders practice self-actualization by continuing to improve themselves. Self-actualization enables leaders to bring creativity, innovation, and an open mind into the workplace. It relates to a motivation to optimize both their performance and that of their teams. Leaders who are strong in self-actualization often participate in activities with meaning and are aligned with their own values, which leave them feeling satisfied, energized, and motivated. They are passionate and enthusiastic and strive to be their best. 

Tips and Tools for Increasing Self-Actualization:

• Take time to rest.
• Learn something new.
• Exercise your way into happiness.
• Discover your passions.

Take Time to Rest 

Technology has made it possible to stay connected with each other 24/7; messages and emails come flooding in at any time, and we feel inclined to respond, even if our workday has ended. But remember, we are humans, not machines. We need time to rest, rejuvenate, and reconnect with ourselves. Getting proper rest requires discipline. So take some much-needed time for yourself and schedule rest.

 Learn Something New

Learning something new keeps your mind engaged; you are exercising your brain and improving your memory, concentration, and ability to problem solve. Learning expands your world view and perspectives and helps you gain skill sets, opening more doors for you. One excellent way to broaden your social circle is to take a class or pursue a new hobby, which will increase your likelihood of making friends with similar interests. 

 Exercise Your Way into Happiness

Study after study has shown the positive effect being active has on our brains. Exercise produces endorphins and proteins that make us feel happier—it increases our cognitive abilities, helps us sleep better, enhances our self-perception, and improves our whole sense of well-being. It puts more pep in our steps every day. On days that you don’t feel like exercising, go for a five-minute walk (I mean, if you can’t find five minutes, that points to a larger problem, no?). Getting a daily dose of fresh air and activity can help you feel good about yourself.

Discover Your Passions

Ask yourself what fills your bucket and is meaningful to you. Being self-actualized means first discovering and then pursuing what matters to you. That is what fulfillment is all about. Not sure what matters to you or what you are passionate about? Start with determining what you value. Your values are your guiding principles. They determine what you think is important and can dictate how you choose to live your life. See if you can take action and live more congruently with what you value. In essence, that will make you feel more fulfilled. 

Excerpted from “The Emotionally Strong Leader: An Inside-Out Journey to Transformational Leadership” by Carolyn Stern

Not dealing with emotions hurts us, our people, and our organizations. Worse, it holds us back from creating remarkable cultures and achieving incredible business results.

If you want to grow and scale your business, you must learn to develop your Emotional Intelligence. You need to learn how to feel comfortable with emotions.  Your emotions, and those of others, are not the enemy, but, in fact, are the basis of your strengths.

The six-step process below is backed by leading science and grounded in decades of in-the-field experience. Learn to identify the specific emotional skills that most impact your career, uncover barriers to growth, set goals, and tap into the motivation to change. This framework addresses five distinct areas of EI – self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal, decision-making, and stress management – along with the individual competencies associated with each.

1. Connect With Yourself

Take a hard look in the mirror to create an inventory of your existing EI strengths and areas for development. Ask yourself questions that probe all five areas of EI, such as: Am I aware of how I am feeling at any given moment?  Do I stand up for myself? Am I able to put myself in other people’s shoes?  

2. Consult With Others

People’s self-perception is not always accurate.  Therefore, it’s critical to interview others to learn how they are seen and then circle back to compare these results with their own perceptions. Ask questions like: “Does it seem that I care too much about what others think of me? Do I adequately manage my stress?  Do you think that I control my impulses?”

3. Clarify Focus

Once you’ve collected this information about your level of emotional intelligence, you’ll more likely change if you understand the why behind the EI gaps, and what these gaps are costing you. Look at your highest and lowest EI competencies, and then ask yourself: “Where does this development opportunity come from? Childhood? Life experience? How does it hold me back in the workplace?”

4. Consider Possibilities and Barriers

This step helps you figure out how to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be. First, brainstorm as many options as possible for reaching your EI goal, and then they think about what might get in the way of realizing each option. 

5. Craft an Action Plan

Develop an action plan broken down into bite-size chunks with target dates for completion, create a “relapse prevention” strategy for handling hiccups along the way.  This includes asking yourself: “What triggers do I anticipate experiencing as I attempt to reach my goal?  What can I do to avoid these triggers?”

6. Confirm Commitment and Close the Conversation

Establish accountability for your goals. Identify a “Competency Advisor” for support during your EI development process.  When you check in with your advisor, they will be asked such questions as: “What strategies have you tried to achieve your goal? How did it go? What are you learning about yourself? What is one thing you will do differently next time?”

Instead of spending time and money on dealing with the inappropriate behaviors and disrespectful communications stemming from emotional issues in the workplace, you can get to the heart of those issues and deal with your feelings, and the feelings of your people, head-on. Leaders need to embrace emotion and turn it into unparalleled strengths.