The Art of Successful Leadership

 

Master Bernard Law of Singapore, a certified Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence (SEI) Trainer, said: "Studies show that EQ or emotional quotient is more important than technical skills in defining whether a leader is talented or just good enough. People attending EQ training courses have improved their job performance and had better relationships with other people. Multiple-year studies show that organizations led by high-EQ leaders have less personnel changes, higher productivity as well as more dedicated, happier staffs."

 

The role of an administrator/leader is to work together with others to achieve goals. This occurs in two subjects. The first is employees because he needs them to execute or follow instructions and the other is customers, suppliers, and others. Thus, people are the most important resource in these situations.

 

A leader with high EQ understands himself and others, particularly with regular contacts. A leader with strong EQ skills knows how to use his optimism to influence others, respond in the best way in different situations, and practise empathy with employees; thus, he wins commitment and support from staff. Indeed, people respect and follow a leader with excellent human skills, not only academic or technical excellence. In addition to working for economic reasons, most of us follow him because he recognizes and develops our own capabilities best.

 

To apply personal emotions in business administration, a manager/leader is required to be "objective" - be centralised and not impose emotions on work. This is especially important in Asian societies where any sign of emotion is considered "weak."

 

However, we all know that it is extremely difficult to act without emotion. Our daily decisions are directed by emotions. For example, when we decide to hire an employee, we measure his skills as well as our view of his character. When we negotiate a business investment deal, we not only look at the bottom line, but also take our feeling about partners into consideration.

While IQ hardly changes from time to time, EQ can be "learned" and changed at any stage or environment, because EQ is like other skills we can learn and practice regularly to assimilate them into our thinking. But more importantly, we understand how EQ behaviours affect the people we work with every day.

 

Master Bernard Law, a lecturer for EQ training programme at the INPRO Business Administration Training Centre, Hanoi said: “When I work with Vietnamese people in general, I find that they are always eager to learn and "hungry" for new skills and knowledge. This is an important plus because the Vietnamese economy is poised to develop at an exponential rate. Those who learn EQ skills will gain further advantages in acquiring business knowledge as well as techniques. I hope and believe that leaders of Vietnamese organizations and enterprises will get many benefits from this course and apply EQ skills immediately. I am sure that they will learn very quickly with open-minded thinking.”

 

Thus, the thinking of trainees plays a very important role in learning EQ skills. Trainees are required to be open to new challenges and willing to share, reflect and relate EQ concepts and skills to their daily lives - both at work and with family or friends.

 

Besides, the first step of learning methodologies is to accept emotions as a part of daily life, so we embrace and manage them to generate interests. Secondly, emotions contain information or knowledge about situations, other people and us. Thirdly, we must also admit that we need more technical competence or knowledge to stand out, and we need EQ skills or human skills to create true distinctions.

 

The benefits and effects of learning EQ are not confined to working experience, because emotions are part of all of the human experience.