Home > Resources > Published E-Zines > Published in 2007 > Leadership E-Zines > December 2007 - Leading with Emotional Intelligence
Leading with Emotional Intelligence E-Zine - Issue No. 21/ December 2007
Dear Reader,
Do you believe in luck?
The French poet Jean Cocteau was once asked whether he believed in luck. "Of course," he replied. "How else do you explain the success of people you don't like?"
In the past years a lot of research has been conducted on the question of luck. One of the studies - conducted by professor Richard Wiseman - found four principles to influence luck, one of them being "Expecting good fortune". Needless to say that another word for that would be optimism.
Sebastien's article below revolves around that topic, why it matters in leadership and what to do if one is rather pessimistic. I trust you'll find this article useful.
Let's keep progressing!
Charlie Lang
Executive Coach and Founder of Progress-U Ltd.
Author of The Groupness Factor
Back to Top
INSPIRE!
A 6-day personal journey for courageous leaders
Consider joining this unique and intensive program
in Shanghai: on January 21-23 and March 17-19, 2008
Click here for details
"A very interactive session for busy managers who would like
to take a step back from work to make a step forward.”
Training Manager, LVMH Asia-Pacific
|
CAN A LEADER AFFORD NOT TO BE OPTIMISTIC … AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.
 Download this article
by Sebastien Henry,Executive Coach & Trainer Emotional Intelligence Expert for Progress-U Ltd.
 I recently encountered the case of a manager who was being considered for a more senior position. She had great qualities for the job. However, she was missing one important quality, and this was causing top management to hesitate in promoting her. This quality was optimism.
If you were part of the top management of the company, what would you do? Would you promote her to that leadership position?
There are two important questions to consider here. First, can a leader afford not to be optimistic? And second, can optimism be developed?
Can a leader afford not to be optimistic?
Should leaders necessarily be strong optimists, or “dealers of hope”, as Napoleon put it? Looking at most successful leadership cases in history, one would be easily tempted to answer yes.
Furthermore, it appears that optimism is a key trait of successful leaders. The Harrison Assessment, which measures people’s qualities such as optimism, would tell you this.
If this were true, it would mean that a leader who lacks optimism could not succeed. Although this outcome is likely, there is still one way to get around this “handicap”: this leader could make sure that his or her number two is an optimistic person.
In some of my workshops, I ask people to pose as a statue to represent the kind of leaders they are. It is amazing how diverse the statues are. Some show confidence and optimism. Some reveal introspection and analysis, but lack optimism. A combination of two such statues would actually be inspiring.
In my opinion, there is often too much emphasis on the personality of THE leader, as opposed to the leadership team.
That being said, it is still likely that lacking optimism doesn’t make life easy for a leader.
This leads to the second question: can optimism be developed?
You might easily say that optimism can not be developed, that optimism is in-born, or set at a very early age. This has also been my position for many years.
Not so fast. People’s ability to change should never be underestimated. The beauty of being in the personal development field is in being witness to truly amazing changes.
I’d like to introduce two ideas here that suggest that optimism can actually be developed.
First, optimism is closely related to our self-image. Our self-image is the way we see ourselves. A leader’s self-image could be any of the following:
- I am a good leader
- I am not a natural leader
- I am a lousy leader
Our self-image has a very strong impact on our behaviors. Obviously, somebody whose self-image is “I am a good leader” is not going to act in the same way that somebody whose self-image is “I am not a natural leader”.
For example, a leader with a positive self image such as “I am a good leader” can lead him to be confident and optimistic in reaching the sales quota set by the top management.
On the other hand, a leader with a negative self-image such as “I am a lousy leader” will think pessimistically, i.e. that the revenue targets can never be reached.
The good news is that we can change our self-image. It may take some time, but it can be done. A leader whose self-image is “I am not a natural leader” can turn it into “I am a natural or gifted leader”.
This will have a dramatic impact on his or her optimism as a leader. In other words, working first on our self-image can develop our optimism in our leadership. Optimism in leadership requires that the leader have a positive self-image to begin with.
The next question is “How do we develop a positive self-image?” There are many ways to do this, but due to space limitations I can only give a few examples. One of the best ways to develop a positive self-image is to build on your strengths and celebrate your achievements. This means putting more effort to recognize what is good about your self instead of letting yourself fall into the easy habit of looking at your negative qualities.
People are not always aware at first of their self-image, as it could be covered with much “noise” (self-talk). Some people may even think that they are good leaders, but deep inside still have this idea that they are a lousy leader.
Secondly, optimism can really be seen as a habit. This means simply making it a habit of keeping our eyes most of the time on the best possible outcomes of our decisions and plans (and the rest of the time on all the obstacles we’ll have to go through!).
For some people, this habit came so naturally that they never had to think about it. They are the born optimists that people like to be around…and follow.
For people not blessed with optimism, they have to do even more than just think about it. They have to act on it. Habits can be changed, but doing so requires self-discipline.
Experiments by academics have shown that it takes more than 20 attempts to successfully change a habit. With a habit like “pessimism”, it may take even more attempts because it has probably been around for a very long time.
A key word here comes from the neurosciences: “plasticity of the brains”. It means that the way cells in our brains are wired can be changed (actually it changes every day).
To put it simply. pessimism is a neural path, a succession of neural connections, that leads to see the worst possible outcomes. This path can be redesigned by interrupting the “pessimist process” every time we become aware of it.
It means catching ourselves red-handed whenever we are considering the bottle as half-empty, and switching our energy to the “best possible outcomes” instead.
It is by no means easy, and people may need support in the process.
Even more than support, what is needed is determination to change. For leaders, it can come with the acute awareness that their lack of optimism is creating a major obstacle to their career, their success, and more generally their happiness. This is where the responsibility of the top management to make it clear comes in (as was done in the case that I was presented).
As a conclusion, I warmly encourage you to take the possibility of change into account if you feel that you are too much of a pessimist, or if you have a pessimist person in your team.
To know more, I suggest you read “Learned Optimism”, by Dr Martin Seligman, a psychologist who had devoted his work to this topic. It is a very inspiring book.
Very best regards.
Sebastien
Feel free to contact me if you wish to discuss the content of this article. I am passionate about this issue and always enjoy sharing views and ideas.
For more information related to Progress-U Leadership Training and Coaching, please click here.
Back to Top of this Article
|
 Sebastien Henry is Progress-U’s expert for Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Stress Management. He works with executives who want to:
- avoid feeling exhausted and uprooted as their career takes them to the top;
- become more inspiring leaders by developing their Emotional Intelligence (EQ) at work; and, as a consequence
- be able to motivate their people more and retain the best.
Having worked in an Asia-Pacific regional position at a multinational company, Sebastien has experimented extensively on how to develop Emotional Intelligence in his daily work life. He is currently writing a book on this topic. His articles on Emotional Intelligence in Leadership have been published in Human Resources and South China Morning Post.
He firmly believes in action, and the tools he uses and shares are derived from several areas of his life: his business experience as a corporate executive, of course, but also his intensive practice of mountaineering and rock climbing (7a on-sight and more than 50 alpine routes), his commitment to teach and coach prisoners, and his daily meditations for more than six years.
Positions of his clients as a one-to-one coach are: Asia/Pacific General Manager, Country General Manager, Department Head, etc.
Languages: Spoken and written Mandarin, Japanese, English, French (native language)
Credentials:
• MBA, BA in Psychology, BA in Philosophy
• Certified NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner
• Certified NLP Trainer (NLPU, USA)
• Certified Coach (ICC)
• More than 40 days of training with the Gestalt approach at the Paris School of Gestalt
• Certified Trainer of the "EQ Impact Learning" program (Talentsmart, USA)
Services offered: 1:1 Executive Coaching, Group Seminars and Workshops, Key Note Speeches |
Copyright 2007 by Progress-U Limited
|
Want Content for Your Web Site or E-Zine?
You may copy any of the articles written by Sebastien Henry to your web site, or distribute them in your e-zine or magazine, provided that you include the following attribution (including a link to http://www.progressu.com.hk):
With permission of Sebastien Henry, Executive Coach & Trainer of Progress-U Ltd |
|
