Strong “Emotional Intelligence” and “Listening Skills” are critical for Staffing Firm leaders to make balanced decisions, cultivate a “can-do’ culture and build for the future during this time. Emotional intelligence is a term that relates to identifying and making best use of both yours and your team’s so tasks are performed more efficiently. It can have a profound impact on your decision-making skills in three ways.
First, it helps remove the dread of making decisions. Emotional intelligence helps you put fear aside that can cause inaction. That does not mean that you will make decisions with no emotion, which is impossible because were human. It does however help you identify which emotions are useful and relate directly to a decision that needs to be made, so you can isolate the ones that do not.
Second, it helps you recognize emotional decisions. These are very strange times worldwide and uncertainty can lead to rash decisions. Emotional intelligence will help you determine if the decisions your considering are motivated in a good emotional framework. Consider the impact of your decisions to prevent making rash decisions. This allows you to be more centered and able to recognize the core emotional influences of your decisions.
Third, if eventually removes emotions that do not belong to your decision-making process. Emotional intelligence lets you do something very useful, even if your decision was initially flawed. You then respond to the problem by removing non-constructive emotional influences so you do not scrap a decision that can provide you with a positive outcome for your business.
In addition to emotional intelligence, a can-do culture is created when leaders improve their ability to effectively listen. Listening transforms relationships, improves team performance, makes your employees feel valued and will attract more business.
If you talk more than listen, here are some ways to improve your listening skills. Start out by telling the truth especially now. Your employees know this is a new normal and they will sense BS from a mile away. There must be transparency, starting with the top.
Next, ask the best questions to uncover what is most important to your team. Then teach your recruiters how to ask the best questions of their candidates and account executives to determine what is most important to their prospects and clients before pitching. Listen to their answers before proposing your solution.
Lastly, reward transparency and thank people for bringing you the truth. Surround yourself with people who will challenges your ideas. A team dynamic that encourages diversity of thought and action will thrive, especially with this current environment of change.
To determine if you are properly utilizing emotional intelligence and listening as part of your culture, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do your employees think about creative solutions to challenges?
- Are ideas welcomed from everyone in your company, regardless of position?
- To you encourage candidate and client feedback?
- Have you taught your team to ask great questions?
- Are personal issues treated with compassion?
When emotional intelligence is properly implemented, and you create a can-do culture of listening you will create a culture of mutual respect and the performance of your team will improve.