How I used emotional intelligence to improve as a manager

Something that people don’t tend to know about me is that I report quite low levels of empathy. This comes as a surprise to some people because I’ve intentionally worked on modifying my behavior to compensate, and put the work in to change people’s perception of my empathy levels to help me be a better manager and colleague at work. But it took me time and effort to get there.  

I used to manage a team of people and we all had a pretty good relationship, despite being scattered around the country. We would meet once a month or so in person, and we were all pretty social personalities, so they were always fun days. But I found that no matter how the day was going, we’d always circle back to the same worries around company processes and change. 

The team were concerned about processes we had to follow, or ways of working that didn’t make sense to them. Each time we met, these worries would get raised. Now, these were all things outside of our control. They were business decisions, and the reasons behind them had been clearly laid out and communicated with the entire workforce. I’d accepted them, took them in my stride and got my head down, but for the rest of my team it didn’t seem that easy, which is something I was struggling to understand.  

I found myself getting impatient and telling them that this was the way it worked, and we just had to get on with it. Basically, I started to shut it down. I didn’t listen and while it was never my intention, they perceived me as being dismissive. Misunderstandings like this are symptomatic of having low self-reported levels of empathy, which falls under the Compassion measure within the Thomas Emotional Intelligence assessment. The situation was made worse by the fact that I didn’t have the self-awareness to realize this at the time, and it took one of my team leads approaching me and telling me how my team were feeling for the penny to drop. Empathy came easily to this team member, and they suggested that they deal with the complaints and then relay them back to me.  

This worked as a short-term solution as it gave the team what they needed and both myself and the other team lead could work to our strengths. As I didn’t want this to be a blocker for me in the future, I went back to my Emotional Intelligence assessment, thought through my behaviors and the impact on the team, and used the results to put an action plan in place to help me improve. And I did.  

So where am I now? Receiving feedback about one’s behavior is sometimes uncomfortable, but it can be a vital part of becoming better aware of the impact of your behavior on those around you. I’m really proud that my team lead felt she could be honest with me and that’s testament to a good working relationship. It was a tough learning curve, but I have learned to modify my behavior for my team. The best lessons are always learned the hard way! 

I’d never realized that I would report low levels of empathy before taking the Emotional Intelligence assessment – and how could I? It would involve a level of self-awareness that the majority of us do not have – even if we think we do. It’s hard to be objective about your own behavior but I found the scientific results of an Emotional Intelligence assessment gave me the neutral output I needed to work on myself. And of course, it’s great to know that by working towards the goals the assessment suggested I am working better with my colleagues.