Its Not What You Know

Effective Leadership is About the People You Lead

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel.”      Maya Angelou


•  Effective leadership requires emotional intelligence.
•  People will remember how you make them feel.
•  Emotions drive attitudes and beliefs. Attitudes and beliefs drive behavior.

By Teresa Lowry

You are ready to debate me, aren’t you? You are saying to yourself: Of course, it’s what I know that matters! Here it is: Your education and your technical expertise will only carry you so far. If you want to be an effective leader you must have good emotional intelligence.

Let’s say you have a cause, mission or issue that is important to you that you are passionate about. Maybe it is Hurricane Relief, Mental Health Reform, Veterans Health Care, Preventing Animal Cruelty. You want people to join you. You need them to follow you and act. You need their time, talent and treasure. How do you as a leader inspire people to show up for you, answer your call and be there when you need them?

Make an Emotional Connection to a Shared Vision

There you are at your headquarters prepared with all the statistics, data and real-life stories about your cause. This is an important step to complete. And yet you are sitting there all alone. Ok, your two best friends showed up. We love our BFF’s and they’ll do anything to help us out. But it’s going to take more than two people to have a meaningful impact.

You want to be a leader on this issue. You want people to follow you. You need people to show up for you. To do this you have to connect with them on an emotional level. It’s not going to be what you know. Your influence as a leader will be based on your emotional intelligence which includes your communication skills and ability to create relationship depth with the people you want to lead.

Leadership is about connecting with people. Your success is going to depend on your ability to connect with and influence people. This is accomplished through building relationships. Lasting relationships require constant communication and emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman in his book “Emotional Intelligence” reminds us that when dealing with people you are not dealing with logic but rather with emotions. The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain. When you communicate you want to make an emotional connection to a shared vision.

Communicate to Inspire Others

Each time you speak, your goal will be to leave your potential team members with a positive feeling and desire to communicate with you again. Communication should be in person. People will remember how you make them feel when you speak with them. Do you leave them feeling inspired and hopeful? Do you leave them feeling understood and important? People migrate to more positive and empathetic people. People stay more connected to positivity. Charisma and charm follow emotional positivity. By managing your emotional composition, you can cultivate charisma. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner gets it when he says “a manager will tell someone what to do and a leader inspires them to do it”. Emotions drive attitudes and beliefs. Attitudes and beliefs drive behavior. Inspire people and you will move them to action on behalf of your shared mission and vision.

It’s Not About You

It goes without saying that you will know the name and some personal information about everyone you hope to have on your team. You should know their connection to your cause. When they tell you their story, listen attentively. Make them feel like the only person in the room. No looking at your phone, laptop or the door. Everyone has a story. Let people tell you why they want to work for your cause. For some of you the challenge will be to listen and not talk about yourself. For others, the challenge will be to open up and share something about yourself and make that heartfelt connection. Emotional intelligence is when you finally realize it’s not all about you. Your connection to your people will be emotional. Let them remember that you made them feel important, understood and optimistic.

Keep Them on the Team with Gratitude

Once you establish the shared connection to your cause and inspire people to follow your lead you want them to stay with you for the long haul. As you continue to share their stories, listen to them and make them feel valued you will see a high degree of success. To keep them showing up will also require large doses of appreciation and gratitude. Praise them. Often and sincerely. “Don’t forget. A person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.” H. Jackson Brown understood this. I think you all ready knew this because you know how good you feel when someone appreciates you.

Now go connect, inspire and lead well. From me to you: Thank you in advance for making the world a better place.

Teresa Lowry is a passionate advocate for learning, growth and generating real organizational change.
Fueling that passion are exceptional communication abilities, a great training room presence and the ability to connect with people successfully in mentoring and coaching. Personally, Teresa enjoys serving on several community boards, volunteering with non-profit community groups and, along with her husband, you will find her in the gym every morning working out and training for distance and obstacle races.

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