“Emotional Intelligence is success factor Number One for global leaders.”

Dr. Wolfgang Schmitz, founder & CEO of European Academy for Executive Education (eurac)

The Global Lead­er­ship Foun­da­tion has devel­oped an online Global Emotional Intel­li­gence Test (GEIT) specif­i­cally for global leaders to provide a guide as to how they’re scoring on an emotional intel­li­gence (EI) level. The test strives to support global leaders in giving them a point to start from in their quest for self-development. 

While it doesn’t guar­antee complete accu­racy, the GEIT does indi­cate that emotional intel­li­gence is an impor­tant success factor in terms of global leadership. 

So we sat down again with Dr. Wolf­gang Schmitz, founder and CEO of eurac estab­lish­ment, to talk about emotional intel­li­gence and its signif­i­cance for global leaders. 

Defining emotional intelligence 

According to Dr. Schmitz “emotional intel­li­gence is the ability to accu­rately perceive your own and other’s emotions; to under­stand the signals which emotions commu­ni­cate between people, and the ability to effec­tively manage your own and others’ emotions.” 

For Dr. Schmitz, emotional intel­li­gence goes far beyond having empathy or being sensi­tive. It’s a common miscon­cep­tion that these are markers for emotion­ally intel­li­gent people. Many people openly demon­strate their emotions. But that doesn’t auto­mat­i­cally mean they are able to manage their emotions, or that they have a sense for other people’s emotions. 

Instead, being emotion­ally intel­li­gent involves intra-personal (your own) as well as inter-personal (involving others) manage­ment compe­tence – recog­nizing your own and other people’s feel­ings, and being open and able to manage your own emotions as well as others’ (can’t stress this enough) in an effec­tive way.

Display of emotions across cultures

Different cultures handle emotions in different ways. We all feel them, but the way we respond to them can differ dras­ti­cally. Latino cultures, for example, are prone to showing their emotions very openly, while Asians tend to hide their emotions. 

Being aware of these differ­ences as a global leader helps, but you could – and as a global leader should – go deeper. People from different cultures or nations may respond simi­larly to emotions. But their reasons for doing so, their back­grounds, may differ. 

Take China and Japan, for instance. Both Chinese and Japanese people tend to keep their emotions tightly under wraps, never showing them to outsiders, espe­cially strangers or colleagues. But they do this for very different reasons. 

China’s is a history of repres­sion. For over 3,000 years, the Chinese were ruled by impe­rial dynas­ties; then Commu­nism took over at the begin­ning of the 20^th century. Over this time, span­ning so many gener­a­tions, China turned into what Dr. Schmitz calls a “mistrust society”. They have learned that any outwardly shown emotion may be used against them. As an outsider, it’s incred­ibly diffi­cult to gain their trust and become part of their inner circle. The Chinese don’t easily trust anyone except their closest family members – and so they don’t show emotion to anyone but their family core. 

Japan has a different history. It’s the country with one of the most hier­ar­chical thinking and struc­ture, and a society governed by rules. These rules are taught and lived from a very young age, and the Japanese follow them strictly. Compared to the Chinese, Japanese people will trust outsiders more easily. But it’s a rule to serve those in a higher hier­archy, and another rule to not make other people feel bad through or because of your emotions – espe­cially those in a higher hier­archy. Emotions aren’t shown because they may influ­ence or even manip­u­late people, which is against the rules.

As we see, even though these two cultures handle emotions in a very similar way – by not expressing them – their reasons for doing so differ. Which means their reac­tions in dealing with their own and other people’s emotions will differ, for example within a global team. A global leader must be aware of, recog­nize and be able to manage the differ­ences in emotions that different people from different cultures display. 

The impor­tance of emotional intel­li­gence in global leaders

According to Dr. Schmitz, “a global lead­er’s journey is about personal trans­for­ma­tion. This means it’s about managing a range of tasks and rela­tion­ship complex­i­ties across a wide array of internal and external constituents from multiple national cultures and jurisdictions.”

To succeed in that complex role means being compe­tent in managing your own and others’ emotions – the defi­n­i­tion of emotional intel­li­gence. Without emotional intel­li­gence, a global leader won’t be able to navi­gate the rela­tion­ship complex­i­ties that come with running a global team. 

Let‘s get down to the nitti-gritty: Is EI more impor­tant than IQ in global leaders?

In Dr. Schmitz’ (care­fully expressed) opinion, emotional intel­li­gence is success factor Number One for global leaders. In a lead­er­ship setting, emotional intel­li­gence matters more than a person’s intel­li­gence quotient (IQ).

A high IQ means little if a global leader isn’t able to commu­ni­cate, miti­gate, moti­vate or gener­ally estab­lish good rela­tion­ships within his team. Employees no longer work alone at their desks from nine to five. They interact, commu­ni­cate, strate­gize, plan, develop, research, laugh and even eat together. Every team member takes on a specific role, according to their strengths and weak­nesses, and different situ­a­tions will have them react in different ways. 

As a leader, if you can’t grasp those nuances of your team members’ emotions, and know how to manage them, you have no chance of running a happy, successful team. Espe­cially as a global leader. 

This doesn’t mean that global leaders don’t need an educa­tion on an intel­lec­tual level! It would be just as wrong to state that a global leader has to work on or educate himself only on emotional intelligence. 

But gener­ally, global lead­er­ship is more about leading your team or employees, rather than working on the subject matter your­self. And that’s why EI is more impor­tant than IQ in the context of global leadership. 

Back to the Global Emotional Intel­li­gence Test (GEIT): How must global leaders score on it to show global lead­er­ship potential?

The GEIT eval­u­ates people via four competencies: 

• Self-Aware­ness – the conscious knowl­edge of one’s own char­acter, feel­ings, motives, and desires. 
• Social Aware­ness – the ability to under­stand and respond to the needs of others. 
• Self-Manage­ment – the manage­ment of or by oneself; the taking of respon­si­bility for one’s own behavior and well-being. 
• Rela­tion­ship Manage­ment – the ability to iden­tify, analyze, and manage rela­tion­ships with people inside and outside your team, as well as their devel­op­ment through feed­back and coaching. It incor­po­rates a person’s ability to commu­ni­cate, persuade, and lead others, whilst being direct and honest without alien­ating people. 

The score ranges from 1 – 10 points on each of these attrib­utes. On general terms, Dr. Schmitz stip­u­lates that a successful global leader must range at least to an eight or higher on all four. But of course, it’s not that easy. The neces­sary ranking of compe­ten­cies always depends on the scenario. 

So let’s come up with a scenario as an example: A global leader is leading a team of six people, with three members located in the US and three in Mexico. In this situ­a­tion, Dr. Schmitz says, the global leader needs to score highest, at least an eight, on social aware­ness and rela­tion­ship management. 

A high social aware­ness is neces­sary because of the collab­o­ra­tion of people from different coun­tries and cultures, as well as them sitting in different loca­tions. And a high rela­tion­ship manage­ment compe­tence is impor­tant in order to gain deeper influ­ence, inspire, build and grow them as a team, and also mentor them.

But! Let’s assume this global leader, while having top notch social aware­ness and rela­tion­ship manage­ment compe­tence, has low self-aware­ness. He won’t be able to recog­nize his own feel­ings, or manage them – meaning he won’t be successful in trying to manage that team. They will give him feed­back or implicit signs; he might be able to read them because he has a good inter-personal sense, but without intra-personal compe­tence, i.e. self-aware­ness, he won’t be able to change. 

To sum up: In general, a person must score an eight or higher in all four compe­ten­cies of the GEIT, to have the poten­tial to be a true global leader. But the rele­vance of the compe­tency ranking also depends on the situ­a­tion and can be different for every team, every global leader and every situation. 

So what if you find your­self lacking in one compe­tency? What if you score lower than seven or lower in one or more, thereby displaying a disad­van­tage in crucial aspects of emotional intelligence? 

Don’t worry. You’re not neces­sarily stuck with your low ranking. First of all, the Global Lead­er­ship Foun­da­tion doesn’t guar­antee the accu­racy of the results of the GEIT. Second – and more impor­tant – emotional intel­li­gence is some­thing you can improve in terms of self-development.

5 steps to improving your EI to become a more effec­tive and compe­tent global leader

Dr. Schmitz sees five impor­tant steps to improving your emotional intel­li­gence to becoming a better global leader. 

Step 1: Motivation

There’s not enough extrinsic moti­va­tion – meaning it’s imposed on you by others – in the world to make you open to learning and changing if you don’t want it. An intrinsic moti­va­tion, desire and open­ness to change and learn and espe­cially grow, are crucial in improving your emotional intelligence. 

Without them, the next four steps become irrelevant. 

Step 2: Gather honest feedback

If you’re intrin­si­cally moti­vated and serious about improving your emotional intel­li­gence, Dr. Schmitz suggests you gather very honest feed­back about your strengths and weak­nesses from as many different people in your life as possible; your colleagues, employees, supe­riors, spouse, friends, rela­tives – any- and every­body who is part of your circle. 

We all take on different roles in different settings. In a work envi­ron­ment we’re a colleague, an employee, a boss, a collab­o­rator. Outside of work we take up the social roles of parent, sibling, spouse, rela­tive and friend. And of course there’s that third, private role you play you, your­self and your passions, which are also uniquely reflected and expressed in your emotions.

Gath­ering honest feed­back from all players inter­acting with you in all your different roles will show where your true growth oppor­tu­ni­ties lie.

Step 3: Develop a learning plan

Once you know in which areas you want to work on your­self, set up a learning plan. Break it down into SMART mini targets and deter­mine how you will reach them. 

Step 4: Get a coach

If you want to stay on target, Dr. Schmitz advises to find a coach. This can be a profes­sional coach or your best friend. It doesn’t really matter who it is, as long as they’re able to nudge you back towards your targets when you veer off the path. Someone you trust, who wants to help and support you, and who them­selves have the intel­li­gence to discuss and come up with solutions. 

You want to find someone who is aware of your blind spots and not afraid to point them out to you. This is some­thing you need another person for; it is very diffi­cult to recog­nize them your­self. They’re called “blind” spots for a reason, after all. 

Step 5: Prac­tice, prac­tice, practice

Start following the plan. Prac­tice every day, at every natu­rally occur­ring oppor­tu­nity. If neces­sary, adjust the plan and keep going. Keep gath­ering feedback. 

Improving any or all four compe­ten­cies neces­sary for high emotional intel­li­gence isn’t done in a day. It involves a reset­ting of neural path­ways in your brain, in the way you react to certain situ­a­tions, in the way you approach people and in the way you interact with them. This takes time and prac­tice, and it’s why Step 1, the moti­va­tion to go through with it, is so important. 

No global lead­er­ship without emotional intelligence

In conclu­sion, emotional intel­li­gence is incred­ibly impor­tant for leaders in general, but even more so for global leaders. A high emotional intel­li­gence is, in fact, of higher value to a global leader than a high intel­li­gence quotient. 

To be a successful global leader you must rank very highly in all four compe­ten­cies of emotional intel­li­gence, meaning self-aware­ness, social aware­ness, self-manage­ment and rela­tion­ship manage­ment. The GEIT helps you deter­mine which of these compe­ten­cies you might need to work on. 

Because, yes, you can improve your emotional intel­li­gence to the level of a global leader’s if you are intrin­si­cally moti­vated to do so. All you need is honest feed­back from your profes­sional, social and personal circles, a learning plan, a coach, and prac­tice. No, it’s not neces­sarily easy. But is it worth it to become a successful global leader? 

Well, that’s for you to decide. 

Once you’ve made up your mind to grow as a global leader, you should sign up for more infor­ma­tion about global lead­er­ship here at eurac. We’ll keep you up to date on the latest trends, events, inter­views and research on every­thing about global leadership.