027: The Positive Impact of Understanding Emotional Intelligence

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This week on the finance leader podcast, I am talking about emotional intelligence, which is our ability to be self aware of our own words, actions and attitude, and how it affects others. We need to know ourselves so we can become a better leader who can inspire and create a positive environment where our team can thrive. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the finance leader podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host Stephen McLain. And this is the podcast for developing leaders in finance and accounting. This is episode number 27. And today, I will discuss emotional intelligence, our actions and words affect others. So we must become self aware. Number two, understanding and caring for others. Number three, we must stay humble continue to learn and set the example. And then before we still set the bar high. But how we do it becomes critical. Theodore Roosevelt said, No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. We need leaders who understand themselves completely who know their strengths, the weaknesses, and understand that our actions and words have an effect on others. knowing yourself is a never ending exercise. When we know ourselves, we can expand our potential for greater responsibility, we must learn to understand and better control our emotions. Have you ever met someone with poor social skills or who lacked empathy, maybe had a boss who lacked empathy, or had no social skills, or who couldn't self regulate their behavior and their words, it's awkward, it's horrible. It's not fun to work for a boss who has no empathy, no understanding of the challenges that you're facing, who doesn't care for what you're facing, or what you're dealing with. Or even having a boss who has no social skills, who doesn't have boundaries, who doesn't understand that their words and their actions do mean something and can affect others and can affect others performance and can affect their team members overall work experience, we should be creating a positive work experience for everyone on our team, people should want to login happy, should be able to want to come in to the office when we do eventually come to the office happy. Now you can't control everything when you're a leader, but you can control the aspect and the environment, a lot of things that your team members are facing in the work experience that they have each day, there are some things that you can change and some things that you can alter in order to make a very positive work experience. And that doesn't mean that we lower the bar of performance, it doesn't mean that we're not trying to achieve excellence, because that's what we're trying to do every day. We're going to communicate a common purpose, a vision, and we're going to create a very positive, thriving work experience for everyone to get their work done. We want to coach teach and mentor our team members to become the very best we can. And to do that, as leaders, we need to be self aware of how we treat others and how we think and how we act and the words that we choose. Now, why is understanding emotional intelligence important because it's how we affect others. We want to create an environment that grows others and we also want to create a positive experience and we want to build positive relationships. knowing ourselves helps us to become a better leader. It's not weakness. To understand ourselves, we must become aware what we say and what we do affects others,

we get to influence the capacity and potential for others to do well. So let's focus on being positive and growth oriented. great leaders are best at capitalizing on each person's strengths on the team while thoroughly understanding each person's pain points and limitations. We make connections and through those connections, trust bonds are built, which means our ability to achieve excellence and to improve becomes limitless, nothing can stop us. So once we understand the aspects of our own emotional intelligence, then we become the leader who can captivate our team and also who can properly communicate where we need to go. also showing respect for others, we become more fair and understanding we also hold our team accountable. Using positive tools in a respectful and dignified manner, we will find that our example can change and motivate others to reach for excellence. The concept of emotional intelligence still brings in a negative connotation for many people. But I don't understand why people are so afraid of this term, this concept. Why is it so bad to understand others and to understand our team better? Why are people afraid of change? Why are people afraid to really get to know their team and to know their strengths and their weaknesses? It's a fearful concept. For many people, it's fearful because we have to get to know others. Sometimes people are afraid to get to know others to make those connections. Because I think it really comes down to that you are not going to achieve a high level of excellence, high level performance, if you start to understand and to get to know your team, it is not weakness to get to know your team. It's a strength. It's understanding where your team is struggling when they do struggle. It's an understanding of where your team members come from, and what challenges they face. Because I believe that as leaders, it's our job to link a challenge to a resource, we can solve problems. As we get to know our team, as we get to understand ourselves, we get to make change, we get to have a positive impact on our team and make our team better. And I think in the long run, we will achieve a higher level of excellence. Because we get to know each other better. We get to know how we speak, we get to know our attitudes a little bit better. And we be able to get past challenges get past differences. And we get to appreciate the people who are on our team a little better. And we get to understand where they're coming from, and also how we can help them achieve their goals. So don't be afraid of emotional intelligence. Don't be afraid of trying to embrace figuring out ourselves, and becoming more self aware of how we speak, we should be careful in the choosing of our words, careful in how we act, and careful how we lay down the vision for where our team needs to go. We need to carefully choose our words, carefully choose our actions. And also always seek to understand our team seek to understand ourselves, because I think it'll make the entire environment a lot better. So I am not going to fear this concept of emotional intelligence because I want to know my team better. I want to know those who work around me a lot better, I want to know myself better. I want to be able to control my own emotions a little bit better, have better reactions to when I hear bad news, have better reactions to when a crisis happens. I want to change and I want to improve and I want to embrace challenges. From a mature standpoint, I want people who are working with me to know that I will be there for them that I will be there for them when they are facing challenges, and that I will try to become my best self every day, as we are working towards a common purpose and common goals. Now I want to take you through four areas that I believe are important to understanding our emotional intelligence and how it can improve our leadership. Number one, our actions and words affect others. So we must become self aware we must continually consider what we say how we say it our attitude, our expressions, or body language or facial expressions, we are being watched we are being looked at and everything we do. Everything that we use to communicate our thoughts and communicate through our actions affects everything. People are picking up on our expressions and our words and meanings to those words, not only how our own team thinks about us, but also

our peers in our boss when you are not self aware and will affect the potential of your team and will affect the potential on how well your team performs. how you treat others affects your reputation. We need to listen with great intent, and we need to listen way more than we talk toxic leadership is finally being weeded out. It's no longer acceptable. I'm challenging you to become more self aware of how you speak the words you choose expressions, you have your own attitude as you go into a meeting or as you have a discussion with a team member, a one on one discussion or a correction that you need to make how you approach it will affect the other person, it will affect your team and will also be picked up around the organization around the team and including your boss. Number two, the understanding and caring for others to become self aware is to also be aware of the true emotions of others. We can care for our team and also achieve excellence. I believe you do need to lead with a little bit of empathy. You need to be able to understand your team you need to be able to understand the challenges that your team members are facing every day, especially with the challenges that are we are facing this year and maybe even into the next year. I want you to find out the resources that your company has so that you can link up resources especially wellness programs, and other resources such as family leave or other leave programs, tuition assistance, all sorts of different programs that may be your company offers different kinds of health and wellness programs. That you can link up to team members that may be having problems or maybe having issues or challenges. We need to become active listeners and really listen to what our team members are saying, what challenges are they facing? How can you help? How can you bridge the gap between poor performance because of the challenge your team members having give them a resource, help them to overcome whatever challenge they are facing, and then so you can turn them into another high performer. Again, caring also means letting go people who no longer fit the culture or who are unwilling to grow, develop and change those who want to continue to stay in the status quo or don't want to grow, don't want to change who are also undermining the culture, they really don't need to be on your team any longer. And it is also an expression of understanding and caring for your team members in order to let those people go who no longer fit. Caring for Our team means that we have high expectations, we expect our team to achieve excellence, we ensure that they have achievable goals on their individual development plans, along with ensuring that they get the resources they need to complete their goals and also the training that they need, we ensure that our team members have the resources to do their jobs. Number three, I want to challenge you to continue to stay humble continue to learn and set the example when you really begin to understand yourselves, it will probably humble you, we are not perfect, and we are leading other imperfect people. When we set a strong example others will follow you are being watched and evaluated constantly, the very behavior you emulate will be copied and done to others, you are training your team how to treat others, because how you treat them when one of your team members rises in responsibility, they may exhibit the same behavior you did. So let's treat people with respect so that you can train your team to treat others with respect when we treat people with respect. And they know that we care for them, their potential for greatness increases exponentially. Number four, we continue to set the bar high. And it's how you treat people. As we grow as a leader and we develop ourselves for greater opportunities. We also grow and prepare our team for greater responsibilities. We hold people accountable, using respect and maintaining everyone's dignity, reward hard work, and also those who have a great impact on the organization. I want to challenge you to transition to become a trusted business advisor and mentor How can you continue to add value to others and for the organization, we should be making others better around us and making the organization better, we need to continue to develop strong connections around the company so we help others grow the business we empower others to do the same. And this means you must become less risk averse you embrace mistakes to help your team improve, we should be using events and achievements to tell stories that inspire others to become better. Now in my own experience, I had a variety of bosses over the years who mostly were not self aware of their words and actions, some were more strategic and how they approach the duties and some ensured their team and the organization were better once they left. Some are only interested in achieving results for their own advancement. And that's what happens sometimes, but I believe that we can all grow and receive the benefits of our hard work and commitment you need to bring others with you and lift them up when they need it. When holding your team accountable. Do it with respect

for an easy win. Today, I'm challenging you to become more self aware. I want you to reflect on your own behavior, your words, your actions, I want you to be mindful of what outcomes that you desire and know how we treat others will affect their ability to achieve their goals. journalize your thoughts if you're comfortable doing so this is one way to analyze and understand your emotions and how things are affecting you asked for feedback on your actions, words and your attitude. Ask feedback from your team, if you're comfortable and if they are comfortable. Talk with peers, talk with your supervisor. get feedback from all around so that you can make the corrective actions to your own attitude and how you treat others. Listen to your team with great intent. What are they saying pay full attention and don't judge continue to assess and make the changes to your attitude that can lead to great performance later when interacting with others. I have a free guide for you. It's called the leadership growth blueprint for finance and accounting managers. In the guide I talked about three leadership areas communication, team growth, and empowerment. Plus a few recommendations around challenges with the systems you are probably using to complete your work. The link to the guide is in the episode description. Or you can go to Stephen McLain Comm. Please use it to help you with a few leadership wins today. Thank you. This episode is sponsored by my new online course offering through finance leader Academy. It's called Advanced your finance and accounting career developing and promotion strategy that will set you apart. Are you having difficulty getting recognition from your leadership all the hard work you pour into your job and your organization. This course helps you analyze what you bring to the organization. How you can set yourself apart from your peers through high visibility work, and developing your leadership skills. Plus, how you can devise a strategy to move ahead. Go to Stephen McLain calm. For more details. today. In this episode, I talked about the importance of understanding emotional intelligence. Now for a final thought in our profession, we are very numbers driven and we want to know the final number. It drives us when we are reviewing the work of our team there is a human being who sweated and labored to work a process on that financial projection or that report. If the numbers don't make sense, then coach and train if necessary, bring out the best in your team. Why don't the numbers make sense link up your team member to a resource or training that might help continue to coach and train your team to the performance level that you desire. Next week. The episode will be how we can improve monthly close. I hope you enjoyed the finance leader Podcast. I am dedicated to helping you grow your leadership. Hope you enjoyed the show. You can get this episode wherever you find the podcast. Until next time, you can check out more resources at Stephen McLain calm and sign up for my updates. So you don't miss an episode of the show. And now, go lead your team and I'll see you next time. Thank you

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027: The Positive Impact of Understanding Emotional Intelligence

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