This week’s show is entitled Emotional Intelligence Insights & Secrets. I’ll share some of the top things about emotional intelligence insights and some of the secrets in working with emotional intelligence in trying to bring some of this cutting-edge information to individuals that you work with.

These are some of the things we will be discussing:

• Why is now the perfect time to enhance your leadership and to fill this leadership gap?
• What are some of the common errors that can derail you and your team?
• Why being smart and technical is not enough to move up; but what is?
• What are the top performers doing differently than average performers and what are some of the key secrets and actions that you can take?
• What are some of the myths behind leadership and how do you navigate them?
• We’ll go through some of the tools I’ve created in The Leadership Keys.
• What do followers want from leaders?
• How do you develop trust and what are some of the dynamics?
• If you are a coach or a leader: how can you use some of these tools with the people that you work with?
• What is the leadership two-step and how do you use it?
• We’ll discuss the idea of taking small initiatives called micro-initiatives and how you use some of these micro-initiatives to have a macro-impact.

Nobody really has that much time; we are all very, very busy running 90-miles-an-hour. Are there some small things that you can do differently? People like these micro-initiatives not because they are initiatives, but because they are micro and because doing a few things differently, doing a few things more, can really enhance your leadership.

I want to give you some of the key secrets and key insights to move you into the top 10%. Why this top 10%? If you have been listening to our shows, Cathy and I have talked a lot about this. Whether it is you or someone that you are developing; if you can get them to move into the top 10% they are going to be so much more valuable for the organization.

Every leader that I have worked with has underestimated their influence over others. So think about that for a minute. Have you underestimated your influence over others? Typically when I work with groups, it’s a bold statement, but I’d say almost every single person has underestimated their influence over others. If you agree that you have underperformed, then the people that you influence, your team, has underperformed. There are a variety of reasons for that which I’m going to go through. But as you think about this there is plenty of opportunity for all of us to move forward.

One of the few people that we have done a couple of blogs and shows about, Steve Jobs, probably hasn’t underestimated his own influence.  I would say there are a handful of folks that probably haven’t but most of us have had some missed opportunities.

One of the reasons that almost everybody has underestimated their influence is that we are all on automatic. Some of the literature is saying 95% of the time. It means that we are just functioning from our long-term memory, basically like a robot. So we have missed opportunities to consciously be aware of what we are saying, consciously be aware of what we are doing; consciously be aware of raising the emotional intelligence and truly developing others. The more conscious you are the more in charge of your life and your contributions you’ll be.

We need more leaders. Some of the research has shown 40% of organizations say they do not have enough leaders. Is that your organization? Is that an opportunity for you? The basic reasons that we need more leaders are a couple of demographics that are going on.

The baby boomers are retiring. About 10,000 baby boomers are retiring each day. That will be about 78 million baby boomers by the year 2020, so really just five or six years away. About 30 million of those 78 million are going to reach the age of 65. So, we are losing brains. But not only are we losing brains, we are losing the brains that have a little bit more emotional intelligence.

Gen X has about 46 million, so there are a lot less folks who are in their 40’s and 50’s moving into these new leadership positions. Then there is Gen Y that is a bigger group, I think they are up over 70 million.

The reason they are documented to have a little less emotional intelligence is solely because the hour-for-hour in front of a screen verses the hour-for-hour in front of a person. So the capability is there, but anybody that has kids and has seen the younger generations and how many hours they are in front of the phone and their screens and understand the reasons we have this brain drain. Then good leaders drive organizational profit, productivity and engagement, so we need more leaders because of the brain drain and the demographics I mentioned. It’s the power and influence of the leaders around organization, profit and productivity.

Then the other aspect of the best leaders, it’s been documented, is having more emotional intelligence. How do you raise emotional intelligence?

Leaders contribute to the organization and when you have that you are going to have more financial security for the individuals in the organization and for yourself. One of the things I mentioned is that when you look at emotional intelligence, you look at technical expertise and you look at IQ; intellectual quotient. Most of the research is showing that the key factor, shown by a lot of studies and dissertations in corporations these days anywhere from 30–70%, that will lead to your success is more emotional intelligence than either technical expertise or your IQ.

The reason people get hired is for their technical expertise and IQ. Then they end up leaving that job or getting promoted and do less of the technical aspects and more directing of other people’s work, communicating, holding them accountable, and motivating them. That really becomes quite challenging because those are the things that are not necessarily their background or training. It’s almost unfair. Here they have all of these certifications, hours of experience, classes in technical expertise and do so well, and then they are put in front of these 5 or 6 people and asked to lead.

Some of the research from Ken Blanchard’s group when they look at what leaders fail to do are basic things. So think about that for yourself; where are you?

• Eighty-two percent of leaders fail to provide feedback, positive or negative. Eighty-two percent! It’s basically time, it’s not that they don’t want too, it gets relegated.
• Eighty-one percent fail to listen or involve others and being able to individualize their leadership.
• Sixty-five percent of American’s have received no praise or recognition in the last year.
• Only 30% of employees are fully engaged.

So we focus so much on the leader because of the influence that leaders have. Leaders have anywhere from 50-70% influence over the team. Cathy and I like to say, that they are the emotional thermostat for the team. So why are there issues and problems? Here are the seven leadership errors. You may want to think about this for yourself or if you supervise other folks, and decide which one (or more) of these you need to focus on.

1. Generalization of skill error.
2. Spotlight error.
3. Influence error.
4. Neglect error.
5. Alignment error.
6. Focus error.
7. Frequency error.

When we think about each of these, when you think about emotional intelligence, the simple definition I like to use is: understanding yourself and managing yourself, understanding others, and managing others. Listen to the complete interview above for a deeper understanding of these leadership errors.

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