The title may sound abstract, but to be a truly impactful leader in today’s world, Emotional Intelligence has proven to be where the real winners operate from.
Let us tell you why.
Emotional intelligence is becoming increasingly important in organizations because of the growing demands of society and the variety of stakeholders that must be communicated with effectively and authentically. People want to follow leaders that are responsible, inclusive and understanding, and employees won’t accept less than personal wellbeing in the workplace coming from the very top. Leadership today equals relationships. Genuine ones.
Your emotional intelligence, also called your emotional agility, sets the tone for the impact you have in the world and on the people around you. And whether you are a business leader or not, mastering your emotional agility is the pathway to inner peace.
What is Emotional Agility?
“Emotional Mastery is not about not losing our Center but rather how quickly we can come back to it.” – Marika Messager
Emotional agility is about being able to recognize our emotions triggered by external circumstances, and instead of being triggered, Choose how to respond in a way aligned with our values and desired outcomes.
Emotional agility is not about being emotionless. On the contrary, in order to be emotionally agile, you must be able to feel your emotions to completion, so you then act upon them from clarity and truth. If you try to ignore your emotions they will stay with you as stagnant contracting energy often expressing itself in the form of denial, frustration and anger.
Work those emotional muscles
Many business leaders come to us with a similar story; they ‘have it all’, a prestigious job, financial success, a loving family, but they feel no joy, no zest for life. When we work with them it becomes clear that they operate from an emotionless place with the belief that is what is needed to be a strong and efficient leader today. They disconnect from the heart to be in control, that means they also disconnect from feeling alive.
The heart is our emotional center, and it’s a muscle we need to nurture and train. And it works in polarity; if you numb your negative emotions such as fear, shame, guilt, anger, then you also numb your positive emotions of joy, love, bliss, gratitude, positivity, forgiveness and compassion.
The more we allow ourselves to feel everything, the more we expand our emotional agility. Feeling our negative emotions allows us to make peace with them and create space for self awareness and ease.
Create from a place of ownership and expansion
When we feel our feelings to completion, we reclaim our Emotional Truth; which means we are getting in touch with the source of our agitations, and take ownership of them instead of blaming others or our circumstances.
By connecting with the true source of our sentiments we can then start making decisions constructing what serves us instead of reacting to what does not. We spend our energy creating in line with our essence instead of being caught up in defensive patterns.
It’s only when we dissolve our negative emotions by owning them and staying present in them that we can access the expansive emotions, and this is where true creativity lies, not in the sense of making art, but the ability to create the best of every circumstance presented to us.
At ConsciousLeadership.org, we work with our clients to reignite their emotional vibrancy by bringing them to the roots of their contracted feelings, we then help them to shift to a place where life is responded to with confidence and creativity.
Connect decisions to your heart – it makes them much more powerful and purposeful.
If you want to talk to one of our coaches on how we can help you to become an emotionally agile leader, click the button below to set up a free-of-charge call to create your roadmap to inner peace, joy and fulfilment.