How to Hire Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

How To Hire Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

Have you ever worked for an outstanding technocrat having no respect for colleagues or juniors? Or let us say, a manager with great skills lacking social awareness completely. Sounds familiar! Do you know the skills they are lacking in? Emotional Intelligence (EI). An extremely underrated quality that can transform the future of an organization. In a nutshell, emotional intelligence is the ability of a person to tackle situations based on its merits. Continue reading this article to figure out the ways to hire leaders with higher EI.

Leaders function on multiple fronts and thus need constant collaboration with stakeholders. It includes employees, customers, government agencies, creditors, etc. So higher EI would help them in communicating with them and create a strong sense of empowerment. Managing conflicts within an organization become easier. Let us look at some qualities that will make an emotionally intelligent leader.

• Self-awareness

Researchers have predicted that self-awareness is at the core of having a high EI. It helps an individual to realize the strengths, weaknesses, and motivations that drive him in his workplace. Moreover, the person would have enough confidence physically and emotionally.

• Social awareness

Social awareness is all about the way an individual tackles a difficult situation with empathy and responsibility. Often employees face personal issues that hamper their productivity. Leaders need to give the required space to come out of that situation and perform better. Task-oriented managers tend to overlook emotional issues leading to higher dissatisfaction. A humane approach is more inclusive and acceptable in these situations.

• Relationship management

Leaders with higher emotional intelligence can resolve conflicts better. This is a proven fact. Managing a team is quite challenging in a multi-cultural office environment. Disagreements leading to disruption in work activities are a major issue. So higher EI would help the leader to guide and influence the decision making in the team.

So keeping all these in mind how would an organization recruit an emotionally intelligent leader? Let us talk about some innovative ways to hire leaders with higher EI.

Talk to past employers

Judging an individual based on academic qualification, work experience and certifications are not sufficient to judge EI. As a recruiter, you need to talk to past employers in detail. Discuss his/her behavior in different circumstances. Critically evaluate the various emotional intelligence competencies and focus on the way he/she has been dealing with people. Specific and pointed questions are important as these would provide a snapshot of the kind of person he/she is.

Behavioral Event Interviewing

This is a new form of an interview where you allow the candidate to feel comfortable and have an informal discussion. Then slowly allow him/her to narrate a story which was difficult to tackle but was accomplished. Once the story is over start asking specific questions about different activities and how he/she felt during those moments. Repeat this with a situation where a candidate actually failed and was unsuccessful. Get the minute details and compare the extent to which this candidate is aware of his/her feelings and its effect on others. This is an extremely difficult format as making the candidate say the truth and how he/she behaved during those times is a challenge.

Concluding Lines

Hiring an emotionally intelligent leader is an extremely challenging process. Infact, most companies overlook this aspect. However, in a competitive market retaining employees is important. So an empathetic and humane leader in the workplace would improve the performance of employees. Therefore leaders with higher EI are important assets in modern-day organizations.