Most of our first posts dealt with what you need to do to become a better leader and the more recent posts cover how you should do that. One of the best TED talks I’ve ever seen was given by Simon Sinek in 2009 https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en. The official title is How Leaders Inspire Action, but the unofficial title could be Always Start with Why. It is well worth the 15 or so minutes of your time to watch this.
Mr. Sinek refers to his concept as the Golden Circle.
His premise is that most individuals (and companies) begin the process of trying to convince/sell others by starting from the outside – that is we tell others what we do. We then proceed to tell them how we do it but very few can tell you why they do it.
He goes on to say our brains are actually wired in the opposite direction – that is the brain works from inside to the outside; the exact opposite of what we do. He associates the “why” with the limbic brain which is associated with feelings, behavior and decision making. It may help to explain why we feel many of our best decisions are “gut reactions”. So, it is easy to see why we should focus our messaging here.
Despite knowing this and the problems associated with the outside – in approach it is exactly what I’ve done in the posts so far. So today, I’d like to call a timeout and start to examine “why” rather than “what” or “how”.
We have repeatedly stressed the importance of self-awareness even calling it the single most important quality of great leaders. This belief is backed by a significant amount of research by experts in the field. But to date, we have not asked why that is the case.
Most people are aware of IQ, a measure of our intellect. In fact, most leaders would attribute their success to their IQ level. While that is important, there is another measure, emotional intelligence, often called EQ, that might actually be more important for successful leadership. EQ is a heightened awareness to emotions, both ours and those with whom we interact.
In order to be an effective leader, you obviously need to engage both your IQ and your EQ. IQ is important to understand the facts of a situation, but EQ is more important to allow you to be more perceptive. This increased perceptivity allows for better understanding of your team’s attitude, behaviors and motivation.
This obviously helps with morale and cohesiveness which can in turn lead to improved interaction among staff as well as with the parishioners they serve. People tend to model their leaders so their focus may change positively as they notice changes in your interactions with them.
In our next post we look like at the research behind why EQ is so important and ways you may be able to improve yours.