Please read the following discussion and write a response:
While technical skills and knowledge (IQ) are essential to employment, it is the soft skills of emotional intelligence (often referred to as EQ) that will determine long term success in business. Where IQ will get you in the door, EQ will be a strong factor in determining whether you stay and your overall career trajectory (Boyatzis, 2019). Throughout a career most people will encounter someone who was technically smart but wasn’t a good fit as a result of their communication style. This lack of emotional intelligence is often associated with difficult employees and bosses alike.
The article “8 Crucial Skills Supervisors Need to Have” focuses of the soft skills often associated with strong emotionally intelligent leaders (ERC, 2019). Based on my experience I would rank the skills in the following order: communication, interpersonal skills, critical thinking, time and priority management, leadership, conflict resolution, problem solving, and last diversity and generational differences. If a leader has the first three skills they encapsulate the qualities of emotional intelligence and the next five skills listed in my opinion are subsets within these three essential skills.
Understanding how to adjust communication style based on the individual or audience is critical for effective communication. Having emotional sensitivity to communicate in a way that will achieve the desired result is a sign of a strong communicator. Often communication is focused on the ability to share ideas and deliver presentations, while this is an important aspect of communication understanding how to listen is equally if not more important.
There is a significant difference between managing and leading. As the article “The Distinction Between Supervision and Leadership” highlights management is an important function in all organizations to ensure that critical tasks and deliverables are completed (Davis, 2018). The article also focuses on the different skills essential to being an effective leader. Leadership requires an individual to be able to engage others and motivate people to achieve their potential. Where many of the tasks associated with supervising involve managing activities, leadership requires abilities beyond managing checklists and projects.
Leadership skills are essential to the long term success of departments and organizations as a whole. Leaders build the culture and influence to create strategic change and growth. When focus is placed on managing tasks with little emphasis on leadership, organizations may be challenged to achieve sustainable change. The C.A.R.E.S (communication, accountability, responsibility, engagement, serving) model provides a strong foundation for leaders. The C.A.R.E. portion of the model will help build a culture that will support strategic vision. Regardless of how good a strategy is, if the culture does not support the change the strategy can not be executed successfully. The service aspect of the C.A.R.E.S. model should be emphasized as one of the most important. Serving as a servant leader to help build and support the team, regardless of position or title, will result in greater collaboration.
From my experience in leadership I have found that it is important to learn what motivates the members of your team. Determining motivation will help guide interactions and communications with team members. Empowering people and supporting them with the skills to be successful is one characteristic of a good leader. I’ve heard it said that a truly good leader is not defined by how many people they lead but by how many leaders they create. By supporting the development of others a leader shows that they are able to facilitate real change.