Picture this. With the many benefits well documented, you have decided to prioritise emotional intelligence in your workplace. You design a development programme, eager to see people’s emotional and social skills improve as a result.
But developing emotional intelligence within an organisation is not always that simple. Here are 3 common challenges you may face when attempting to develop an emotionally intelligent workforce:
Challenge 1: Lack of Self-Awareness
To start developing your emotional intelligence, you first need a clear understanding of your current skill levels. Without this insight, people cannot accurately identify the areas that need improvement, resulting in development goals that are misdirected, ineffective and even unnecessary. Unfortunately, research shows that self-awareness is actually quite rare, with only an estimated 10-15% of people being truly self-aware. This is particularly true of senior leaders who tend to overestimate skills, such as empathy and emotional self-awareness.
Solution: The best way to overcome this lack of self-awareness when developing emotional intelligence, is by asking people to complete an emotional intelligence assessment, such as the EQ-i 2.0 or MSCEIT 2. This highlights where an individual’s strengths lie and the areas that may need more development. The EQ 360 emotional intelligence assessment is the most powerful antidote to a lack of self-awareness because it provides feedback based on multiple raters, such as managers, peers and direct reports.
Challenge 2: Vague Goal Setting
Once people have identified which areas of emotional intelligence to develop, they need an effective plan in place to achieve their goals. However, it is easy to fall into the trap of setting a vague goal, such as ‘I will develop my empathy’, without specifying the exact steps needed to make it happen. A vague goal is hard to implement and even harder to achieve.
Solution: To overcome the problem of vague goals, encourage people to use an evidence based goal setting framework, such as SMART and WOOP goals. The key is to ensure people are specific about what they plan to do and how they plan to do it. It’s also important that people write their development goals down and share them with others. This increases people’s commitment to their goals and the likelihood of achieving them. You could use a development plan, such as the ones from our EQ Extra series, that follow the START goal framework (a combination of SMART and WOOP goals).
Challenge 3: No Ongoing Support
Developing emotional intelligence requires ongoing support to ensure sustainable results. People can have the best intentions, but it is difficult to stay motivated towards achieving a goal if there is no follow up or accountability. However, time and budget pressures often mean that organisations can only afford to run a one-off session on emotional intelligence, leaving employees only partially equipped with the tools they need to develop.
Solution: If you want to see long-term changes to someone’s emotional intelligence, it is important to follow up after an initial workshop or feedback session. This could be in the form of a 1-2-1 check in or team workshop, as long as it provides people with an opportunity to reflect on their progress and reminds them of the importance of developing their emotional intelligence. Organisations should also make additional resources available, such as research articles and online learning modules, to encourage people to continue learning independently and help them reach their development goals. EQ Extra is a series of videos designed for this purpose; with practical strategies to develop people’s emotional intelligence.
So, if you want to maximise your organisation’s chances of success, proactively tackle these 3 challenges and watch as people achieve their emotional intelligence development goals.
Learn more about EQ Extra here.
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