How to Help Someone Develop Emotional Intelligence
by Annie McKee
IT’S EASY TO POINT FINGERS at those in the office who lack basic self-awareness or social skill. Whether clueless colleagues or brutish bosses, these people make life challenging for the rest of us, ruining the dynamic of work teams and shattering productivity and morale. But in fact most of us can stand to improve our emotional intelligence. Even those of us who are adept extroverts can learn how to become more empathetic; those who are kind givers can learn to be more persuasive.
As a manager, it’s up to you to develop the emotional intelligence of your direct reports—whether they are socially awkward, downright nasty, or simply looking to become more influential. In doing so, you’ll help them grow in their careers—and make your workplace a healthier, happier, more productive place to be.
Here’s the problem: Emotional intelligence is difficult to develop because it is linked to psychological development and neurological pathways created over an entire lifetime (to learn more, see Daniel Goleman’s book The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights). It takes a lot of effort to change long-standing habits of human interaction—not to mention foundational competencies like self-awareness and emotional self-control. People need to be invested in changing their behavior and developing their emotional intelligence, or it just doesn’t happen. What this means in practice is that you don’t have even a remote chance of changing someone’s emotional intelligence unless they want to change.
Most of us assume that people will change their behavior when told to do so by a person with authority (you, the manager). For complicated change and development, however, it is clear that people don’t sustain change when promised incentives like good assignments or a better office.1 And when threatened or punished, they get downright ornery and behave really badly. Carrot-and-stick performance management processes and the behaviorist approach on which they are based are deeply flawed; yet most of us start (and end) there, even in the most innovative organizations.
What does work is:
First, helping people find a degep and very personal vision of their own future.
Then, helping them see how their current ways of operating might need a bit of work if that future is to be realized.
These are the first two steps in Richard Boyatzis’s intentional change theory—which we’ve been testing with leaders for years. According to Boyatzis—and backed up by our work with leaders—here’s how people really can begin and sustain change on complex abilities linked to emotional intelligence:
If you’re coaching an employee, you must first help them discover what’s important in life. Only then can you move on to aspects of work that are important to them. Help your employee craft a clear and compelling vision of a future that includes powerful and positive relationships with family, friends, and coworkers. Notice that I’m talking about coaching, not managing, your employee. There’s a big difference.
What’s the current state of your employee’s emotional intelligence? Once people have a powerful dream to draw strength from, they’re strong enough to take the heat—to find out the truth. If you are now truly coaching, you’re trusted and your employee will listen to you. Still, that’s probably not enough. You will want to find a way to gather input from others, either through a 360-degree feedback instrument like the ESCI (Emotional and Social Competency Inventory), or a Leadership Self-Study process (as described in our book, Becoming a Resonant Leader), which gives you the chance to talk directly to trusted friends about their emotional intelligence and other skills.
Note that I did not say “performance management plan,” or even “development plan.” A learning plan is different in that it charts a direct path from the personal vision to what must be learned over time to get there—to actual skill development.
Learning goals are big. Take, for example, one executive I know. Talented though he was, his distinct lack of caring about the people around him had placed him in danger of being fired. He wanted what he wanted—and watch out if you were in his way. He couldn’t seem to change until it finally dawned on him that his bulldozer style was playing out at home too, with his children. That didn’t fit at all with his dream of a happy, close-knit family who would live close to each other throughout their lives. So, with a dream in hand and the ugly reality rearing its head at work and at home, he decided to work on developing empathy. As a learning goal, empathy is one of the toughest and most important competencies to develop. The capacity for emotional and cognitive empathy is laid down early in life, and then reinforced over many years. This exec had a good foundation for empathy in childhood, but intense schooling and a stint at an up-or-out management consulting firm had driven it out of him. He needed to relearn how to read people and care about them. He was able to succeed—yes, it took a good while, but he did it.
This sounds like a lot of hard work for your employee, and it can be. Here’s where a final important piece of the theory comes into play. They—and you—can’t do it alone. People need people—kind and supportive people—when embarking on a journey of self-development. Are you there for your employees? Do you help them find other supporters, in addition to yourself, who will help when their confidence wanes or when they experience inevitable setbacks?
Developing one’s emotional intelligence can make the difference between success and failure in life and in work. If you’re the one responsible for people’s contributions to the team and your organization, you are actually on the hook to try to help those (many) people who are emotional-intelligence-challenged, deficient, and dangerous. It’s your job.
But what if you’re not the boss? You can still make a difference with colleagues. All of the same rules apply to how people change. You just need to find a different entry point. In my experience, that entry begins with you creating a safe space and establishing trust. Find something to like about these people and let them know it. Give them credit where credit is due, and then some (most of these folks are pretty insecure). Be kind. In other words, use your emotional intelligence to help them get ready to work on theirs.
And finally, if none of this works, these “problem people” don’t belong on your team—or maybe even in your organization. If you’re a manager, that’s when it’s time to help them move on with dignity.
Annie McKee is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and the director of the PennCLO Executive Doctoral Program. She is the author of Primal Leadership (with Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis), as well as Resonant Leadership and Becoming a Resonant Leader. Her new book, How to Be Happy at Work, is forthcoming from Harvard Business Review Press in September 2017.
Adapted from content posted on hbr.org on April 24, 2015 (product #H0216Z)
Note
1. “What Motivates Us?” interview between Daniel Pink and Katherine Bell, HBR Ideacast (podcast), February 10, 2010.