There are few if any people not affected in some way by the global credit crises, executives would do well to remember that they have two duals roles – to safely lead both the business and its people through these uncertain times.
Businesses, like families, are seeking to tighten their belts while strategically seizing opportunities that arise from unexpected events such as the falling dollar.
Yet leaders must also remember that is their people who ultimately drive their success, and these people come complete with dreams, fears and emotions not covered in business schools or economic theory. You don’t have to look further than battering Australian stocks have taken despite their comparatively solid positions to understand just how much impact the irrational and emotional nature of human beings has.
While you wouldn’t wish the pain of this crisis on your worst enemy, it is in such times that we see truly great leaders rising from the carnage as beacons of hope who rally others to forge a secure and prosperous future for all. As Napoleon once said, ‘Leaders are dealers of hope.’ Such leaders understand how emotions work and use this understanding in intelligent ways lead their people out of through the sea of uncertainty and into the promised land.
It is unfortunate that ‘emotional intelligence’ became somewhat of a popularized management fad, with trite techniques such as ‘checking-in’ to meetings, for it is in times such as now that managers at all levels need to know how emotions work and how to use this knowledge to lead the people around them.
Those executives who want to harness recognise the impact of emotions, and who want to harness its power should:
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Read the mood – how are the people around you feeling right now. For many, the overwhelming emotion is worry, anxiety and fear. Will I have enough superannuation to retire comfortably? Will my children ever own their own home? Will our organisation have to cut jobs?
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Hear the emotions – people have a driving need to be understood. Connect with others by letting them know you understand how they feel.
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Understand the emotion you hear – for despite popular misconceptions, emotions work in predictable ways. For example, worry, anxiety and fear all us to our existing assumptions being wrong, while prompting us to act now in order to avoid future danger. The opposite of fear is hope.
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Use emotions intelligently – armed with a knowledge of how fear and similar emotions work, an intelligent leader could harness the mood of the moment to engage people in challenging the existing status quo of ‘how things are done around here’ giving focus to their ‘blame’, and drive people embrace significant productive changes, with change being seen as the pathway of hope, which must be followed to avoid existing perils and safely arrive where people would rather be.
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Frame emotions well – leaders don’t communicate the facts, they interpret what they mean for the people receiving the message and put them in a language that others understand. The same is true for emotions. While existing feelings of fear can be harnessed, prolonged and excessive fear can be paralysing, leading people into a resigned state of hopeless gloom. While leaders readily acknowledge the alarming facts, they also frame them in optimistic terms (see President Reagan’s example below). This involves framing worrying events as temporary rather than permanent, specific rather than universal and changeable through personal action rather than being al beyond our control.
Good Evening,
I am speaking to you tonight to give you a report o the state of our nation’s economy. I regret to say that we are in the worst economic mess since the Great Depression. A few days ago I was presented with a report I’d asked for, a comprehensive audit, if you will of our economic condition. You won’t like it. I didn’t like it. But we have to face the truth and then go to work on turning things around. And make no mistake about it, we can turn them around.
President Ronald Reagan |
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D. Caruso & P. Salovey, (2004), The Emotionally Intelligent Manager, Jossey-Bass
M. Lewis, J. Haviland-Jones & L. Feldman Barrett (2008), The Handbook of Emotions, Guilford Press.
M. Seligman (1998), Learned Optimism, Random House Australia.
R. Boyatzis & A. McKee (2005), Resonant Leadership, Harvard Business School Press
R. Reagan (1989), Speaking My Mind, Simon & Schuster
R. Richardson & S. Katharine Taylor (1993), The Charisma Factor, Prentice-Hall.