Increase This Trait to Be a Better Leader

Summary: Being able to understand your emotions and those of others will help you become a stronger leader.

Ever wonder what makes a leader great? There may be someone in your office that you admire for their leadership skills and if so, their likely are things you have noticed about this person that set them apart from everyone else. This person has probably spent a lot of time and effort into becoming the leader that they are. Developing their emotional intelligence can be a skill that many struggle with.

To effectively build your emotional intelligence, follow these tips:

– Make a feelings journal

Just as if you were following a diet, keep track of your emotions for a week. This will help you start to see patterns in how actions affect your emotions.

– Assess

Once a week of logging your emotions has passed, highlight the trends that stand out. The trends you discover may be that you are emotionally strong until your mid-afternoon hunger attack or that in the mornings you are always cranky until 10 a.m.

– Goals

Now that you know what sets you off, you can work towards setting goals to address them. It may be that you need to pack a power snack for the afternoons so that you can keep working or schedule meetings after 10 a.m.

– Accountability

Reaching our goals and forming them into a part of our permanent routine can be difficult. Establishing someone that you report to and holds you accountable is important. Ask a family member or best friend to be that person for you.

– Repeat

Keep repeating this steps as often as needed to continue to strengthen your emotional intelligence.

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