Harvard Business Review - HBR Guide to Emotional Intelligence (HBR Guide Series)

Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, from the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.

HBR Guide to Being More Productive

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HBR Guide to Emotional Intelligence

HBR Guide to Finance Basics for Managers

HBR Guide to Getting the Right Work Done

HBR Guide to Leading Teams

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HBR Guide to Managing Stress at Work

HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across

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HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW PRESS

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ISBN: 9781633692725

eISBN: 9781633692732

Its been two decades since Daniel Golemans research showed that emotional intelligence is twice as important as other skills in determining outstanding leadership. By managing your emotions and relating well to others, he explained, you can achieve higher levels of influence as well as personal well-being.

This kind of emotional intelligence is not just an innate trait: It can be learned. Becoming more finely attuned to your own emotions allows you to determine how to use those feelings more productively to make stronger decisions, overcome negative thoughts, control yourself in volatile situations, or understand others when they act in a way that surprises or angers you. Getting feedback from trusted colleagues and friends can keep you honest and aware of your areas of weakness, especially in the social sphere. And whether youre writing a difficult email, looking to keep your cool in a bitter negotiation, or managing an upset direct report, an array of frameworks and tactics can help you approach the situation in a way that takes the human element into account.

This guide will help you navigate these approaches. Youll get better at:

• Identifying and managing your own emotions
• Persuading and influencing others
• Dealing with difficult colleagues
• Responding to stress productively
• Defusing tense conversations
• Using your feelings as data to help you make smarter decisions
• Avoiding emotional pitfalls in a negotiation
• Reacting to tough situations with resilience
• Helping others on your team develop their emotional intelligence
• Developing a strong emotional culture

Definitions and reflections from experts.

Quiz yourself.

BY ANNIE MCKEE

Dont just try to ignore your negative feelings.

BY ART MARKMAN

Get precise.

BY SUSAN DAVID

No other leadership behavior has a bigger effect on employees.

BY CHRISTINE PORATH

Use them as data.

BY SUSAN DAVID

Reframe negative thoughts and neutralize bad behavior.

Use your body to take a break from your minds chatter.

BY LEAH WEISS

You cant just apologize and move on.

BY SUSAN DAVID

Human communication for the digital age.

BY ANDREW BRODSKY

Use empathy to understand potential conflicts.

BY ANNIE MCKEE

Spark growth rather than frustration.

BY MONIQUE VALCOUR

Emotional tagging both helps and hinders our ability to choose.

BY ANDREW CAMPBELL, JO WHITEHEAD, AND SYDNEY FINKELSTEIN

How to avoid the pitfalls of anxiety and anger.

BY ALISON WOOD BROOKS

Its harder to read others across borders.

BY ANDY MOLINSKY

Reverse a rivalry by building trust.

BY BRIAN UZZI AND SHANNON DUNLAP

Cut to the underlying issues.

BY AMY GALLO

Dont be a hero.

BY SANDRA L. ROBINSON AND KIRA SCHABRAM

Three types critical for leaders.

BY DANIEL GOLEMAN

The Dalai Lama, cognitive science, and the power of caring.

BY DANIEL GOLEMAN (INTERVIEWED BY ANDREA OVANS)

Recovering your self-image.

Three traits of people who emerge stronger from trauma.

BY DIANE COUTU

Treat yourself as you would others.

BY CHRISTOPHER GERMER

Resilience isnt about powering through.

BY SHAWN ACHOR AND MICHELLE GIELAN

A self-assessment.

BY MANFRED F. R. KETS DE VRIES

Its not as easy as a carrot or a stick.

BY ANNIE MCKEE

BY LIANE DAVEY

Translate the organizations mission to the micromoments of everyday work life.

BY SIGAL BARSADE AND OLIVIA A. ONEILL

Like it or not, leaders need to manage the mood of their organizations. The most gifted leaders accomplish that by using a mysterious blend of psychological abilities known as emotional intelligence. Theyre self-aware and empathetic. They can read and regulate their own emotions while intuitively grasping how others feel and gauging their organizations emotional state.

But where does emotional intelligence come from? And how do leaders learn to use it? The management literature (and even common sense) suggests that both nature and nurture feed emotional intelligence. Part genetic predisposition, part life experience, and part old-fashioned training, emotional intelligence emerges in varying degrees from one leader to the next, and managers apply it with varying skill. Wisely and compassionately deployed, emotional intelligence spurs leaders, their people, and their organizations to superior performance; naively or maliciously applied, it can paralyze leaders or allow them to manipulate followers for personal gain.

We invited 18 leaders and scholars (including business executives, leadership researchers, psychologists, a neurologist, a cult expert, and a symphony conductor) to explore the nature and management of emotional intelligenceits sources, uses, and abuses. Their responses differed dramatically, but there were some common themes: the importance of consciously and conscientiously honing ones skills, the double-edged nature of self-awareness, and the danger of letting any one emotional intelligence skill dominate. Here are some of their perspectives.