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achieve. So if someone has a weak level
of emotional intelligence, their actions will
be affected, and their outcomes will be
affected, so they will not be as successful
in achieving any task within increasingly
complex workplaces.
AIM and partner organisation Genos
International conducted a survey of 4000
participants on their emotional intelligence
levels in which each participant was rated by
three or four people in their workplace on
emotional intelligence performance. How
do you measure emotional intelligence in
the workplace?
Human skills, in terms of communication
and controlling your emotions and using
those emotions to get the best outcomes
from a certain task, are going to be critical
if you are to be highly effective in any
area – certainly in higher education or the
education industry as a whole.
What are the potential consequences of
disregarding emotional intelligence in terms
of future job opportunities and also success
in a current role?
Being able to control, understand and
manage your emotions is critical in terms
of the effect those emotions have on your
behaviours and actions, and the effect
your behaviour and actions then have on
the outcomes of what you’re trying to
You’ve previously called for businesses to
invest in soft skills training. What would that
look like at a university, and what case could
someone working there make for such
training?
Well, I think it’s twofold. The first is that
the university as an organisation must
work effectively not only across different
areas of the university – so that people
communicate well and effectively with
The most important
skills for people to learn are
the human skills.
It’s interesting. Genos has a very robust
tool for measuring someone’s emotional
intelligence. Essentially, it allows people
to understand where they’re at in terms of
their emotional intelligence in six different
areas, as it is perceived by others, which is
incredibly important in terms of improving
how you control and manage and
understand your emotions.
So, participants have a 360-degree
survey and get feedback on the different
levels of their emotional intelligence. They
then learn how they can improve across
key areas. each other so their behaviours are better,
and their outcomes are better – but also,
so the employees of the university can
interact more effectively with students and
have better engagement, and can control
their emotions so their actions are more
positive. This, again, creates better student
outcomes. So both things are incredibly
important for a university, as they are in any
organisation.
What did that research reveal about what
colleagues said about the participants? Short of receiving training, how can people
boost their emotional intelligence at work?
The biggest outtakes were that the results
across a very wide spectrum were relatively
poor. I’ll go through the top three least-
demonstrated behaviours because they’re
particularly interesting.
The first was that they do not
demonstrate the behaviour of asking others
for feedback on their leadership. That is not
a surprise to me, but certainly something
which a lot of people shy away from. But
it’s an incredibly important attribute of
leadership.
The second was that people do not
adjust their styles so that it fits well with
others – another skill which can be taught
in terms of being an effective leader.
To understand somebody else’s position,
and then to position yourself better in line
with that person, is essential to getting the
best outcome from a task where there are
strong relationships and a strong team.
Thirdly, and related to the first one, is
reflecting on feelings when in decision-
making. So, again, it’s about understanding
how other people feel before making
decisions. This also can be taught within
emotional intelligence training. There are a few key areas, and it comes
down to, firstly, awareness about how you
are perceived. Obviously, you can get that
awareness by asking people very straight-
up questions about what the good and
bad parts of your leadership are. Now, that
might be quite a confronting thing to ask,
but there needs to be a level of awareness
before improvement can be made.
The second thing is focusing on the
positives, and looking at things in a positive
light. If we’re positive, the chances are our
actions and behaviours are going to be
positive. The outcome is going to be more
positive than if things are looked at in a
negative light.
Another key tool is learning to listen.
The thing I think a lot about as a good
place to start is, rather than reacting,
which we do about 80 per cent of the
time, we should learn to pause and reset
before communicating. Then we can
really get away from some of the negative
emotions which are being pushed towards
us. We can pause, stop and make a clean
communication which focuses on positive
attributes. ■
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