As leaders we are not going to succeed at influencing others if we do not project credibility. People are just not going to be inspired by someone who they do not find trustworthy, reliable, and authoritative. In short, they won’t follow someone who they don’t believe has what it takes to succeed.
One unfortunate way of destroying credibility is through emotional outbursts. An individual who can’t control herself/himself is not going to motivate anyone else.
Recently there has been a lot of attention being paid to the subject of Emotional Intelligence and the measure that has been assigned to it, Emotional Quotient (EQ).
Emotional Intelligence is a description of how aware people are of their emotions and the emotions of those around them. Proponents of emotional intelligence often argue that EQ is a better measure of how well someone will function in an organization. In fact there are many organizations that are having candidates write EQ tests to assist in ranking them.
I have a quick and dirty model of this that I call Emotional Maturity.
The first point I need to make is that emotional maturity is not for gauging others; it is for gauging ourselves and improving how we respond to emotional or stressful situations.
As I attempt to motivate others I will run into frustrating situations. Frustration can be defined as anger caused by being inhibited from meeting ones goals. It is only to be expected that from time to time we encounter situations which frustrate us.
How I respond to such situations indicates my emotional maturity. If I allow my emotions to take over and control how I respond, I have low emotional maturity. If I am aware of my emotions and able to keep them from controlling me when responding to the situation, I am demonstrating intermediate emotional maturity. Finally, if I am able to demonstrate my emotions in a situation without allowing them to control me then I am exhibiting high emotional maturity.
Let me illustrate. I have a six year old son who occasionally frustrates me – or should I say I occasionally allow myself to become frustrated when dealing with him. If I lose my temper in a blind rage and start yelling at him then I am definitely being controlled by my emotions and I have low emotional maturity. I am not going to be able consider using any effective ways of dealing with him because I will be out of control. How much more effective will it be for me to exhibit intermediate emotional maturity by calmly telling him to go to his room until we both calm down and then we can discuss the conflict along with his reasons for disobedience and my response to it? Finally, I will be even more effective to express to him, perhaps in my tone, that I am angry, but still remain in control.
This is incredibly difficult to do because people often think that they are exhibiting emotion when they are in fact being controlled by it.
The person who is a master of emotional maturity is not only able to control her/his emotions but also is aware of the emotions of the individuals that s/he is dealing with and able to respond accordingly. Remember, when attempting to motivate someone else, your feelings actually mean less to them then their feelings.
How do you heighten your emotional maturity? Simple really; First focus on becoming aware of your emotions as you interact with others. Remember, you can’t change what you are not aware of. Don’t do this superficially. Examine how you feel and why you feel that way. What was it that made you feel that way? Were there any other factors influencing you that you may have not thought about?
Second: Consciously become aware of your responses to your feelings in various situations. What about situations that you respond to and realize that you didn’t think about until later? Try analyzing them in retrospect. Ask the same questions; what were you thinking and feeling, why did you respond that way?
It is a difficult process to start but becomes easier with practice. As you do it, you will find that you are less controlled by your emotions and therefore able to choose your response to situations.
Keeping a journal of your feelings and responses will help you that much more. I know you’re thinking to yourself, “Hey, good idea but I don’t have the time for that. Maybe not, but the question is, “How much do you really want to master your emotions?” or perhaps even more importantly, “How much do you want to be able to lead others?”
In your quest to lead others make sure that you are also able to lead yourself. Get control of your emotions and demonstrate your credibility to your potential followers.
While we are on the topic of leadership you might want to consider the various means a leader has to communicate her/his message. Basically leaders have the ability to communicate in the same two forms that we all have – written and verbal. Leaders also have the ability to communicate with individuals or groups of followers. When it comes to communicating to a group of people in verbal form we call it public speaking – one of the most dreaded activities known to our society. If you would like to learn more about leadership in general and public speaking specifically please consider visiting my When you visit you can learn about overcoming your fear and discover the art of public speaking.
Originally afraid of public speaking, David Mudie was forced to face his fear and go on to excel at it. David is now an accomplished speaker, having achieved an Advanced Toastmasters Gold/Competent Leader (ATM-G/CL) from Toastmasters International. He has also competed in and won numerous speaking competitions.
IQ test means Intelligence Quotient,with the help of IQ tests intelligence test you can measure your ability of your work in any field, if you get high IQ level in IQ intelligence test that means there is chances of highly complex jobs.
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