Emotional Intelligence and Project Leadership

NK Shrivastava and Phillip George, RefineM LLC

This month, we continue a series on critical leadership skills for project managers by highlighting the
importance of emotional intelligence in developing effective project leadership. We discuss the four core
components of emotional intelligence and share tips from experts about developing emotional
intelligence. Project leaders with high emotional intelligence can better recognize emotions in
themselves and others, label feelings appropriately, and guide their behavior. These skills translate to
more effective project leadership and more successful project teams.
Schedules, budgets, Gantt charts, and earned value management forecasts are a few of the many ways
to gauge a projects tangible health. However, the degree of emotion surrounding a project is often
ignored because it is intangible. While a project may appear to be making healthy progress, team
members may be experiencing low morale due to a heavy workload, or may be worried about the
project being derailed by high-impact risks. How do project leaders manage their own emotions, and
those of team members, on stressful projects?
Experts in the field of emotional intelligence, such as Dr. Daniel Goleman, study the links between
recognition and management of emotions and personal and business success. TalentSmart, a company
that tests emotional intelligence, reported that 90 percent of the high performers they tracked had high
emotional intelligence scores and only 20 percent of low performers had high scores. Performers with
high emotional intelligence scores and average IQ outperformed those with high IQ and average
emotional intelligence more than 70 percent of the time1. The research makes it clear that improving
emotional intelligence translates to personal and business success. In this article, we examine emotional
intelligence, describe its four core aspects, and share tips from experts to help project managers and
project leaders develop their own emotional intelligence.

1 TalentSmart (2016). About emotional intelligence. Accessed 18 November 2016 from http://www.talentsmart.com/about/emotionalintelligence.php.

www.refineM.com Contact@refineM.com 405 N. Jefferson Ave, Springfield, MO 65806 417.763.6762

What is Emotional Intelligence and why is it important?

Dr. Daniel Goleman defines emotional intelligence as the ability to manage ourselves and our
relationships effectively.2 Project managers and leaders need to exhibit solid organization and
communication skills to effectively lead teams. Self-management of emotions influences both traits.
Leaders who cannot manage their emotions are likely to be inconsistent in their leadership approaches
and communication styles, confusing followers. TalentSmarts research found that divisions with leaders
lacking in emotional intelligence competency tended to underperform their peers by an average of 20
percent, underscoring the importance of emotional intelligence not only to leaders, but also to teams.3
On a personal level, recognizing and managing emotions is critical because emotions play a pivotal role
in either breaking or reinforcing thought patterns. Humans produce many thousands of thoughts per
day, and while most are forgotten when the day ends, some that are rooted strongly in emotion will
persist. These thoughts lead to feelings that may trigger additional thoughts, and when feelings are
strong enough, they also trigger action. Over time, repeated actions create behavior, which molds
personality and generates new thoughts. These patterns can be difficult to break.
Emotional intelligence provides a pathway for people to approach their thought patterns in a positive
and constructive manner. For example, someone who has just failed an exam might feel despondent
and incapable of doing anything well. If this person reinforces the thought pattern over time, he or she
is likely to feel less confident overall. If the same person sees the failure as a setback, and looks for
opportunities to grow from it, he or she is more likely to grow. By harnessing emotional intelligence,
people can break out of negative thought patterns. Figure 1 on the next page shows how emotions can
influence thought patterns.

Figure 1. How emotions loop into thought patterns.

2 Goleman, Daniel (2000, March-April). "Leadership that gets results." Harvard Business Review.
3 TalentSmart (2016).

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What are the four core aspects of Emotional Intelligence?

Dr. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, authors of the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, define four core
aspects of emotional intelligence, separated into the two categories of personal competence and social
competence4. The personal competence category includes self-awareness and self-management
aspects, while the social competence category includes social awareness and relationship management
aspects. The categories further underscore the importance of improving both inwardly and outwardly. In
the following sections, we describe each of the four core aspects and skills included in each aspect, and
also share tips from Bradberry and Greaves about how to improve each aspect.
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is recognition of ones own emotions and how they impact overall performance, as well
as relationships with others. People who are angry all the time may not grasp the impact of their anger
until they realize that others avoid them or act scared or angry in response. Examples of self-awareness
traits or skills include self-confidence, self-worth, and the ability to realistically evaluate strengths and
weaknesses. Some tips to improve self-awareness include:
Dont treat emotions as good or bad. There are appropriate and inappropriate reasons to
express any emotion, including fear, sadness, anger, and happiness, among many others.
Recognizing emotions for what they aregood and badwill help people process them
properly.
Observe the ripple effect of emotions. People who are angry, as in the above example, may not
realize how their emotions affect others, and how those affected can in turn affect others, until
they stop and observe the ripple effect.
Dont be fooled by good or bad moods. Moods are temporary, but acting based on moods can
create or reinforce unhealthy thought patterns.
Self-Management
Self-management is the ability to regulate emotions and refrain from expressing them in unhealthy
ways. Self-management feeds off self-awareness in that awareness of emotions leads to the realization
that emotions will pass, but behavior based on emotions can create unhealthy thought patterns. Its
easy to envision someone expressing anger by shouting at someone or slamming a fist on a table, but
its also easy for people to express their emotions in unhealthy ways but affect only themselves. For
example, when people cheer themselves up from bad moods by getting fast food or buying soda or
candy, they may create behavior patterns that push them to solve bad moods with unhealthy food
and beverages.

4 Bradberry, Travis and Jean Greaves (2009). Emotional Intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA: TalentSmart

www.refineM.com Contact@refineM.com 405 N. Jefferson Ave, Springfield, MO 65806 417.763.6762

Examples of self-management traits or skills include self-control, trustworthiness, adaptability to

different situations, and taking initiative. Some tips to improve self-management include:
Breathe right. Breathing naturally can be reinforced by mindfulness meditation and is a quick
and easy way to regulate emotions.
Count to ten: In addition to breathing right, many people use some kind of mental cue, like
counting to ten, to reassert control of their emotions so they can go on with their day.
Sleep on it: If strong emotions persist, sometimes the best thing to do is delay any action until
the emotional storm passes.
Social Awareness
Social awareness, the first of two social competence core aspects, is about recognizing how important it
is to get along with others. It is like self-awareness turned outward, in that it deals with recognizing the
emotions of others and learning how to address the needs of others. Examples of social awareness
include being able to understand others perspectives, sense others emotions, understand and navigate
organizational politics, and understand and meet customers needs.
Clearly, people with strong social awareness skills are high-value contributors to any organization.
Recognizing how team members emotions manifest can provide clues to how they are feeling and how
conflicts based on their feelings can be resolved. Resolving conflicts builds trust in leadership and leaves
everyone feeling more empowered to contribute positively. Some tips for building social awareness
include:
Watch your body language: This tip is both for self-awareness and social awareness. So much of
communication is non-verbal that any inadvertent slights, such as not facing someone when
talking to them, or keeping too much or too little eye contact, can have greater impact than
words.
Practice the art of listening: Active listening is a powerful tool that bridges divides between
people. When people feel like they are being heard, they develop stronger connections.
Step into others shoes: Part of listening to people is learning how to empathize with them. The
act of setting aside ego and envisioning the experiences of others is more difficult than it
sounds, but it can help forge stronger connections.

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Relationship Management
Finally, relationship management measures skill in interacting with others. Examples include influencing
others, communicating effectively, developing others, building bonds, and fostering teamwork. Every
leader wants to excel in this core aspect, but doing so often requires many personal sacrifices. There is a
popular comic depicting a manager versus a leader, in which the manager sits on a throne and directs a
team to pull on a rope, while the leader gets out in front of the team and shows them the way. For
others to see the bonds as genuine, leaders need to try and be on their teams level whenever possible.
Tips for building strong relationship management skills include:
Have an open-door policy. People who make themselves accessible often create more
opportunities to forge strong relationships with team members and other stakeholders.
Sometimes being too open may allow for disruptive interruptions, so leaders may block some of
their own time for work they need to complete.
Be open and curious. People are more willing to build connections to those they see as having
actual interest in their own lives. Being open isnt about coaxing out topics people dont want to
discuss, but about finding opportunities to develop relationships based on common ground.
When you care, show it. Leaders and managers are often taught to remain aloof, which may
cause mismatches between team members and leaders based on emotion. For example, if a
team has just completed a major milestone and the leader is happy, he or she should feel free to
join in the celebration instead of just pointing the team to the next milestone.
Conclusion
Project success or failure can turn on more than just schedule or cost metrics. Team morale, which is
influenced by emotion, can also make or break a project. Project leaders with strong emotional
intelligence can curtail emotional responses within themselves, enabling them to better manage
emotions of their team members and keep their energy focused on project success. They can use their
emotions to build healthy and constructive thought patterns, rather than unhealthy and destructive
thought patterns.
One of the important takeaways from the study of emotional intelligence is that it is as much about selfimprovement as it is social improvement. Self-awareness and self-management are just as important as
social awareness and relationship management. Project managers and leaders who harness their own
emotions can more effectively address issues raised by others, resolve conflicts, communicate
effectively, and enable greater project success for their teams. For these reasons, studying emotional
intelligence is critical to project leadership success.
Do you want to learn more about how to develop your leadership skills as a project manager? Join us
for our free monthly webinars. Our series on leadership topics concludes in December with a webinar
on Key Leadership Skills.

www.refineM.com Contact@refineM.com 405 N. Jefferson Ave, Springfield, MO 65806 417.763.6762

References
1. Bradberry, Travis and Jean Greaves (2009). Emotional Intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA:
TalentSmart.
2. Goleman, Daniel (2000, March-April). "Leadership that gets results." Harvard Business
Review.
3. TalentSmart (2016). About emotional intelligence. Accessed 18 November 2016 from
http://www.talentsmart.com/about/emotional-intelligence.php.

www.refineM.com Contact@refineM.com 405 N. Jefferson Ave, Springfield, MO 65806 417.763.6762