Lead with Emotional Intelligence

In the recruitment crisis most sectors are facing today, it's more important than ever to remember the old adage:

People don’t quit a bad job. They quit a bad manager.

So how do you become the best boss you can be so that your team stick with you through thick and thin?

Remember your favourite boss?

It can be valuable to reflect on the best managers you’ve had or even the most inspirational teachers? How did it make you feel and how did it impact your commitment? I imagine the ones you remember inspired and motivated you, you will have felt they listened to and valued and as a result, you felt more committed and focussed.

Becoming a better boss and developing your leadership ability begins with some self-reflection and self-awareness of how your behaviour impacts those around you?

This is emotional intelligence or EQ.

This includes:

1. Self-awareness – knowing your strengths, weaknesses, drivers, triggers and values

2. Self-regulation – being able to control your impulses and moods

3. Empathy – understanding others’ emotions

4. Social Skills – building rapport with others

A leader with high emotional intelligence shows up as:

• Calm

• Encouraging

• Open-minded

• Flexible

• Cooperative

• Reliable

All qualities we’d like to see in our boss. While someone with low emotional intelligence shows up at work as:

• Stubborn

• Short-tempered

• Inconsistent

• Impulsive

• Bitter

• Demanding

Can you keep your cool?

Are you able to keep your cool under pressure? How consistent and reliable are you?
There is nothing more tricky than tiptoeing on eggshells around a manager because you don’t know what mood they’re in today.
Working on your self-regulation - in other words being able to maintain a consistent mood, even under pressure, builds trust and respect from your team.

Why does Emotional Intelligence matter:

EQ accounts for 90% of the factors that separate top-performing leaders from their peers. (Goleman, Business Psychologist)

Teams with members who exhibit high EQ demonstrate greater collaboration and productivity. (Journal of Applied Psychology)

Self-aware individuals tend to be more proactive in managing their emotions, leading to higher job satisfaction and overall wellbeing. (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)

Leaders who demonstrate empathy have more engaged and committed teams. (Center for Creative Leadership)

Stifling emotions can lead to stress, burnout, and reduced productivity.

Lead with Confidence

Personal and business success goes hand-in-hand with confidence.

Confidence is the foundation of leadership - it’s the fuel that drives us forward.

Leaders are role models - so their confidence is contagious, and unfortunately, so is lack of confidence.

If you don’t first believe in yourself, you shouldn’t expect your team to believe in you, so when you find yourself managing a team or running a business, how can you build self-confidence that will boost your presence and impact.

Many people admit to experiencing Imposter Syndrome - that fear that we don’t deserve or haven’t got the experience to be in the management position we are in and that at any moment we’re going to be found out. We’re in good company - some of the most well-known business leaders have admitted to feeling like a fraud. Imposter Syndrome is most common in women but affects men too and can cause low self-esteem, anxiety, perfectionism, procrastination, fear of delegating, and to working extra hard to compensate for what we feel we’re lacking.

Here are my tips to build your confidence as a leader.

1. The first step is to building self-confidence and overcoming imposter syndrome is to build self-awareness and self-belief — acknowledge your strengths, be aware of your emotions, values and motivations, and any triggers. We tend to be our own harshest critic so listen to your inner voice and the stories it might be telling you from your past, don’t dwell on past failures or self-doubts, instead reframe them, and look for the lessons learned and towards the future.

2. Ask for feedback - it’s one of the best ways to grow and build self-awareness. Ask colleagues, friends and family and be prepared to listen, reflect and then act on it. If you face criticism, stay calm, clarify anything you don’t understand, acknowledge the truthful elements and work on what needs to change.

3. Accept compliments - there’s a curious, and perhaps very British, tendency to shrug off compliments and to be self-depreciating but start to take the positives on board. Pat yourself on the back and remember it for a day when you might need a boost. Similarly speaking to others positively and praising them will boost your mood as well as theirs.

4. Build your trust in others and learn to ask for help. It’s ok to admit that you can’t pull it all off by yourself so don’t be afraid to ask for help or advice, whether that’s delegating tasks, bringing in an expert or reading a book or going on a course to learn something new.

5. Let go of perfectionism - it can cause anxiety, unnecessary stress, or not delegating. Try to find a sweet spot and accept when good is good enough.

6. Be brave - recognise you can't always stay within your comfort zone and that personal and business growth involves embracing challenging experiences. If you find this hard then focus on the end goal, try mental rehearsals for difficult situations, and push yourself forward.

7. Use your body - when you hold a confident posture, standing straight, shoulders back, and breathing deeply, you not only LOOK but also FEEL more confident. Adopting a ‘power pose’ even if you’re not really feeling it will give you a boost

8. Look after yourself - when you’re feeling under pressure, pause to ground yourself, breathe. Set boundaries and accept it’s ok to say no sometimes.

9. Celebrate success - sometimes we’re so busy in the day-to-day that we don’t pause to reflect or acknowledge what we’ve achieved individually or as a team. Taking a moment to recognise the positives, however small, or to notice our role in achieving success is key to building confidence.

10. Be curious - no one can teach you to be more confident, it comes through experience and believing that you will get better through practice. So ask yourself what have I learned through this experience, what did I contribute, what can I take from this and what could I do differently next time? If you have time, write it down to look back on in the future.

Finally a much-quoted mantra from American writer and lecturer Dale Carnegie:

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

How to Build a Happy and Engaged Team

How to build a happy and engaged team?

There’s an oft-cited phrase that people don’t quit a bad job, they quit a bad manager. So how can you be the best leader you can be, so that people will stick with you through thick and thin?

Every sector I speak to at the moment from hospitality to tech, from plumbing to law, is finding it harder to recruit than ever before. It’s a job-seekers market with plenty of opportunities for people looking for something new. So the challenge for business leaders is to create an environment where your staff want to stay with you, who will go over and above to achieve the business objectives and don’t disappear when the going gets tough.

When your team feel engaged, inspired and valued, they will be much more willing to go above and beyond to create the best possible experience for your customers.

So as a manager, how do you build a happy, committed and successful team?

The short answer is, it’s not just about paying them more!

Building an engaged team begins with creating a connection and a community and a culture around a common purpose and values. This creates a sense of belonging and commitment.  

Culture

Culture is that mysterious thing, that is hard to put into words and you can only really understand by experiencing it. You can break it down into the things you can see or have written down, in retail this includes things such as the uniform you might wear, the shop design (formal, informal, contemporary, traditional) and any written policies and manuals - but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The juicy bit is beneath the surface - the way you behave with each other, how you talk to customers, any rituals and routines you have - how you greet each other at the start of the day, how you communicate (formal meetings or casual chats) and any ceremonies you have - going out for a drink to celebrate or publicly rewarding staff for a significant achievement.

Facets of employee engagement

Beyond culture and community, there are several key facets of employee engagement. I suggest reviewing each of these - what do you do well, where are the gaps, is there anything that could be tweaked?

1. Do you have a positive culture? Are the purpose, values and aspirations of the business clearly communicated to everyone? How good is communication between management and staff

2. Do people feel that staff are making a valuable contribution, do they have a manageable workload?

3. Do your staff get recognition for what they do?

4. Do they have the right balance of support, autonomy and challenge?

5. Do people have the right resources and training to do their job? 

6. Do people have the right work-life balance for them and how do you support people’s wellbeing? Of course, people have different needs and expectations and flexibility isn’t always possible in a retail environment, but be mindful of what else people have going on in their lives - whether it’s school runs, relatives to care for or exams to revise for.

7. What rewards do you offer? Of course, competitive pay and benefits come into it and security of income is important, especially in the current economic climate. Do you also offer incentives for higher performance although this doesn’t have to be a financial bonus, it could be a small gift for making a difference to a customer, or a voucher to spend with you (a bonus as it encourages them to get familiar with your products too).

8. What opportunities do you offer for personal growth and development? How do you support your staff to be the best they can be? This might be skills training for the job or mentoring from a colleague to develop soft skills, it might be just giving informal feedback to encourage them to push themselves forward or it could be knowing that there are opportunities for promotion.

Running through these questions will help you to identify any potential improvements you can make, but if you really want to know how engaged your team are, and what more they need - ask them. This could be through informal chats or perhaps a short questionnaire which can be completed anonymously. This gives people the opportunity to show what they appreciate and voice any concerns. If you can respond to these and you’ll show you care about your people and they’ll reciprocate with their commitment.

When to lead and when to manage

Think back to the most inspiring managers you’ve had in your life, or even the most inspirational teachers. How did it make you feel and how did it impact your commitment on the job or the subject?

I imagine the leaders you remember inspired and motivated you, you will have felt they listened to and valued and as a result, you felt more committed and focussed.

Now reflect on what kind of a leader you are. Are you an inspiring leader or hands-on manager?

Let’s explore the difference between leadership and management.

What’s the share purpose?

Imagine your vision is to create a wild flower meadow and you have a team of people to do the hard work. A manager would give a specific list of instructions and tasks to each person - ask them to drill the soil, to plant the seeds in a specific way and to water it precisely. While a leader will share his vision of a beautiful colourful meadow, rich in biodiversity and ask the team how you can work together collectively to make that dream a reality. Which do you think will get the best results?

A manager’s job is to set operational objectives and standards, but as a leader it’s your role to communicate the vision, the big picture, and share a purpose and values in a way that will appeal to your team and that will motivate them to get out of bed in the morning.

If your ambition is to offer the best most memorable customer experience or to create the most delicious quality cakes, what difference is that going to make to people, how are you going to do it and why should anyone believe you? In the corporate world this usually means creating and communicating mission, vision and purpose statements - what we do, why we do it and what we want to be known for; and communicating your values - then how do we do it?

Your Mission & Vision

You don’t need the carefully crafted statements you might see from big brands like Wholefoods or Waitrose, but do take time to answer those questions and share the results with your employees.

Another important quality of a good leader is to empower and enable staff, consulting with them, seeking and valuing their input and encouraging them to stretch and grow. 

There is no right or wrong here, there’s a time and a place for both management and leadership. A good leader will be able to adapt depending on the person, the task, the context and the urgency. If you have a new starter with little experience or none of the technical skills required for the job, then you will need to be more manager, giving clear instructions and checking in on progress. In an urgent situation, for example dealing with a difficult customer, again you many need to step in and manage the situation more closely. But when you are dealing with someone who is highly committed, whether or not they have the experience of skill, you can step back to a more supportive, coaching role, ask for their ideas and help them develop their skills. 

Many of the managers I work with find themselves more at the directive managerial end of the spectrum, telling, showing, instructing, and often admit to micromanaging because it’s easier and quicker, but this is the fast track to creating low morale and unengaged teams.

So to develop more committed staff who will help you build a successful business, start to build a partnership with them, share your vision, encourage shared ownership of the big picture, be transparent in communication, trust, listen and value their views, foster collaboration and together you will see great results.

Hospitality Mavericks Podcast interview

I’ve long been a fan of the podcast Hospitality Mavericks, so I was really excited to be asked by its host Michael Tingsager, to join him to chat about my work as an executive coach and running leadership development programmes.

We talk about the difference between leadership and management, how to build a strong, happy and engaged team, changing expectations of work life and just some of the challenges facing business leaders today.

I also share my own story of how I moved from hospitality and food & drink branding and communications to become a business coach, and how I build healthy routines and lots of exercise to look after myself.

You can listen to the podcast on all the usual podcast channels from Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon and below on YouTube.

I highly recommend all the podcasts on Hospitality Mavericks!

Find them all here: Hospitality Mavericks >