What traits andbehaviors will impact your success as a leader and the ability ofyour organization to successfully transform itself? Can thesebehaviors be learned? An ever-increasing number of studies showthat people at all organizational levels can improve their careersand ability to lead successful teams and companies throughself-awareness, self-control, motivation, empathy and socialskill. These five qualities comprise emotionalintelligence.

Effective leaders possess significant EI. The traditionalleadership qualities and a high IQ are not enough. DavidGoleman, who popularized the term in his 1995 book “EmotionalIntelligence” stated: “… emotional intelligence is the sine qua nonof leadership. Without it, a person can have the best training inthe world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an endless supply ofsmart ideas, but he still won't make a great leader.”

Goleman's research and that of many others demonstrate that itis exactly the soft skills associated with EI that are tied tomeasurable business results, including higher profitability andROI.

The EI Consortium, founded by Goleman, has found that higher EIleads to better business outcomes.

“The higher the rank of a person considered to be a starperformer, the more emotional intelligence capabilities showed upas the reason for his … effectiveness … nearly 90% of thedifference in their profiles was attributable to emotionalintelligence factors rather than cognitive abilities,” theconsortium found. It further found that once a standard IQ testlevel of intelligence is reached, additional intelligence does nothave as direct an effect on performance as Emotional Intelligencewas found to have.

In other words, at a certain point, a leader is smart enough byconventional definition, however increasing one's emotionalintelligence continues to reap performance benefits.

How can leaders increase their emotional intelligence?

1. Become more self-aware. Self-awarenessprovides perspective on your own behaviors and processes. Executives who are aware of their strengths and weaknesses can hirepeople to fill these voids. The American ManagementAssociation recently cited a 2010 study examining 72 executives atpublic and private companies with revenues of $50 million to $5billion. The strongest predictor of overall success,producing better strategic and financial outcomes, was a highself-awareness score.

2. Practice self-regulation and self-control.These two skills enable you to manage and control your reactionsregardless of your current emotions, allowing you to redirectdisruptive inclinations and feelings. Leaders with highlevels of self-regulation “think before they act” assuring theirreactions are appropriate and not emotionally driven.

3. Focus on your motivation. When you have aburning goal or purpose, you will be motivated to succeed with astrong determination to grow, maintaining optimism in the face offailure and a willingness to learn from disappointments.

4. Become more empathetic. Empathy enables youto understand, share and recognize the emotions of other people andtreat them accordingly. When you read the subtext and actualmeaning of a person's words and body language in addition tohearing the words, your ability to communicate effectively, buildtrusting relationships and get to the right outcome isenhanced.

5. Build social skills. Your social skillsenable you to create and navigate social networks. You caneffectively build rapport with others when you find common groundthrough active listening, persuasion, and the ability to relate topeople effectively.

Leaders who hold the bar high and demand strong performance in arespectful manner provide the best environment for achievingstrategic results. Creating the right environment fororganizational growth, effective strategic execution and customersatisfaction is dependent upon the behaviors of the executive teamand management. Those executive teams that have high levels ofEmotional Intelligence as well as the mindset to grow and developthese skills, strengthen the organization's ability to drive hardresults.

Leaders need to recruit those with high levels of EI as well asdevelop these skills within their current ranks. Having evena single high level team member that does not have an adequate EIcan be toxic to the organization and be both de-motivating anddevastating to staff engagement. When people are painful towork with, it impacts trust and effective strategic communication,both critical to achieving results.

The collective behaviors of an organization reflect your teamand organization's culture.

Culture matters. Organizations that place a high value oninterpersonal strengths and how leaders do their work will have thegreatest positive impact on human and financial metrics.

As Green Peak Partners' study on soft skills shows, “when itcomes to business leadership, nice guys finish first.”

Stuart Levine is chairman/CEO of Stuart Levine &Associates LLC. He can be reached at 516-465-0800 or [email protected].