| | September - 2023MANAGEHRMAGAZINE.COM19CXO InsightsWho Knew Retail Stores Could Help Identify Emerging LeadersIn the early nineties, a leading retailer launched an ad campaign "come see the softer side." The retailer was well known for their hard line departments such as hardware and lawn/garden. In an effort to highlight their "softer" lines of business, the apparel and home store ad campaign launched. Much like the retailer with hard and soft lines of business, Emotional Intelligence (EI) has both soft and hard competencies. Peak performance is achieved when both sets of competencies are mastered, which makes Emotional Intelligence (EI) a perfect tool to identify emerging leaders. Discipline and CommitmentWhen developing a strategy of how to identify emerging leaders, one method is to assess the individual's hard line performance and their soft skills. A balance between hard skills such as decision making, strategic thinking, independence, stress tolerance and soft skills such as empathy, emotional expression, emotional self-awareness and interpersonal relationships creates the foundation for peak performance. Recently I was working with an individual who asked why a team would need to get all soft and gushy when they are already a top performing business line. They confirmed the approach with their team is: Results, Results, Results. I explained it as an equation: A x E = R (Activity times Effectiveness = Results). If someone is not providing "R", do they need more activity or to be more effective at the activity to generate more results? Now take the same equation but substitute the "E" for Emotion. In EI, emotion is a feeling, which is not to be consumed with being emotional, which is defined as taking action on an emotion. Studies find that high performing employees with strong soft skills actually achieve higher performance results than employees with only hard skills. An analogy is hard skills are the tasks done day in and out, and create the foundation for a house. The soft skills are what makes the house a home. When conducting training classes, I frequently correlate exercise to learning. When you exercise, there is resistance which can be uncomfortable in the moment but increases your strength overtime. The same can be said for learning; if you are not exercising your mind muscle, you are not learning DIP INTO LEADERSHIP:IDENTIFYING EMERGING LEADERS DURING A TIME OF CHANGEBy Lisa Hutcherson, SVP Director of Human Capital Strategies SHRM-CP, CPTM, First Federal Bankwhich means you are not strengthening your knowledge or skills. True introspection can be uncomfortable, but the insights gained to improve your self-happiness and the overall impact on others makes the effort worthwhile. Getting in touch with your softer side can be laborious because identifying and accepting areas that need to be developed are not part of our normal way of being. If the recent health environment has taught us anything, we must learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. We need to be true to ourselves and make a commitment to be disciplined, be open to self-introspection and apply honest perspective. Introspection - You Can Change the Spots on a LeopardEveryone can be an emerging leader whether soft skills are strong, or being developed. Learning to slightly adjust how you view and approach situations and apply soft skills can be simple. Ever played the game Googly Eyes where you change the lenses in the glasses and try to guess what the image is on the card? Every day we wear perspective glasses but often forget to change the lenses. Perspective is not right or wrong; it is merely different ways of viewing situations. To begin seeing a different perspective, you need to change your lenses to see others point of view as they have had different life experiences from you. Committing to learn how to see different perspectives will help you approach situations in another way, will improve interpersonal relationships, self-control, social perception and effectiveness, self-regard and self-awareness. In order to learn how to see different perspectives you must commit to self-introspection. Being truthful and honest with oneself will help you uncover and recognize the triggers that cause you not to change the lenses in your perspective glasses. Effectively changing the perspective lenses deepens your understanding of where the other person is coming from and what influences or triggers are at the core of your position or response. With this new found perspective of empathy comes commitment, introspection, and a strengthening of emotional intelligence skill resulting in true behavioral change. This is the
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