Top Tips To Leverage Emotional Intelligence For A Stronger Workforce

A growth mindset breeds success

New Zealand made wellness waves earlier this year when the country mandated paid time off for employees who experience a miscarriage. The landmark decision led other countries such as the UK to weigh whether to follow suit.

 

At YuLife, we have introduced a similar policy – offering paid leave for up to five working days to parents, who have miscarried.
 
The miscarriage policy conversation comes amid a larger discussion about the role of emotional intelligence in managing a business. Even in a results-driven working environment, compassion towards colleagues and employees should be the rule, not the exception, even beyond the fact that it stands as a central motivator for good work.

A primary inspiration for the way I think about approaching business challenges was Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfill Your Potential Dweck, a Stanford University professor explores the idea that people can be categorized into two different types of mindsets – a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.
 
A fixed mindset adheres to the notion that people are born with a fixed “level” of intelligence, aligning with their fixed place in the world. The problem is that this mindset leads people to devote much of their energy towards proving their worth and intelligence, which can create a toxic culture marked by fear of trying, fear of failure, and a nearly bottomless need to seek personal validation by way of others’ approval.

On the other hand, a growth mindset accepts that all of us, no matter how we come into the world, is a continual work in progress, infused with the capacity to grow and constantly improve in our emotional intelligence. Learning and self-betterment are lifelong endeavors, not one-offs, and they feed into the larger vein that runs through our lives – the desire to grow, individually and collectively.
 
It is the latter of these two mindsets that business leaders should embrace. And part of adopting a growth mindset requires accepting that we don’t know everything we need to know at present.

So how can companies incorporate this approach into the day-to-day machinations of their organization? One way is by injecting a sense of wellbeing and empathy into everyday internal communications. Examples include kicking the week off with focused meetings to create space for “mindfulness minutes” or offering life coaching as a valuable workplace benefit.
 
The key to effectively integrating emotional intelligence into the workplace is a consistent and holistic approach. It cannot be something that gets switched on and off, depending on the situation. That means, for client-facing organizations, businesses shouldn’t abandon these principles when working with clients. Active engagement from employees is far more likely when empathy is an integral part of the company character.
 
This holistic approach is crucial now more than ever before because employees increasingly expect empathic emotional intelligence to be a vital feature in the workplace. In fact, some two in five (38%) of employees think that their employers’ attitudes to employee wellbeing will improve in the wake of the pandemic. So, to match employee expectations and retain top talent, employers will have to up their game.

Everywhere you look, evidence of the importance of emotional intelligence abounds. In recent weeks, the eyes of the world were trained on the planet’s biggest sporting event: The Olympic games. Amidst the usual athletic pomp and circumstance, one of the Olympics’ most notable storylines were that of star performers like Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka openly discussing and prioritizing their mental health.
 
Whenever there is talk of creating new norms, there is no greater catalyst than when high-profile individuals in the greatest possible public pressure cookers make a point to create a culture of empathy and emotional intelligence. If our role models can do it, then we can as well.
 
So, how exactly can leaders make the shift into a growth mindset? My suggestion is to begin from a place of openness and try imagining what it would be like to adopt a mindset aside from the one you currently inhabit.

Growth stems from the ability to admit that we need to grow in the first place. Of course, no one is perfect – we are all vulnerable in our own ways, and there is no one answer to any one of our inhibitions. Yet by encouraging peers and coworkers to achieve their aims in life as a step along the path to achieving our own, we can grow together. As people, as communities, and as businesses, a growth mindset breeds success.