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Dear Genos E.I Practitioners,

We hope you had a great start into the New Year. We wish you all to discover, grow and spread light in your work and in your life. Happy 2020!

With this in mind, our focus in this first EI Newsletter this year, is Selfawareness, the fundamental EI competency. We will share with you an article written by one of our best coaches and a very interesting Case-study. Then, some exciting news on our next trainings on EI.

Happy reading!

The article we would like to highlight this time focuses on the first and foremost EI competency, Self-awareness. This choice of words is deliberate as, to be able to demonstrate all the other EI competencies, we need to develop higher levels of Self-awareness in all aspects of our life and work. Think of Self-awareness as the starting point of all Emotional Intelligent behaviours. In fact, I really like the title of Michael Bank’s article: A great leader’s primary responsibility: to be self-aware. It is a responsibility indeed!

Here follows an expert. Should you wish to read the whole article, please visit Michael Banks’ LinkedIn Page here.

“The foundation stone and ‘sine qua non’ of Emotional Intelligence is Self-Awareness. It is the basis of great leadership. The kind of leadership that creates a safe environment in which people can freely express themselves, learn together and achieve amazing things. The kind of leadership that inspires commitment, loyalty and love. Leadership that engages employees at all levels.

Let’s explore how self-awareness leads to this kind of leadership.

The practice of Mindfulness is popular these days and is about developing the capacity to observe one’s feelings and thoughts as they flow one’s present reality. However, being mindful and self-aware is a state of being not doing.

How can we apply self-awareness in a very practical behavioural way to leadership? What skills related to self-awareness can be effectively employed in organizational life?

The key is to be ‘present’ at any time and in any place, whatever you’re doing. Pay attention in the moment to the feelings you experience in your body, the emotions, body sensations and the thoughts and judgements that are passing through your mind.

Greater self-awareness has practical ramifications in organizational life. If your desire as a leader is to enrol your people in collaborating to create a learning environment it’s important to be aware of the thoughts and feelings that may trigger you to cause negative outcomes. Stress can lead to poor communication behaviours, unless you are self-aware enough to know how it’s affecting you and how it can bleed out into the way you speak to others around you. Then you can manage yourself accordingly.

Apart from being present and mindful, feedback is the most important way in which one can develop self-awareness. A very senior executive at a global bank had a reputation for being a cold, insensitive bully and, criminally, none of her managers had ever given her feedback about her impact. Her behaviour was causing massive organizational problems affecting thousands of employees. She spent a very shocking and painful day listening to the verbatim feedback comments of colleagues around her. After this transformational experience her PA, who she reduced to tears on a regular basis, called me to ask what magic I had used to change her. She had gone into the office the day after the feedback session and the executive had hugged her and apologized for all the hurt, she had caused. And the culture of polarizing fear and breakdowns in communication across divisions began to disappear to the benefit of the whole global division of the bank. No magic: just powerful feedback had caused this shift in self-awareness.

Of course, these are extreme examples of feedback and a learning organization is one in which giving and receiving feedback on a regular basis is encouraged from the top down to engender learning and growth.

The leader sets the tone for a feedback rich culture and his/her job is to minimize fear. Co-creation and collaboration throughout the organization only occurs when you can trust that it’s OK to admit mistakes, as well as take up unpopular positions, criticize ideas, policies and strategies held by others especially senior leaders. This requires the leader to be aware of his or her own defensiveness, insecurity and so on and welcome feedback instead of suppressing and punishing. A leader who is self-aware and employs that awareness effectively in service of his or her organization tends to be compassionate, empathetic, humble, authentic and can laugh at themselves. This endears him or her to people and inspires them to give of their best.

A high degree of self-awareness in leaders can make a massive difference to organizational culture and performance.”

In preparing to write this article I asked my partner Karin what the word authenticity meant to her and the first thing she said was “Being true to yourself”. I then looked up various dictionary definitions and found the following: “The quality of being real or true” (Cambridge University), “Sincere and authentic with no pretensions” (Merriam Webster) and “The quality or state of being authentic; reliability; genuineness.” (Collins).

Authenticity also happens to be one of my three core values in life. It is the third skill in the GENOS Model of Emotional Intelligence. And as Laura Vanderkam wrote recently in Fast Company, “It’s a hot word in leadership discussions these days.” And it should be! In these times of media and political disingenuity and manipulation are not people desperate to be led by leaders who are authentic?

So what’s it like being around someone who’s authentic? Typically you feel refreshed, excited, energized and alive! This is because the energy of that person is clean and relatively uncluttered. By this I mean that she or he is not efforting to impress, to get your approval, to control you and so on. There’s no ‘agenda’ so you don’t feel manipulated, or only given a certain degree of truth and openness. And you feel comfortable to be more yourself in that person’s presence. That leader’s authenticity is giving you permission to liberate yourself and be free too. You resonate to it: there’s a relief in not having to be anything other than true to yourself and others

As we know in business, as in life, trust is crucial. And it’s a lot easier to trust someone who is authentic than someone who is holding back or not being open and straightforward.

So if you’re in a leadership role you will generate trust, loyalty and commitment if you exhibit these characteristics. You will create an environment of minimal fear and distrust that enables people to blossom and give of their best because you are being an exemplar of authenticity.

What is it about authentic leaders that makes them so attractive and magnetic? They set the standard for inspiration, charisma, trust and self-realization. We admire them and are drawn to them. We want to be around them and feel most alive when we are. They do not spend their time using up a lot of their energy in NOT being themselves; instead they maximize their energy in being effective without being held back by trying to do ‘the right thing’ or being false or fake.

All great so far. But being authentic is not about giving yourself licence to ‘be real’ without consideration for the feelings of others. Simply venting or expressing anger because you’re being authentic doesn’t necessarily lead to positive results. The key is to be ‘Skillfully Authentic’. We all know people who are authentically wild and eccentric but that doesn’t usually lead to success in the boardroom or client meeting! You need to be appropriate to each situation and make wise decisions about how you manifest your truth.

When it comes to the behaviors associated with authenticity and how they relate to the corporate world the GENOS six part model of Emotional Intelligence is particularly instructive. The third skill in the GENOS wheel is Authenticity which “Is about openly and effectively expressing oneself, honoring commitments and encouraging this behavior in others. It involves honestly expressing specific feelings at work, such as happiness and frustration, providing feedback to colleagues about the way you feel, and sharing emotions at the right time, to the right degree, and to the right people. People high in authenticity are often described as “genuine’ whereas people low in this skill are often described as ‘untrustworthy’.”

People say “But surely if you’re tailoring your communication to your audience you’re not being authentic”. Not so. If you accept that the primary definition of authenticity is to be true to yourself then you can know your truth and then make choices about what to do with that truth. If your intentions are good and you’re being genuine to yourself then you’re being skillfully authentic in the best sense – choosing actions and communication that are designed to achieve the best possible outcome for everyone involved.

The heart of authenticity is being true to yourself and then expressing that externally to the world in a skillful and constructive way.

Given that authenticity is such a key attribute of great leadership why do so many struggle to be that way? And how can one be more authentic?

I’m afraid there’s no magic bullet. It can take years to become confident enough in yourself to be your authentic self. Many report that as they grow older they care less about what others think of them. They start relaxing and letting go of their youthful attempts to impress, appear strong, gain approval, manipulate their way to success and countless other strategies that are borne out of insecurity and fear.

But if you apply yourself you can accelerate authenticity and become a better leader.

Here are some tips:

• Acknowledge your truth to yourself. This requires constant practice and vigilance but the reward is that you become more genuine towards others.
• Be conscious of your own tendency to self deceive; notice the tricks your mind plays on you.
• Be conscious of your truth and how you sometimes avoid acting on it.
• Be courageous about expressing your truth.
• And remember, don’t try to be like anyone else!

Stress can run high in the workplace. As managers you need to develop your self-awareness, understand and deal with your own stress and emotions so as not to impact negatively on your team. And not only that, you need to be able to recognize and deal also with your team’s stress. In a way, it is a circular process. The GENOS Model of Emotional Intelligence clearly helps making sense of this connection involving three fundamental EI competencies:Self-awareness, Self-management, and Awareness of others.

By being self-aware you become present and therefore able to manage your own mood and feelings. That will help you impact positively on others by noticing them and their feelings, and thus being able to understand if they need help to deal with pressure.

Here are the strategies suggested by the author.

1. CHUNKING INFORMATION

Chunking helps employees break down the overwhelm they are experiencing. This process involves breaking down information into smaller units that are easier to process. Having more manageable chunks of information can reduce the cognitive load.

For example, if a teammate is falling behind or producing low-quality work, pull him or her aside for a private meeting that brings up every day work pressures. Help this individual see that he or she might be trying to do too many things at once.

A senior executive once approached me because she felt like a bad mother and an inferior worker, but she didn’t want to give up either role. She said that work overwhelmed her, and she took this stress home with her. However, when she learned how to chunk tasks, she felt less burdened. Her brain, rather than sounding an alarm that she needed to complete a massive project, was much calmer. She knew that she only needed to address a chunk of it in a given time frame.

2. IGNORING MENTAL CHATTER

We all need to learn to ignore mental chatter. This requires an understanding of how to be mindful. Mindfulness helps the brain control emotional overwhelm. When someone is overthinking, the brain overheats, and being mindful helps it cool down.

Encourage teammates to set aside 5 to 15 minutes each day to close their eyes, attend to their breathing, and practice bringing their attention back to each breath every time their mind wanders. While this can be challenging at first, the exercise will bring serenity to overactive mental chatter.

3. CHECKING IN WITH REALITY

A reality check requires us to analyse using self-talk. When we face bad news or an aggressive deadline, it is easy to feel as though the situation is going to last forever.

If a team member is going through a stressful situation, encourage them to bring themselves back down to Earth with positive reality-check statements, such as “This too shall pass.” Third-person language can make this more efficient. Sure, this might seem silly at first, but taking the time to pause and recalibrate is much better than allowing the overwhelm to grow

4. ACKNOWLEDGING WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL

The control step is similar to a serenity prayer. It leans on knowing what can and cannot be controlled, which can ultimately improve well-being. To implement this in the workplace, learning to say “no” to energy wasters is just as important as saying “yes” to critical tasks. For this step, motivate yourself and others to ask, “How can I let go of things that I cannot control or things that waste my energy?” One approach to find such answers is asking what one would advise someone else to do in the current situation. This sense of objectivity can jog thought processes to come up with solutions outside of the current restrictive mindset.

5. SHIFTING YOUR ATTENTION

Attention implies that individuals must learn how to become unstuck from problems and seek solutions instead. When we are anxious, it’s natural to ruminate on things. However, it is possible to learn how to disengage from the worry. One way to do this is to designate worry-free times each day and encourage others to do the same. Even taking just 30 minutes to go out for a walk helps us be in a more solution-forward mind-set. This step allows us to unwind and, in turn, clear our minds of thoughts that influence analysis paralysis.

As a leader, you can follow these five steps and strive to nip employee overwhelm in the bud. Leading your employees through this process will not only help them better manage overwhelm in their lives. It will also free their minds, strengthen their valuable emotional skills, and improve your company.Disclaimer: the original article was written by Srini Pillay, MD and issued on FastCompany online. The version here has been adapted by PeopleSmart’s in-house EI Practitioners and Coaches.

People who seem to be unaware of other people and their needs. People who put their feet in their mouths and make tactless comments. Or people that when you say “I’m not feeling too good today” completely ignore this and quickly move on to another topic. How do these behaviors make you feel? Annoyed, upset, angry, even contemptuous at the levels of ignorance displayed.

Conversely, what about those people you warm to, who make you feel good about yourself, who are easily accessible and enjoyable to engage with? What is it about these kinds of people that creates these feelings in others?

In the GENOS International model of Emotional Intelligence after the competency of Self Awareness comes Awareness of Others. Here, on one end of the spectrum is Insensitivity and on the other is Empathy.

Let’s explore the roots of these differences and how you can move from insensitivity to empathy.

If you notice the times when you are oblivious to other people’s feelings you will notice also that you’re spending too much time in your head. By that I mean you’re being overly self-absorbed. It’s hard to appreciate what’s going on with other people when you’re in this state. I’m sure you know people who tend to talk a lot about themselves and their problems. What they say is often about everything that’s wrong with themselves, or sometimes everything that’s ‘great’ about themselves! Either way this is self-absorption in action and not conducive to good relations.

The key to increasing your perceptive capabilities is to choose to put your attention on others and what’s going on around you. This means directing your energy outwards and not inwards. It is a choice. And this is how to listen well. If you find yourself wandering off into your own world of thoughts you can bring yourself back into the moment. Again, you choose to do this. Of course you have to be aware enough to catch yourself in the moment and make that decision to re-engage with the ‘outside’ world. Performers do this. They literally bypass their minds and all the clutter it holds and project their energy outwards.

If you’ve ever done public speaking you know what happens when you worry about what people think of you. You lose connection with the audience. And fail to give of your best. This is because you’re ‘in your head’.

My first job after I left the very ‘heady’ and theoretical world of university was to work on an Adventure Playground in Peckham, South London. The manager there, Willie, had left school when he was 15 and had no formal qualifications. But he was very street savvy and I was really jealous of his ability to ‘read’ people. He was so perceptive: the opposite to me! Then, when I was 25, I had the good fortune to be given the opportunity to bust through the self-absorption borne of years of isolation in a cruel boarding school and four years in academia. Suddenly I was on a par with Willie. I had discovered the ability to go beyond my mind and reach out to better understand others and the world in general.

When sports people talk of being ‘in the zone’ they are referring to what the National Academy of Sports Medicine defines as “complete absorption in the activity, merge of action and awareness, loss of self-consciousness”.

In other words your attention is focused 100% on the ball, the game, your teammates and not on you! In a sense you are everything around you. That’s why Stefan Curry of the Golden State Warriors basketball team has ‘eyes’ in the back of his head when he makes a perfect behind the back ‘blind’ pass. In all human activities, in work and play, that heightened state of presence in the moment and connection to ‘other’ vs ‘self’ makes it easier to be more aware of others and how they are feeling.

Another way to increase your ability to empathize is to use difficult times as ‘empathy accelerators’. Your heart can open if you allow yourself to fully experience such conditions as pain, sadness and loss. This in turn can lead to increasing empathy, compassion and kindness; all key elements of Awareness of Others in the GENOS EI model. Wisdom can be gained from those times in your life when you have been ‘tenderized’. For example, in my case experiences such as kidney failure, financial meltdown and a near death experience helped me in this way. As you open up to yourself you can in turn become more caring and sensitive toward others.

By being sensitized to your own feelings while also taking your attention off yourself and putting it on to others you can become a better leader, manager, colleague and human being in life!

The foundation stone and sine qua non of Emotional Intelligence is Self-Awareness. It is the basis of great leadership. The kind of leadership that creates a safe environment in which people can freely express themselves, learn together and achieve amazing things. The kind of leadership that inspires commitment, loyalty and love. Leadership that engages employees at all levels.

Let’s explore how self-awareness leads to this kind of leadership:

The practice of Mindfulness is popular these days and is about developing the capacity to observe one’s feelings and thoughts as they flow one’s present reality. The Dalai Lama refers to this observing consciousness as the “fundamental innate wisdom of clear light”. The ability to observe yourself in action is central to being emotionally intelligent. Many people are now applying mindfulness to working in the corporate world.

However, being mindful and self-aware is a state of being not doing. How can we apply self-awareness in a very practical behavioral way to leadership? What skills related to self-awareness can be effectively employed in organizational life?

First, whether you meditate or not, the key is to be ‘present’ at any time and in any place, whatever you’re doing. Pay attention in the moment to the feelings you experience in your body, the emotions, body sensations and the thoughts and judgements that are passing through your mind. This is rich data that can inform your choices around decision making and how you communicate with others, how you manage yourself in the moment. You can practice being present and get better at it over time. And the better you get the more self-aware you’ll become.

Greater self-awareness has practical ramifications in organizational life. If your desire as a leader is to enroll your people in collaborating to create a learning environment it’s important to be aware of the thoughts and feelings that may trigger you to cause negative outcomes. Stress can lead to poor communication behaviors unless you are self-aware enough to know how it’s affecting you and how it can bleed out into the way you speak to others around you. Then you can manage yourself accordingly.

In this respect I distinguish between responding and reacting.

When you react, you are out of control, a victim of your feelings, thoughts, and attitudes. When you respond, you responsibly choose the outcome you want and choose what you say and how you say it to be appropriate to your desired outcome (no matter what feelings, thoughts, or attitudes you may have).

The ability to respond rather than react is a crucial factor in creating a trusting, safe work environment. For example, how can employees feel free to express their innovative ideas or their constructive suggestions if the CEO is defensive or aggressive?

So, very practically, you need to make sure that you listen and acknowledge, no matter what you’re thinking or feeling about comments you don’t agree with. In the heat of the moment decide what kind of communication would be appropriate to the situation. Then make sure that what you say is conducive to a positive outcome for both you and the other person or audience. This means making sure that your tone of voice, facial expressions and body postures are congruent with the message and result you want to achieve. This is emotionally intelligent communication. But it would not be possible without self-awareness.

Paying attention to these elements of yourself are crucial to how successful you are as a leader. I remember a CFO in Silicon Valley who instilled fear in everyone resulting in employees avoiding him even when they had important information to give him. Why were they scared? He never smiled! And he was unaware of this. Once he woke up to this habitual affect he started to smile and suddenly everyone found him so much more approachable and easy to deal with. Colleagues said: “He’s a different person now!”

Apart from being present and mindful, feedback is the most important way in which one can develop self-awareness. A very senior executive at a global bank had a reputation for being a cold, insensitive bully and, criminally, none of her managers had ever given her feedback about her impact. Her behavior was causing massive organizational problems affecting thousands of employees. She spent a very shocking and painful day listening to the verbatim feedback comments of colleagues around her. After this transformational experience her PA, who she reduced to tears on a regular basis, called me to ask what magic I had used to change her. She had gone into the office the day after the feedback session and the executive had hugged her and apologized for all the hurt she had caused. And the culture of polarizing fear and breakdowns in communication across divisions began to disappear to the benefit of the whole global division of the bank. No magic: just powerful feedback had cause this shift in self-awareness.

A Vietnamese General Manager of a biotech firm in Silicon Valley told me trustworthiness was his most important value. When he first entered the hotel room for his feedback session he checked to see if the door to the adjacent room was locked and looked down out of the window. When asked why he did this he said it was to check for possible escape routes. When he heard the feedback he was shocked that the majority of the people he led said he was untrustworthy! It was suggested to him that he was no longer in the war. This massive blind spot and its ramifications for his leadership disappeared as he became conscious of how the conditioning of his past had been determering his behavior in the present.

Of course these are extreme examples of feedback and a learning organization is one in which giving and receiving feedback on a regular basis is encouraged from the top down to engender learning and growth.

The leader sets the tone for a feedback rich culture and his/her job is to minimize fear. Co-creation and collaboration throughout the organization only occurs when you can trust that it’s OK to admit mistakes, as well as take up unpopular positions, criticize ideas, policies and strategies held by others especially senior leaders. This requires the leader to be aware of his or her own defensiveness, insecurity and so on and welcome feedback instead of suppressing and punishing. A leader who is self-aware and employs that awareness effectively in service of his or her organization tends to be compassionate, empathetic, humble, authentic and can laugh at themselves. This endears him or her to people and inspires them to give their best.

A high degree of self-awareness in leaders can make a massive difference to organizational culture and performance.