The CHAMPIONS TRIBE with AbiolaChamp

There are many things that happen in the workplace that are usually dismissed as  inconsequential but on a more cursory look, such behaviours speak to a lack of emotional intelligence.  Most organizations usually comprise very sound personnel or those with high intellectual quotient,but Emotional Intelligence is largely lacking. Many teams with highly skilled manpower are not even aware of these traits because there is a level of success being achieved, the inability to even identify the absence of the broad elements of emotional intelligence shows that such teams are not operating optimally. The leadership of organizations must therefore take it upon itself to audit their teams and identify the presence or otherwise of these crucial social skills.  Do your team members have organizational awareness? Do they have conflict management skills? Do they have an achievement orientation? Is there a strong level of teamwork? Do they display a low or high level of empathy? How fast are they to adapt to new paradigms? Do they have a positive outlook towards the organization’s goals? These are the crucial questions that needs answers.  Here are eight signs that the people in your organization are reflecting a lack of emotional intelligence.

One of the things you must come to terms with is that in some sense, you are a limited resource.   This means amongst many other things that, you neither have the energy to do everything you wish to do nor can you continue working indefinitely. The human body as ingenious as it is, is designed to balance out stress and rest. One of the challenges many people in the corporate world face is the inability to find a work-life balance or better put, a work-life integration. Rest should be a fundamental part of how you allocate your time, it doesn’t imply laziness – being a work horse isn’t always a good thing because it does have future implications. Research shows that the clear majority of bosses agree that vacation improves an employee's focus (78%) and alleviates burnout (81%). Employees who reported that their company encourages vacation (68%) are much happier with their jobs than those who work at places where either vacation is discouraged or managers are ambivalent about taking time off (42%). They are also more likely to use all of their vacation time (77% compared with 51%).   Letting your hair down is the recognition that you know and value your physical, mental and psycho-social wellbeing. By choosing to shelve strenuous activities and engage in relaxing and recharging activities, you’re giving yourself the permission to refresh and rejuvenate.  Quality leisure time lowers your blood pressure, improves your digestion, increases the flow of blood to your muscles, improves the quality of your sleep, reduces your fatigue and boosts your own confidence. You have to intermittently find out time and indulge yourself in fun and entertaining activities, it makes you not just a better person but more importantly – a healthy person. Source of Data  https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee- relations/pages/workers-taking-more-vacation-.aspx

Emotional intelligence is non-negotiable for leaders in any facet of life, this is because people skills is a more powerful determinant of success than even technical skills. Emotional intelligence is essentially the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.  The concept, largely popularized by Daniel Goleman who defined it as, “array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance” is very important for decision-makers to grasp so as to achieve improved outcomes. One of the broad components of emotional intelligence is self-awareness which is one of the sterling qualities most leaders lack and as such they are unable to lead themselves let alone lead others effectively. When leaders do embrace this concept, the results are palpable both in the interim and in the long run.  Emotional intelligence is quite an important skill to possess because it enhances communication, problem-solving, administration and fosters better relationships amongst stakeholders. Where certain traits of a leader are consistent with the tenets of emotional intelligent, it is believe that it has been learnt and is being practised. This episode provide tell-tale signs that a leader has a high level of emotional intelligence.

Selling is perhaps the single most important activity that any profit-seeking organization engages in. If you’re not selling, then you might go out of business faster than you think. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the bottom-line; the numbers have to add up.  Sales for such organizations is the exchange of value between themselves and their customers where the businesses typically offer goods or services at a determined (monetary) price. It is basically the consummation of the forces of demand and supply. As with many other things, selling is both a science and an art. It is a skill that requires very strategic application when executing. So if the revenue of your organization isn’t as impressive as you would love for it to be, it is most likely that your salespeople are doing something wrong – they need a more systematic approach to consistently closing great sales.  Your salespeople should realize in their engagements with prospective and existing customers that value is the name of the game – if people don’t feel as though they are getting commensurate value for their money, it would be difficult to move the needle from prospecting to selling and repeat patronage. This episode provides simple reasons most salespeople aren’t making fantastic sales and what to do to gain better results.

Communication is one of the most important phenomenon in the world today. It is practically impossible to achieve anything without an exchange and understanding of ideas.  Communication is central to civilization and everything that human beings have done since the beginning of time.  Productive communication becomes an even more indispensable tool for people and organizations that seek to achieve desired outcomes in a profitable manner. It is a major catalyst for relationship management owing to the critical role it plays in harmonizing varying positions, conflict resolution and other engagements. Bad communication is a function of many factors but they can be broadly categorized into nurture and nature – nature for innate ability or inability, nurture for the learnt ability or the lack of it thereof.  Many people are not self-aware to know that they are bad communicators because they have not been exposed to an environment that has challenged what they call normal. Possessing great communication skills in today’s world is learnt, it is both a science and an art but there are unmistakable signatures that expose the lack of effective communication.  This episode shows eight signs of bad communication.

It is said that the only profession where people start off at the top is grave-digging. This invariably means that in almost every other thing you do which includes your career  – you will definitely start  with someone as your boss.  This concept of hierarchy is so important in the workplace that the first thing a new hire is taught is the organizational chart or organogram – the distribution of power and responsibilities. Once you understand the power structure in any organization, you can better navigate the terrain. It can be difficult when you are working under the supervision of another, owing to the fact that the balance of power isn’t skewed towards you – it seems like a long walk on eggshells. Notwithstanding, you have to learn to effective manage that relationship because as someone who is relatively a greenhorn, you still have a long way to go in your career.  Emotional intelligence definitely empowers you to better manage conflicts and resolve crisis.  This episode presents some insights into the importance of cultivating a healthy relationship with your Boss. 

Order is the fundamental basis for productivity, where terms of engagement are clearly defined – almost anything can be achieved. That is exactly what corporate governance does for organizations; it is the system of rules, protocols and culture by which an organization is managed. It is the blueprint for power distribution, controls, decision-making and responsibilities. These sets of guidelines are put in place to ensure that the organization’s vision is achieved regardless of the internal and external circumstances of the workplace. Corporate governance is also important for stakeholder management; ensuring that the interests of employees, investors, shareholders, regulators, customers, suppliers and the community where the organization operates in are protected.  Corporate Governance is therefore a non-negotiable feature of organizations that seek to maintain very high ethical standards while creating value for those associated with it. Emotional intelligence is what helps organization find the delicate balance between ethics and profit-seeking amongst other things. Extremism is a concept where there is a dangerous leaning to one end at the expense of the other, finding the right anchors then becomes paramount in running very successful organizations. These are some emotionally intelligent insights for driving corporate governance.

In today’s world, the workplace is populated with more millennials and young professions than their much older colleagues. It is simply a statistical consequence of situating an organization in a region where the youthful population, especially those below thirty-five years of age account for a very high percentage of the total population. It is also imperative to acknowledge the cultural context of very conservative societies, they can be very traditional which implies that they venerate older persons a great deal. This deep-seated is manifested in the different facets of our lives including the workplace. Emotional intelligence helps younger people who find themselves in the workplace with much older colleagues successfully navigate the waters. This balance is critical so that both younger and older demography can synergize effectively for more productive outcomes. The delicate centre-spot amongst respect, results and responsibilities in necessary because one can’t be selected at the expense of others.  This episode provides insights on how younger people can deploy emotionally intelligent for leading older people in the workplace.

A Chief Finance Officer (CFO) is a C-level executive that is basically responsible for managing the organization’s finances.  Often third in the line of leadership after the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the Chief Operating Officer (COO), the CFO ensures that the financial risks, planning and reporting are in order.  Being a person overseeing the flow of money in an organization means you are supervising not just an important touchpoint but a very sensitive one. That’s where empathy comes in.  Driving high performance isn’t always directly proportional to a heavy financial chest, it’s really about using what you have to achieve your goals with proper people management. This is because finances isn’t always the problem but a symptom of the problem – you can throw money at a problem and you will end up with an expensive problem until you address the underlying issues. A CFO knows that finance is to an organization as blood is to the human body.  Finances gives life to the organization.  The CFO must grasp the critical importance of managing the material resource alongside the human resource that requires it to function.  Having a high intelligence quotient will definitely get you the job as a CFO but empathy enables you to make decisions that are in the overall best interest of the organization.  This episode presents insight CFOs can apply to drive peak performance in their space.  

Without question, technology continues to shape the world. It is one of the most important drivers of growth in the 21st century.  Tech has seen this generation soar to heights only imagined by those in much earlier eras. The fast paced speed of innovation and the attendant disruption that we have witnessed in real time gives credence to the power of the digital age where almost anything is possible. Being a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for an organization is a critical role and it places huge responsibilities on any such person to not just position the organization in a strategic niche in the tech universe where it exists but as to steer it towards new worlds of possibilities.  Empathy then becomes an indispensable trait for navigating these dynamic paths and achieving top level performance with the available human and material resources. In the workplace, the CTO has to plot how to infuse tech into the playbook of the organization such that things are done faster, cheaper, better and at best practice.  As a C-level executive, CTOs are immersed in the design and strategic planning of the organization – particularly with how tech can enable outcomes and produce top tier results.  The CTO should be able to apply the following strategies to drive peak performance.

Organizations are set up primarily to harness the human and material resources at their disposal in a productive and profitable manner.  In a simplistic description, profit is the difference between an organization’s revenues and its costs. In another simplistic description, revenue for an organization is derived by multiplying the unit price of its products and services by the number of units sold.  This background is very important because the sustained existence of an organization is predicated on its ability to successfully communicate the value of their offerings to their respective stakeholders for profitable exchange. Emotional intelligence then becomes a very necessary tool for Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) to have because for example, buying decisions for customers are driven more by emotions than by logic.  It is therefore imperative that CMOs constantly push the needle in terms of finding ways to connect and influence the decisions of these stakeholders in a way that drives peak performance.  Beyond just the bottom line and other quantitative metrics, other qualitative outcomes will be improved by the right application of some the insights in this episode.

The role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) is a very important role in any organization, it is a role that is usually considered as second-in-command to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).  It is typically one of an enforcer – someone who ensures that the strategic objectives are distilled into work plans and also efficiently implemented.  This means to a large extent that, the productivity of the organization is the responsibility of the COO, thus his or her ability to oversee the entire production process is key. That’s where the magic of emotional intelligence comes in, managing people and processes requires not just a great deal of self-awareness but awareness of others in the workplace.  This episode shares simple but very profound ways COOs can use emotional intelligence to enhance the operational efficiency of their organizations.

One of the most important roles in an organization is that of Human Resources Officer, the stakes are even higher when the role is Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO). This role is directly responsible, amongst other things for the management of the entire workforce – employee experience, individual performance and corporate productivity. Most organizations have competent human resource officers, only a few can boast of human resource officers that are emotionally intelligent. Chief Human Resources Officers are not your everyday Manager, they are Human Resources Officers that oversee the activities of other human resource officers in the organization. This implies that if a CHRO gets it wrong, a lot of things can go south in any such organization.  Managing human beings is one of the most complicated job descriptions in the corporate world, however there is a science to it and if the principles are applied correctly – it can be a both a rewarding and productive venture. People generally act on their emotions more than they do on their logical thinking, the CHRO who seeks to drive peak performance should realize this and use emotionally intelligent ways of channelling those emotions into measurable outcomes.  This is because when you understand why a person acts in a particular way, it is much easier to direct their energies, impulses and proclivities to activities that meet your productivity metrics. This episode provides Chief Human Resources Officers some insights for applying Emotional Intelligence to drive Peak Performance.

Entrepreneurs literally make the world go round; they create value from organizing human and material resources with the hopes of profits and other business goals. In embarking on this quest, they invariably create solutions in exchange for compensation from users and other stakeholders. This introduction is very important in highlighting the important role entrepreneurs play in defining the world. Whilst business intelligence is quintessential to the making of successful entrepreneurs, one of the skills necessarily for effectively managing people and material is emotional intelligence. No matter how successful an entrepreneur is, the introduction of emotional intelligence will exponentially increase desirable outcomes. This is because emotional intelligence makes you aware of yourself and others – when that happens demand and supply becomes a natural consequence. Entrepreneurs are always on the prowl, looking for gaps in the market – what people need. Daniel Goleman five components of emotional intelligence speaks directly to the entrepreneur’s need to weaponize market intelligence: self-awareness – the ability to understand your own emotions and how they affect the people around you, self regulation – the ability to effectively manage and express your emotions, intrinsic motivation – one's personal drive to improve and achieve, empathy – the ability to understand how others are feeling and social skills – the ability to develop a strong rapport with others.

It is team work that makes the dream work – the inability of organizations to be cohesive is antithetical to the purpose of their very existence. Organizations are so named because they aggregate human and material resources to meet the needs of a market in a profitable manner. It is expected and almost inevitable that in every sphere of human interaction, friction and conflict will be present.  The different attitudes, worldviews and proclivities come to bear whenever people converge to achieve a result. Andrew Chignell posits thus: “Emotional Intelligence refers to someone’s ability to perceive, understand and manage their own feelings and emotions.” This simple yet powerful perspective captures the core of emotional intelligence which is critical to any team’s success; when people know better they generally do better – when team members know themselves and others better, their output is generally better.  This episode provides a few insights you can adopt to promote emotional intelligence in your team.

To quote the immortal words of John C. Maxwell, “everything rises and falls on leadership”. Emotional intelligence is such a fundamental requirement for executive management such that without it their performance will be greatly stunted. Managing people and resources requires specific skill sets that enables productivity and profitability because the decisions that are taken on critical issues have immediate and future impact on the fortunes of the organization you lead. Being emotional is one thing, being emotionally intelligent is another thing altogether. Many leaders fail to realize that many decisions are made from a place of emotions and if those emotions are not educated, the dysfunction and chaos that will be unleashed in the workplace is better imagined.  Executive management especially has to come to terms with its ability to interact with the subordinate levels of leadership in a cohesive manner via the agency of emotional intelligence.  This episode presents you some helpful insights that will enable you leverage Emotional Intelligence to improve your leadership. 

Being a director in any organization is no mean feat, it means you are a leader of leaders. This is because amongst other duties, you pilot the affairs of a boardroom where C-level executives sit to take critical decisions that will affect the fortunes of the organization.  You’re not dealing with greenhorns who you have to constantly school, you are dealing with people who have in their own rights earned their seat at the table. Emotional intelligence for directors then means that you will be managing egos more that you will be managing competences. The insights in this episode will enable you apply Emotional Intelligence to achieve peak performance in your role as a Director.