How to Coach Yourself and Others Influencing, Inter Personal and Leadership Skills | Seite 104

scream, give a hand gesture, or possibly you may find yourself wanting to “ram the
jerk.”
But since you are a rational person, you allow a split second for your neocortex to
process this information and decide just to let the fool go on his way and be thankful
that he didn’t cause an accident. In this case, you assert discipline over yourself
(hippocampus memory says slow down) to enable reason (neocortex brings a rational
perspective) to override a potential negative reaction behavior. The old saying “better
think twice before you do something you’ll regret” provides a practical example of the
self-management associated with EQ. Of course much of our self-management comes
from learned behavior. It’s very possible that your ability to respond with high EQ to the
traffic situation above may be related to a time in the past when you operated a vehicle
in foolish manner or perhaps just a good understanding of the dangers of road rage.
Research on negative leadership behaviors offer compelling examples of how
emotionally-based reactive behaviors lead to executive derailment and what one could
logically term low EQ. For example, an executive who perceives a threat when someone
disagrees with his logic and then reacts with hostility soon cuts himself off from any
reality feedback or “bad news.” (You’ve probably heard the joke about the graveyard
outside the boss’s office where they bury the messengers who bring bad news.)
Derailment can also occur when a pro-active behavior response is overdone because it
eventually leads to negative results. For example, assertiveness (Proactive behavior of
anger) can provide energy and focus to get things done. However, when overdone, it
can become controlling even without being hostile. Likewise, the pro-active behavio "