Posts Tagged ‘Emotional Intelligence’

leader or manager which are you

Manager or Leader… Which One Are You…?
Posted on 14th July 2014 in Change Management, Critical Conversations, Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, Management Training

There has been a huge explosion in the number of people with manager somewhere in their job description in the post war period. Everyone’s a supposed manager these days. Arguably, many are under an illusion of importance. When vast swaths of middle management are removed from organisations, usually very little changes begging the question what did they ever do in the first place? But try removing those on the shop floor who actually make the widgets and see how immediately productivity is affected. Also, try to run a large company, football team or school choir without real leadership and notice how quickly the organisation loses its way and stops performing.

There are reams of studies given over to the differences between leadership and management. In brief the manager maintains where the leader develops, the manager administers where the leader innovates and the manager controls where the leader inspires.

Real Leadership

So, perhaps there are only a few positions of real leadership – probably you can only ever have so many cooks – therefore only a few chosen individuals out of the many who call themselves a manager, can ever hope to ascend to the position of a leader. So what are the traits that only those select few have beyond their peers?

The Difference Between a Leader and a Manager

Here’s an attempt at distinguishing the necessary traits between a leader and a manager:

Managers – reactive, controlling, prescriptive, maintaining the status quo, putting in the hours and graft, disciplining, running things, dealing with the nitty gritty, risk averse, authoritarian

Leaders – big picture, creative, inspirational, risk taking, strategic, unique, charismatic, proactive, breaks rules, gives credit.

Many people, possibly most, approach there managerial careers in a manner that means they won’t ever be considered as future leaders. Might be a good manager but leadership is made of rarer stuff it seems.

It almost seems that real leaders have more in common with artists than with hard headed corporate managers which neatly returns us to the notion that art and business have a lot to learn from each other yet.

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

leadership lesson say less mean more

Leadership Lesson – Say Less, Mean More…
Posted on 20th October 2013 in Communication Skills Training, Critical Conversations, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Development, Management Training

A leadership lesson can come in many shapes. In Al Pacino’s Looking For Richard, where Pacino examines the themes of Richard III, a passing comment from a theatre actor is “If we had learnt anything from Shakespeare, we would say less and mean more…” Simple and powerful advice for anyone, especially those in positions of leadership.

How many of us can say that we actively try to improve our ability to listen? Probably not many. Indeed from childhood onwards far more attention and importance is generally placed upon developing the ability to speak well.

By focusing our attention on the speaker, we naturally afford them and their ideas greater respect. In showing a greater respect for those who are speaking, we engender trust and others are then likely to be more open about their ideas and we stand to gain as a result. Nothing feels as good as being really listened to it would seem. Unsurprisingly, we are generally better in a first date or job interview as the newness of these situations energises our senses and we make a concerted effort to show the best of ourselves which includes good listening. Contrast this with a parental frustration with their non-listening children where the impotent command “Listen..!” usually yields nothing.

Active Listening

Active listening is particularly useful, where nodding your head, maintaining appropriate eye contact, giving small verbal signals(uh huh) and facial expressions all help to build a real dialogue without having to say anything in particular. Active listening entails not only hearing the words the other person says but also registering how they are saying it – volume, pace, tone, modulation, facial expression, posture, gesticulation.

Listening alone is pretty hard though as it is only natural to begin forming one’s own thoughts and opinions in response to what we have just heard and it’s not like we get a choice to switch off that inner monologue. Consequently the biggest challenge is to listen well until the other person has come to a halt, if they ever do. And then, if they spoke at length, as a well intentioned listener we then have to rewind the tape to revisit the salient moments in oder to base our next comment on as full an understanding as possible.

In The Moment…

Actors are trained to within an inch of their lives through rehearsals and performance to work moment to moment, placing all their attention outside of themselves and on to their acting partner in a scene, thus reacting within character to whatever external stimuli they are presented with.

Similarly great listening is the stuff of great leadership. Think of the senior people you admire within your organisation. How is their ability to listen? Do they use appropriate eye contact? Do they pause before their turn to speak? Do they use the language that you just did? Do they summarise and reflect back what you were saying before giving their perspective? If so, you are having a conversation with a great listener so make the most of it.

Listening effectively is a quiet (literally) means of building leadership credibility and also, in this noisy world which we inhabit, the most challenging. Yet it remains a seemingly simple and straightforward task.

“If we’d learnt anything from Shakespeare, we would say less and mean more.” High time many more of us put that into practice.

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

curiosity in business

Curiosity in Business – Developing Instinct and Awareness…
Posted on 2nd October 2013 in Change Management, creativity, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Development, Management Training

Curiosity in business is essential. It has surely been a major impetus behind scientific discovery and the advancement of civilisation. Does that sound far fetched? Well surely it is our curiosity that drives us to play, to experiment, to innovate and to create. Without those basic actions we succeed in nothing.

Perhaps we are born with an abundance of wanting and needing to know, which slowly depreciates as we become more and more accustomed to our environment and to how things work. Indeed a lack of curiosity is often observed in those suffering from depression which suggests that curiosity is really a very fundamental part of our progressive selves.

Inquisitiveness sustains our interest and motivates us to inquire or explore and there is correlation between curiosity, creativity and intelligence.

Therefore, executives in the corporate world would do as well to look beyond business processes and let their creative curiosity loose. Any question beginning “What if…?” is the launch pad to collectively activate our healthy nosiness from.

Creativity and Innovation Mantras

The trouble in business is that everyone goes round asking for “creative” and “innovative” individuals and teams without really allowing those people the freedom to unleash their true talents. A bit like switching off the water supply and then demanding that you make me a cup of tea. The businesses that will excel over the next few years will be those whose people at all levels have been given space to question and probe without fear.

How many organisations today can honestly say that they consciously cultivate curiosity in their ranks? If we really want to become that much more creative and innovative, isn’t it time to take conscious steps to allow ideas to flourish..?

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

Bespoke Leadership Development

Leadership – It’s Something We Can All Do
Posted on 18th February 2013 in Communication Skills Training, Leadership Development

Leadership development is a fascinating growth area of study and research. Every day there are a million blog posts, tweets and updates on Facebook and LinkedIn around the broad notion of leadership and developing necessary skills to be deemed good at it. There are more “Top 10 Tips to become a CEO” than anyone who is actually working to become a CEO would have the time to read.

We at Dynamic Presenting have been guilty of getting in the mix and piling it all on the heap as well. Some articles and posts out there are very informative, engaging, sometimes amusing. Others are just repetition of well known nuggets of wisdom.

Do Leadership

When it comes down to it though, leaders simply have to DO leadership like an actor has to turn up on stage regardless of how rehearsals went and deliver what they have to. They have to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in, in whatever way they deem best. Just like learning to drive, there’s no point turning it into an academic exercise insisting that theory is all important. Get behind the steering wheel and get going. Each time you stall, you will learn more about your own resilience, determination and creativity than through any studied means.

Dynamic Presenting’s Bespoke Leadership Development

That’s why when we deliver bespoke training courses for our clients, we focus on their specific needs in the moment and are more than happy to change up our day’s agenda if that will yield greater benefits. We also place the accent very firmly on DOING many practical exercises…repeatedly.

See how Dynamic Presenting’s bespoke communication and presentation skills training could benefit you.

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

empathy leadership awareness

Empathy – Towards Empathic Leadership
Posted on 15th July 2012 in Critical Conversations, Emotional Intelligence, Employee Engagement, Leadership Development

What is empathy? If you think it’s lightweight, airy fairy, post-modern self-help delusion, then check out this short animation from Jeremy Rifkin and the Royal Society of Arts. Could just be that we are all soft-wired for empathy and that it evolved as more of a pragmatic behaviour. If we embrace this notion, there could be a multitude of ramifications for how we live and work.

http://www.thersa.org/events/rsaanimate/animate/rsa-animate-the-empathic-civilisation

Survival of the most Empathic

Empathy is the lubrication that maintains strong relationships and allows us to build trust with others both personally and professionally. Putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes and seeing something as the other guy does are invaluable survival techniques. When a child sees an adult obviously in a state of upset, it’s common for the child to offer their favourite toy to that adult in a bid to cheer them up. Often this seemingly selfless action surprises us.

But perhaps deep within our collective unconscious, this ability or skill is as fundamental as any form of communication. Perhaps in ensuring all members of the tribe are healthy and happy, our ancestors ensured the overall tribe and therefore the “selfish” or individualistic survival needs of every member were met. In other words, by using empathy we look after the collective and in doing so increase our personal survival.

Empathy for Leaders

Actors are truly aware of how to use and display their empathy. In approaching a role, the actor has to use her own experience and memory of events and emotions to connect with a character in a play. To really get a handle on how the character talks, walks, acts and feels, the actor has to stretch herself and explore human behaviour as fully as possible.

What learning then could be transposed for today’s business leaders? Many of whom are focused on the bottom line, share price, their own stock options, their personal profile… As opposed to really understanding the wants, needs, motivations and emotions of the people who are the organisation.

It’s a well worn cliche that “our people are greatest assets” or words to that effect. If you’re a business leader, isn’t it time you carved out time to understand your greatest assets..?

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

 

Be Authentic

Be Authentic – Attend a Conference as Yourself
Posted on 12th July 2012 in Communication Skills Training, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Development

How to be authentic? What does that actually mean? And who am I without my accomplishments – past, present or future? We all hang labels on ourselves and others. Indeed we’re pretty much trained to do this from the get go. We define ourselves by our jobs, specific roles, industry sectors, educational backgrounds, family backgrounds, race, religion…. But and this is kinda impossible to do, who are we if we could strip away those societal layers..? Would that stripped down person be our natural, authentic self..?

Meet New People

Intriguing and illuminating Harvard Business Review article on how to just be yourself when meeting new folk at a conference. https://hbr.org/2012/03/how-to-attend-a-conference-as.html

Many of us label ourselves according to our professional role and thats the prism we then view life through. When meeting people for the first time we tend to offer up “I’m an engineer” or “I’m an actor” etc quite readily. In so doing we label ourselves and attempt, albeit subconsciously, to restrict other people’s perceptions of us into the pre-determined arena we would rather they see us in.

It is controlling behaviour and smacks of inherent fear. Great advantages lie in store for those willing to temporarily suspend the importance of their titles, rank and status and just be in the moment. We are all imperfect and vulnerable. If we can trust ourselves to show some of that vulnerability to others, then those people will trust us – because they will see their own vulnerabilities reflected back – and so they will know us.

Allowing Ourselves to be Authentic

If we could allow our ego’s to chill out and just be in the moment, viewing the familiar and unknown with the same optimism then we get out of our own way. Then we strip layers of padding – our role, company etc – away and are more vulnerable and open to change and new experiences. Which in turn lead to new adventures as our authentic selves, personally and professionally.

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

Emotional Intelligence growth decade

Emotional Intelligence – Decade of Personal Growth
Posted on 9th July 2012 in Communication Skills Training, Emotional Intelligence, Employee Engagement

Awareness of Emotional Intelligence has grown rapidly over the last 10 years. A crucial area of analysis in terms of personal and professional development. The phrase was first coined by leadership figure and journalist Daniel Goleman.

Emotional intelligence is all about understanding your own emotional state in any given moment and being able to understand that of those around you as well. There are great personal benefits in understanding why you feel any particular emotion and being able to clearly distinguish and articulate what you are feeling is immensely powerful. Of course, this meat and drink to those of us who work in theatre and drama, where fundamental emotions are our stock in trade.

Report on Emotional Intelligence

Intriguing read about the development of “Emotional Intelligence” over the last 10 years, now viewed as a crucial area of analysis in terms of personal development and leadership. This report looks at 15 or so key composite areas within the field of Emotional Intelligence and offers insightss based on industry, age, gender, culture etc. Interestingly the self-employed tend to have a higher overall level of EI – something to be said for living as a forager and not relying on the falsehood of job security and making things happen…?

http://www.jca.eu.com/pdf/DecadeofEIReport.pdf

Why do business leaders lack Emotional Intelligence?

Perhaps surprisingly and despite an avalanche of research, discussion and debate, many C-suite leaders are still emotionally inept. Why is that? A recent survey concluded that middle managers often have far more emotional intelligence than those at the top of organisations. Could it be that they are more skilled in people management as they have to make people related decisions everyday? Whereas the average CEO rarely has to encounter the same number of ground troops.

Perhaps organisations are still focused on tangibles and hard figures above all else. A decade of emotional intelligence is just the beginning…

http://www.inc.com/travis-bradberry/why-leaders-lack-emotional-intelligence.html

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

emotional intelligence ten years

Emotional Intelligence. 10 Years Strong
Posted on 21st May 2012 in Communication Skills Training, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Development

Emotional Intelligence has garnered a lot of focus and press coverage of late. Now, some 10 years after the concept was born, it has proven to be much more than just a fad. Indeed, as a concept it has gained a lot of respect amongst business leaders. There are many training courses offering workshops in developing emotional intelligence. And the phrase has now passed into common, everyday usage.

The higher up in an organisation you climb the more important it is to be emotionally intelligent. Managers who score higher on a test of EI report less stress, higher morale and experience less illness.

Safety & Survival

One of the first principles of human behaviour is safety and survival. To that end we are constantly scanning our environment for danger, both consciously and unconsciously. Emotions (fear, anger, sadness, joy & disgust) are one major and rapid pathway for alerting us toward challenge and threat in our environment. We also use emotions to communicate this information to others. Recent research has shown that the brain has specific areas dedicated to processing emotional information (Joseph LeDoux – `The Emotional Brain’).

21st century survival is as much about self-preservation in the social and psychological world as it is in the physical. So emotional intelligence is really about our ability to integrate our emotions with our cognitive thoughts. Thereby ensuring our everyday safety and survival in the modern world. And like other forms of intelligence some people are better at it than others.

Research into Emotional Intelligence

The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations was founded in 1996. It was set up to aid the advancement of research and practice related to emotional intelligence in organizations. The following research projects and articles are provided by the Consortium. http://www.eiconsortium.org/reports/reports.html

Some further recommended tools to test your emotional intelligence: http://emotionalintelligence.net/products/?gclid=CKKsyYCrkbACFYwQfAodakDgyg

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication

Role play mediation training

Role Play for Effective Mediation Training
Posted on 11th May 2012 in Critical Conversations, Emotional Intelligence, Forum Theatre, Mediation Training, Role Play

Using role play is an innovative means of training in many areas of business and particularly relevant for those interested in mediation.

Dynamic Presenting ran a sell out workshop on improvisation skills for qualified mediators. The event was organised in conjunction with CIArb – Chartered Institute of Arbitrators www.ciarb.org and took place at the offices of magic circle law firm Allen & Overy. Sartaj Garewal MCIArb and elite mediator Amanda Bucklow ran a very interactive, high impact session allowing delegates to experience the value of improvisation when the stakes are high. Role play in other words.

Keynote speakers included The Honourable Mr Justice Ramsey and Karl Mackie. The day involved various break out sessions addressing a wide range of relevant topics from ‘The Myth of Reality Testing’ to ‘Improvisation Skills for Mediators.’

Forum Theatre

The event began with a high impact forum theatre intervention where the audience of 50 or so invited delegates watched actors role playing a typical mediation scenario. The scenario was challenging and realistic and depicted two parties in conflict where the mediator (played by an actor) loses control of initial proceedings and the whole affair turned into a slanging match.

The scene lasted just a few minutes and was then re-run from the top, only this time the watching delegates were instructed to stop the action whenever the actor role playing the mediator character said or did anything they felt could be more effective. The actors would role play moments as advised with new direction and lines from the audience which in turn affected the behaviour and actions of the two parties in conflict, resulting in a completely different and far more effective outcome. All with a good deal of laughing and debating along the way..!

Experiential Training Works…!

With a keen, energetic audience, experiential training interventions such as forum theatre and role play can work wonders and all with absolutely no powerpoint slides or flip charts in sight…!!

Sartaj Garewal is the founder of Dynamic Presenting – a creative, leadership development consultancy, adapting theatre training to create leadership programs for business.

Dynamic Presenting – Enabling Powerful Communication