There was a chain of events last Monday: a bad night’s sleep, a disagreement with a grumpy teenage son, a tricky conversation with my wife – all before 7.30am on a wet, grey Monday morning. Funnily enough, I didn’t feel inclined to deal with that ‘stuff’ right then, I had a busy week planned and I needed to get on! And yet, right in that moment is the choice. I could snap and grumble or listen and understand. In essence, it’s a choice whether to move toward or move away from

This is part 4 of this EQ series. You can read the others here: Part 1 Self Awareness, Part 2 Self Regulation, Part 3 Motivation. The fourth Emotional Intelligence skill is Empathy. Having awareness of the feelings and emotions of others is a key element in creating powerful win-win situations with colleagues and team members. Staff engagement can be significantly increased with this skill alone which, of course, has benefits all the way to the bottom line. In part 3, I talke

In Part 2 of this series, we explored Self Regulation – the second step in developing Emotional Intelligence. If you haven’t seen that article, you can read it here. The third step in raising your Emotional Intelligence is knowing – and using – your Motivation. Motivation is the your ability to use your ‘reason why’ to generate energy and persistence in pursuit of your goals. People who know their motivations are able to use that information to be driven, goal oriented, optim

In Part 1 of this series, we explored Self Awareness – the first step in developing Emotional Intelligence. If you haven’t seen that article, you can read it here. The second step in raising your Emotional Intelligence is Self Regulation, defined as: the ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses. Once you’ve become aware of the emotions you’re feeling, and can think about them as they are happening , you’ve opened the door to making choices, not just having reaction

You cannot be a good leader without self awareness. The most compelling, trusted, respected leaders are aware of their emotions and state of mind, giving them the massive advantage of being able to regulate themselves; expertly choosing their responses and actions to get the best outcomes. The best leaders also use self awareness to gain an honest appraisal of their strengths and weaknesses so they can engage the services of people with complimentary skills, leaving no gaps i

Emotional Intelligence in the Leadership of an organisation is crucial for the development of a healthy culture that fosters employee engagement and commitment.This infographic from Norwich University online explains some of the differences between EQ and IQ. #emotionalintelligence #leadership #infographic

It was dark, cold and wet as we crawled up the dangerously exposed enemy beach. As commander of the ‘point section’ responsible for securing the beach, the safety of 1,000 men was in my hands. My team and I were the sharp end of the wedge, in charge of navigating the unit to the FUP (Form Up Point) for a dawn attack. Intelligence briefings told us there were two re-entrants or valleys, one was a safe route, the other was littered with enemy gun positions. I knew exactly where

The New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Team recently won two Rugby World Cup tournaments back to back, the only team on the planet to do that. There were many contributing factors, one of which was their ability to focus only on the positive. Over a period of 12 years – as a team – they developed the positivity focused culture responsible for driving their success. They gave no time or energy to all the things that went wrong (apart from identifying that they were regrettable), ins