BA 352: Leadership & Communication, offered many opportunities for me to reflect on my progress in becoming a successful leader. This course highlighted the importance of building emotional intelligence–a person’s abilities to understand, identify, and effectively manage emotions in self and in relationships with others. Emotional intelligence has 4 components:
- Self-Awareness
- Self-Management
- Social Awareness
- Relationship Management
Successful leaders are continuously aware of these components. This comes with being able to maintain a balance between each aspect of emotional intelligence. Overall, I have particularly high emotional intelligence. My strengths lie in self-awareness and self-management, but I occasionally struggle with maintaining strong relationship management. For this course, I measured my progress with formal peer evaluations, but to measure the daily progress I make as a leader on the rowing team, I consistently asked for verbal feedback.
Self-Awareness & Self-Management
In chapter 5 of Richard Daft’s book, The Leadership Experience, he talks about the 4 components of emotional intelligence. Although he considers all parts to be equally necessary, Daft discusses the foundational importance of self-awareness. He considers this to be the basis of all other competencies, because self-awareness is the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions. In addition, this component also includes the ability to accurately assess your own strengths and limitations. High self-awareness leads to a sense of self-confidence and emotional stability.
Among the 4 components of emotional intelligence, I am the strongest in self-awareness. I am extremely self-reflective. I constantly analyze my actions, personal thoughts, and interactions with other people. Even though I am usually reserved about expressing my feelings, I am hyper aware of how my emotions affect my mood and my work. For example, when I am stressed and frustrated, I usually won’t express it to the people around me, but instead, I will focus on calming myself and clearing my head to improve future productivity. After many years of juggling homework, paid-work, and team practices, I have come to realize that some stress–like eustress–can help me manage my time better. But, if too much stress builds up, I will take a break from my work to clear my mind and then focus on a to-do list to help me stay organized and focused.
Self-Management on the other hand, is the ability to control disruptive or toxic emotions. Leaders with high self-management, can balance emotions like anxiety, fear, or anger to deal with situations productively. This component also includes adaptability–the ability to adjust to changing situations, unseen events, and overcome obstacles. Although I can better manage my emotions now, I used to struggle with self-management. When I was younger, I had a short fuse, loud voice, and a stubborn personality. It took years of tantrums and arguments with my parents, before my father’s advice finally stuck:
“Don’t worry about the things that are out of your control, and for the things that you can change–do something about it.”
His advice has a huge impact on how I manage my emotions and adaptability. Yes, my father’s advice can be applied to actual situations, but it always applied to my mindset. We control our perception, our judgements, and our mindset of every situation. I can change and adapt to many situations and unforeseen events by changing my outlook. I believe this is a major factor in maintaining self-management and emotional intelligence.
Relationship Management
The last component of emotional intelligence is relationship management–the ability to build positive relationships by connecting with others. This was one of my weaker aspects in emotional intelligence, because I struggled with communicating convincingly. This course has thoroughly challenged me to improve my relationship management skills with my teammates. In general, I was always good at building teamwork and collaboration to resolve conflicts, but I struggled with articulating my ideas into persuasive dialogue, and balancing advocacy and inquiry. During group meetings and discussions, I practiced a great deal of advocacy–which usually came in the form of logic. I used reasoning to help my teammates understand my point of view, but based on my teammates’ feedback, I practiced too much advocacy and not enough inquiry. After my first midterm evaluations, I incorporated more inquiry into my discussion strategy. Instead of talking first, I would listen to my teammates ideas, give constructive advice, and then share my thoughts. This worked well, because they gave me new insights and everyone contributed equally to the discussion.
With that said, I am still working toward balancing my inquiry and advocacy skills. Although my teammates have told me that I have improved throughout the term, I still have a long way to go. To continue progress in relationship management, I will practice more inquiry during future group meetings and focus intently to the contribution of others.
Managing Feedback
Being a coxswain–steersman of the boat–on the University of Oregon Rowing team, allows me to receive constant feedback from my teammates. Since the first time on the water, I have grown some pretty thick skin to criticism. Receiving feedback has become an essential part of my learning process as a coxswain and it has helped me move from the novice position to being in a varsity boat. I often ask for feedback more than its given to me, because I want to know if I am still progressing. I am very receptive to constructive criticism and I use it to improve myself as a leader and a team member. Over the last 3 years, rowing has shaped me into a better leader–both in the boat and in my classes. I will continue to move toward becoming a successful leader as I build higher emotional intelligence and work toward the 5 practices of leadership.