Cary Cherniss - Leading with Feeling: Nine Strategies of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

Cary Cherniss and Cornelia W. Roche 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cherniss, Cary, author. | Roche, Cornelia W., author.

Title: Leading with feeling : nine strategies of emotionally intelligent leadership /

Cary Cherniss and Cornelia W. Roche.

Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019034042 (print) | LCCN 2019034043 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780190698942 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190698966 (epub) | ISBN 9780190698959

Subjects: LCSH: Leadership. | Communication in management. | Emotional intelligence.

Classification: LCC HD57.7 .C4854 2020 (print) | LCC HD57.7 (ebook) | DDC 658.4/092dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034042

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034043

Cary Cherniss: To Deborah, who has been a positive model of emotional intelligence for me and so many others.

Cornelia W. Roche: To Chris, my husband, who has been there through thick and thin. I am forever grateful and happy that we chose to share our life together.

Strategy 1: Monitor the emotional climate

Strategy 2: Express your feelings to motivate others

Strategy 3: Consider how your own behavior influences others emotions

Strategy 4: Put yourself in others shoes

Strategy 5: Decipher the underlying emotional dynamics of a situation

Strategy 6: Reframe how you think about the situation

Strategy 7: Create optimal interpersonal boundaries

Strategy 8: Seek out others for help in managing emotions

Strategy 9: Help others develop their emotional intelligence abilities

He had been an outstanding individual performer, and now he was a new manager, leading a team responsible for producing steel for a major automobile company. After just a week on the job, Tom and his team met with more than 20 engineers from that other company. As Tom recalled, it was a rude awakening: I sat in a room with maybe 20 or 25 of their engineers for the annual quality evaluation of suppliers. And I learned for the first time that we were in the bottom of the bottom quartile as a supplier. We had lousy quality, we had lousy invoicing, we had lousy on-time delivery. And this was my first general manager role! I had grown up as an engineer. And how did Tom respond to this unexpected shock?

I had a holy shit moment! I had been in the job literally a week. So part of it was, Oh my God, what the hell am I going to do? Also I thought about how my guys had been in the business for a while, and I thought, What the hell have you been doing? And I was thinking, Im going to clean house! But then... Ive learned that you just cant react viscerally every time something comes up because it just scares people away.

So Tom listened attentively as the engineers from the auto company presented their litany of complaints. When they finally finished, he stood up and said, I wouldnt blame you if you fired us as a supplier. But if you give us a chance to fix these problems, I guarantee you that we will not have this kind of meeting next year.

When Tom met with his team the next morning to discuss the situation, he started by just listening to them. They went on for some time, complaining about how the company and their previous boss had made it impossible for them to provide good products and service. Rather than disagree with them or join in pointing fingers at others, Tom listened. I didnt think about it at the time, he recalled, but that first couple of hours was very cathartic for them. My focus was not on beating anyone up but rather, what can we do to fix this?

The team responded positively to Toms approach. The next year when they met, representatives of the auto company told Tom that they never saw any business turn around that quickly in one year. As a result, they began giving Toms company more business, and Tom went on to a distinguished career, eventually becoming one of his companys top executives.

Tom is a good example of how an outstanding leader successfully confronted a daunting challenge. What were the qualities that enabled him to do so? A closer look at what he did reveals that he used emotional intelligence, or EI. By EI, we mean the ability to accurately identify and understand ones own emotional reactions and those of others. EI also involves the ability to regulate ones emotions, to use them to make good decisions and act effectively.

In Toms case, the challenge began with the shock of discovering just how badly his work group had done in meeting the needs of a very important customer. He was not only dismayed; he also was not at all sure how to deal with the situation. His stress levels were skyrocketing. Such stress can be incapacitating. Even when we are able to push through it, high levels of stress significantly impede our ability to figure out how to deal with problems such as the one Tom faced.punitively toward his subordinates (to clean house). So Toms first task was to manage his own emotional response.

Once Tom understood what he had to do about his own emotions, his next challenge was to deal effectively with the emotions of the other companys engineers. How did he do so? He remained calm, he listened attentively, and then he joined with them. He did not act defensively; he did not argue or disagree or minimize. If anything, he went one better when he said, If I were you, I wouldnt blame you if you fired us as a supplier. This one simple statement, delivered calmly, conveyed to the other side that Tom had heard them, and he understood how upset they were about the situation. Tom then ended on a positive note. He promised that his group would work on the problems and that within a year their performance would improve significantly.

After the meeting with the auto companys engineers, Tom faced another challenge: managing his own groups emotions. He could tell that they were feeling beaten up and that further criticisms and attacks by their new boss would not be an effective way to motivate them to work hard to fix the problems. So he met with them the next day and spent some time just listening to them vent. Many bosses probably would have seen their teams behavior as whining, refusing to take responsibility, and shifting the blame onto others. But Tom understood that the team needed some time for emotional catharsis, so he listened sympathetically. When they seemed ready to move on, Tom wasted no time in turning the focus to looking for ways to fix the problems.