The title may sound complex, but to be a truly impactful leader in today’s world, Emotional Intelligence has proven to be where the real winners operate from and is the key to successful conscious leadership – which is crucial for any business success.
Firstly, what is Conscious Leadership?
Conscious Leadership ultimately means honouring your potential in everything you do. Embodying the principles of Conscious Leadership means standing firm on the 3 pillars that are essential to achieving it: Clarity, Presence, and Creation. Success is an inside job. The more conscious and Self-aware you are, the more you understand that success is a perfect equilibrium between financial success, inner peace, and making an impact.
What is emotional intelligence and why is it so important?
Emotional intelligence is becoming increasingly important in organisations 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, especially in light of the past two years. Leadership today equals relationships. Genuine ones.
Your emotional intelligence as a leader, 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 / intelligence is the key to successful conscious leadership.
So, what is Emotional Agility?
Emotional agility is about being able to recognise our emotions triggered by external circumstances, and instead of being triggered, choosing how to respond in a way that is 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 fully, so you can 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 centre, and it’s a muscle we need to nurture and train. This also 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 which in turn leaders to a more successful and sustainable leadership practice.
Create from a place of ownership and expansion
When we feel our feelings fully, we reclaim our Emotional Truth; which means we are getting in touch with the source of our agitations, and taking ownership of them instead of blaming others or our circumstances.
By connecting with the true source of our sentiments, leaders can then start making decisions constructing what serves them 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.
By being in tune with your emotional intelligence and ability, you can tap into your emotions and see where your true creativity lies in as a leader, shifting to a place where life is responded to with confidence and creativity – the key to successful Conscious Leadership.
