A different perspective… We invite you to consider what makes a good manager. Is it someone who listens to your issues when you're struggling? Is it someone who communicates with you in a way that feels comfortable and easy to engage with? Is it someone who motivates you to grow and challenge yourself in new ways?
For many years, hard skills used to be the measure of an exceptional hiring candidate. Today, we’re taking a different perspective—soft skills.
At Fisheye Learning, we know how important it is to focus on building your team members’ soft skills. Building skills for better communication, collaboration, critical thinking, empathy, and emotional intelligence are key elements in building effective teams. A soft skill that we like to focus on is developing emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand your own and your teammate’s emotions, and to make intentional decisions considering these emotions.
American psychologist Daniel Goleman defines emotional intelligence with five key components…
- Self-awareness – understanding your emotions
- Self-regulation – being able to resolve conflict
- Motivation – working towards personal goals
- Empathy – understanding others’ emotions
- Social skills – building a strong rapport with teammates
“When senior managers at one company had a critical mass of emotional intelligence capabilities, their divisions outperformed yearly earnings goals by 20%” (Harvard Business Review Press). The research shows that it’s worth investing in building our emotional intelligence to build better teams.
What does that mean for Fisheye Learning? We want to look at teams holistically. How can managers show empathy to their supervisees? How can team members build a strong rapport with their teammates? Practicing active listening can be the basic strategy in building better communications. Integrating ongoing conflict mediation trainings can help teammates settle potential issues.
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