It can be said that management is mostly about intellectual activities like planning, problem-solving, system processes and written communications. Every single organization out there needs people that excel at such functions. If a business wants to be competitive, Boris Blanche highlights that IQ is absolutely necessary. However, this is the case only when referring to management.
When talking strictly about leadership, many will tell you that everything is about the heart, emotions, connectedness, respect, values and feelings. Leadership is all about actually being aware of our colleagues and understanding what they want or need. Such competencies are unfortunately intangible and we often refer to them under the term “soft-skills”. They are all connected to EQ, which stands for emotional intelligence.
The best leaders, those that we refer to as being real leaders, normally have high EQ levels. In various cases IQ does not have huge relation with how well people do at work or at other parts of their lives. The huge difference when comparing people normally comes when looking at childhood abilities like controlling emotions, how to handle frustration and how they get with others.
The best business owners measure the main soft-skills in basically all conducted performance reviews.
Whenever the goal is to develop leadership competencies inside the organization it is a necessity to measure soft skills and the adherence to the values of the organization, just like harder skills are normally determined in order to establish how good a person is to compete in a specific role.
Managers have to consider organizational values and the behaviors that are associated with them. Think about how these can be measured. When there are employees that do not live up to requirements, managers have to look for professional development options that are available.
Leaving emotions out of the workplace is something that many want but that is close to impossible. As soon as you walk into your office emotions step in. Humans are emotive and many decisions made will be driven by the brain’s emotional center. Through fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) it was shown that you cannot make a 100% pure intellectual decision if you do not involve brain areas associated with what we refer to as “gut” response, emotional intelligence and even empathy.
It is really important to be sure that staff members have the exact same vision. When the common vision is not shared and staff members do not understand the reality of the business in which operations are done, increased stress can easily appear as some team members are empowered, especially when they are not the right one. Corporate and personal ethics are really important, just like values. Managers have to take actions and decisions based on these values and ethics. Due to this, managers have to model values and ethics in order to reinforce conduct standards in an organization.
As you can see, inside an organization, you have to focus on many different things besides just intellectual capabilities. Focus on all listed above for better organization.