As a manager, your team looks up to you for guidance, directions, and leadership. While you can learn all the technical skills in the world, that doesn’t necessarily make you a great leader.
For that, qualities like conflict resolution, fostering unity in the workplace, and the ability to motivate and inspire your subordinates are important to set your team up for success. And these skills depend on your emotional intelligence.
That’s why 52% of organisations account for emotional intelligence while hiring for senior management roles. These skills not only help you land a management role but also let you thrive in it. Plus, it aids team performance. Here’s how:
9 reasons managers need emotional intelligence for team success
Your technical expertise alone won’t suffice in inspiring and leading a successful team. Emotional intelligence is a basic skill that helps you connect with your team, move through challenges, and foster a constructive work environment.
What does EI really entail?
A 2023 study has revealed that “emotionally intelligent leaders improve both behaviors and business results and have an impact on work team performance.” With the help of an EI test, assessing this skill in future leaders becomes very easy.
Here’s why:
Better communication
As a manager, you must delegate tasks and act as the bridge between the company and the employees. Plus, team members will often come to you with their issues and questions.
Now, if there are misunderstandings or a lack of clarity in communication, the workflow will crumble. The employees will also lose their faith in your leadership and may just stop communicating their problems altogether.
Emotional intelligence lets you deeply understand employee challenges and facilitates clear communication. You can also be more responsive to their individual communication styles and personalise your approach accordingly.
Employees may hesitate to be direct with their questions or doubts. Practicing emotional intelligence makes you aware of non-verbal signals, such as body language and facial expressions. You can better gauge the emotional state of your team members and tailor your approach accordingly.
Emotional intelligence also lets you deliver constructive feedback without demotivating the employees. You become more careful with the tone, timing, and context of your remarks and provide actionable guidance on how they can perform better. This ensures that team members understand their goals and expectations clearly.
Stronger relationships
Even if your team has highly skilled workers, your company won’t benefit much if they don’t lack teamwork. For that, you must build strong, trust-based relationships as the manager. That way, your subordinates won’t hesitate to share ideas, ask questions, and offer help — crucial teamwork factors.
This can only be done when you create a safe space for employees where open dialogue is encouraged and lead by example. They create a culture where team members feel comfortable being genuine and honest, fostering trust.
Since emotionally intelligent managers are more open to ideas, they can hold constructive discussions. They understand the team members’ perspectives and make them feel respected, which is key to facilitating stronger workplace relationships.
EI also equips managers to be more inclusive, making people from different backgrounds and cultures feel safe. This further strengthens workplace connections, creating a winning work environment of mutual respect and collaboration.
Conflict resolution
Workplace conflicts are inevitable since people with different personalities, backgrounds, and values work together. As a manager, an important part of your job is to solve these conflicts so both parties feel respected and valued.
For this, you need high emotional intelligence. It lets you understand different perspectives without judgment and deliver resolutions without bias. You become more equipped to:
- Listen actively and compassionately to each party’s issues with the other
- Be calm and objective in tense situations, ensuring their emotions don’t escalate the dispute further
- Understand the context of the issues clearly
- Identify underlying issues so that recurring conflicts can be avoided
- Deliver balanced, fair, and transparent resolutions that satisfy both parties
As an emotionally intelligent manager, you will aim to address everyone’s needs rather than focusing on who’s right or wrong. Plus, employees feel more comfortable coming to you with their conflicts rather than letting it affect their teamwork. This lets you solve the problem before it impacts your team’s productivity.
Improved team morale and team performance
A report by Catalyst noted that 67% of employees with emotionally intelligent managers are often or always engaged in their jobs against only 24% of those with less empathic managers.
Why? Because emotionally intelligent managers recognise exactly what drives individual employees. You can tap into those factors and tailor your approach accordingly. This lets you design relevant rewards and encouragements for each team member, enhancing performance. For example, you can gift your team members personalised embroidered shirts to show appreciation and a sense of belonging.
Developing emotional intelligence also makes you more open to giving your team members autonomy to make decisions. This makes employees feel trusted and valued for their capabilities, boosting employee engagement.
Plus, high EI teaches you not to focus solely on the results but to celebrate your team’s efforts. Such positive reinforcement shows employees that you notice their hard work and encourages them to do better every day, keeping morale high. They become more engaged in their work and put in more effort, which, in turn, improves their performance over time.
Enhanced empathy
It’s difficult for your workers to be their best selves if they feel that their manager doesn’t understand or respect their life circumstances. They will be more likely to face burnout, reducing engagement and productivity.
In fact, a Gallup report shows that employees who experience workplace burnout often are 63% more likely to take a sick day and 2.6 times more likely to actively seek another job.
EI helps them empathise with employees going through difficult situations, fostering a shared understanding and emotional connection — one of the foundational aspects of effective leadership.
Empathic managers can put themselves in the employee’s shoes. It makes them:
- Understand the difficulties of employees genuinely
- Draw learnings from their own experiences with workplace challenges and emotions.
- Understand the personal and professional factors impacting the team members’ emotions
You try to learn about team members’ unique personalities, strengths, and challenges. This leads to more relevant guidance and task delegation, compassionate feedback delivery, and an overall supportive organisational culture. Employees feel safe enough to come to you with their issues. You can address them promptly, boost employee satisfaction, and maintain productivity.
Better decision-making
In the long run, team efficiency can be maintained only when balanced and informed decisions are made that uphold the interests of the organisation and team members.
Since emotionally intelligent managers consider how their decisions affect others, they can anticipate and solve potential team morale issues. Combining rational thinking and empathy, their decisions align with organisational goals while still maintaining the team’s well-being.
Empathic managers are also more self-aware, which lets them avoid biases and make decisions objectively. They can process a situation’s emotional and logical aspects, avoid impulsive reactions, and weigh potential risks and benefits carefully before making a choice. This leads to informed decision-making and results that keep the company profitable and the staff happy.
Increased adaptability
For continuous success, your team has to be adaptable to organisational and industry changes. However, it’s your job as a manager to simplify the transitions and maintain productivity during the process.
Emotional intelligence lets you understand your team’s concerns and reactions to such changes. You can address concerns, offer support, and relieve anxieties within the team, making the transition less disruptive and fostering the team’s adaptability.
Emotional intelligence will also help you regulate stress and stay calm during stressful situations. You can handle unforeseen situations with more resilience and guide your team so that they can adapt to challenges as they come.
Plus, emotionally intelligent managers are more open to constructive feedback and out-of-the-box ideas. That’s why it’s easier for them to pivot strategies and lead team members according to organisational demand and market changes.
Greater self-awareness
Your emotional intelligence will help you understand your emotions, frustrations, and triggers better. You can regulate them to avoid them from affecting your managerial duties.
Self-aware managers are also more in sync with their strengths and weaknesses. It makes them more confident and open to learning, cultivating leadership qualities like honesty, clear communication, and problem-solving.
EI equips you to take responsibility for your actions and decisions and acknowledge your mistakes openly. You don’t let your ego cloud your judgment. It sets a standard of accountability in the workplace, creating a ripple effect within the team. Your subordinates will be more inclined to accept and fix their mistakes, minimising disruptions and improving productivity.
Effective stress management
Since emotionally intelligent managers are more self-aware, they can identify stress triggers and emotional responses in themselves and their team. This lets them take proactive steps to manage stress and help the team with burnout before it escalates and affects productivity. They also delegate tasks according to the employee’s bandwidth, managing the risk of stress.
Practicing emotional intelligence lets you learn the importance of work-life balance for your and your team’s well-being. You will prioritise healthy boundaries, flexibility, and self-care, reducing stress levels. Emotionally intelligent managers also practice self-reflection, which helps them stay centered and reduce anxiety during stressful workplace situations.
Conclusion
One common trait between continuously successful teams is that its members feel seen, supported, and respected. Their workplace provides a purpose, a sense of belonging, and transparency.
Emotional intelligence lets you become a manager who can create such a nurturing environment. You must be mindful and compassionate about their struggles and boundaries, resolve conflicts with empathy, and make informed and balanced decisions while giving them every support they need to thrive in your company.
Author: Sanketee Kher – SaaS Writer, Codeless
Photo credit: StockCake
