Hiromi’s post served as a reminder to me of the importance of my attitude regardless of my circumstances. Hiromi posed a question about how William Ernest Henley was able to stay positive and strong in spite of his difficult circumstances. This served as a strong reminder for me that my circumstances should not dictate my attitude, but rather I should exercise emotional intelligence as a way to master my attitude.

In the Trait Approach, Northouse says that emotional intelligence allows us to “understand and reason with emotions, and to effectively manage emotions within oneself” (2018, p. 28). When I remember to manage my emotions, I am able to manage my attitude. I think this is an important trait to have as a leader. An article in Forbes agrees stating, “when their employees were polled about areas for manager improvement, they overwhelmingly cited leadership and emotional intelligence” (Steenbarger, 2016, para. 2).

Exercising emotional intelligence towards oneself seems to be an important practice in leadership. When challenges arise we have to decide how we will respond to them. Craig Groeschel says that as leaders we have to train ourselves to see opportunity when problems arise (The Global Leadership Summit, 2018). I would propose that as we learn to do that, we, like William Ernest Henley might learn to become the masters of our fates and the captains of our souls (Watson, 1951).

Does anyone have practical skills that have worked for them in developing their emotional intelligence? What does it look like to intentionally practice this daily?

References:

The Global Leadership Summit. (Producer). (2018). Craig Groeschel [DVD]. Available from https://store.growingleadership.com/collections/gls-2018-resources/products/2018-gls-team-edition-pre-order-dvd

Steenbarger, B. (2016, April 9). Becoming the kind of leader you would want to follow. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettsteenbarger/2016/04/09/becoming-the-kind-of-leader-you-would-want-to-follow/

Watson, L.E. (1951). Light from many lamps. New York: Simon and Schuster.