More than in any other area, emotionally intelligent managers show their stuff in daily interactions with their peers, employees, and customers. This is perhaps the most active research area in the nascent emotional intelligence field. In research conducted by psychologist Marc Brackett, emotionally unintelligent people reported having significantly more problems with their peers than do their more emotionally intelligent counterparts. Lower EI (at least among men) was also related to getting into fights, using illegal drugs, and consuming excessive amounts of alcohol. Similar results for interpersonal relationships were obtained by researcher Paulo Lopes. Lopes found that those higher in EI got along better with people and reported fewer negative interactions with close friends. Work by Lopes also shows that supportive team interactions are related to emotional intelligence.
Creating effective relationships requires a great deal of effort. It requires the ability and the willingness to support as well as to confront. It requires you to offer positive feedback for a job well done and sincere criticism to help the other person realize and recognize an error.
Emotionally Intelligent Development of a Helpful Interpersonal Relationship
Consider this supervisory scenario: It is a mid-year review for one of your direct reports. You believe that he feels positive about his performance. However, your analysis indicates that he is failing to meet two of his five critical objectives for the year. Many managers have a difficult time giving negative feedback, even though such feedback is critical to the success of the person receiving it. In our experience, it is all too common for an employee to be truly surprised by their performance evaluations, the meager size of their bonus check, or the promotion that was not realized. You can take the “nice” approach to management, and as a result, people reporting to you might really like you a lot. But this is not what we mean by effective relationships. In this case, you might be a nice guy, but if your niceness means that you fail to develop your employees, then you might not really be so nice after all.
One example of providing effective feedback to people is illustrated by Jack Welch. In an earlier chapter, we mentioned how Welch managed change. His approach to feedback also bears some exploration. (We’re not nominating Welch for an emotionally intelligent manager-of-the-year award, it’s just that there are so many detailed examples of his management style available.) Welch discussed how he approached performance issues with his managers, giving them advance warning that they were on a perilous path. His “in-your-face” style ensured that the manager was clear regarding what the problem was and what he needed to do to solve the problem. If the performance issue continued, that manager was dismissed. Welch’s understanding of people, along with his toughness, gave his managers the information they needed to predict their own future—their career future and their emotional future. As Welch noted, “no one should ever be surprised when they are asked to leave (the company). By the time I met with managers I was about to replace, I would have had at least two or three conversations to express my disappointment and to give them a chance to turn things around. . . . That first talk is when the surprise and disappointment, if any, should occur—not when the person is asked to leave.” This what-if analysis is the core of understanding emotions.
Attending to core emotional data can assist you, but how you create and nurture effective relationships will reflect your own unique style and values. Ask yourself these questions:
- Identify Emotions: How are you feeling about this interaction? How might the employee be feeling about this interaction?
- Use Emotions: How will this feeling influence your approach and thinking about this interaction? If you are extremely anxious about the meeting, will you rush through it, will you fail to attend to your employee’s reaction, or will you ignore some of the more difficult, negative feedback?
- Understand Emotions: How will the employee approach and think about this interaction? How will the employee react? What is the person expecting?
- Manage Emotions: How will you manage your feelings about this interaction? What will you do to manage the employee’s feelings so he or she stays open and listens?
Remember that emotions contain data and that these data are primarily communicating information about people and relationships. Being accurately aware of emotions and their meaning provides the emotionally intelligent manager with a solid base of understanding of themselves and of others. This is the basis of effective interpersonal interactions.