Hi, everyone!

Martha and Claressa here again, and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to discuss something pretty exciting:

Leadership University!

Leadership University is a new program we’ve created, designed specifically with leaders in mind. Our goal with the program is to work with clients to truly understand the concept of “self as a leader.” We’ll explore this idea, then use our discoveries to understand how your individual attributes contribute to your success in leading others. The work we do during Leadership University will unfold into how you lead your organization and how you lead within your community. All the while, we’ll roll up our sleeves and focus on the attributes that make a great leader in a high-performing organization.

So what’s Leadership University all about?

Martha: We’ve already started the Leadership University program with one of our sites, and it’s been a joy to watch the process. A recent session was truly exciting in that we were able to build on the foundational pieces of Myers Briggs and the corresponding topic of “natural preference.” We were able to take it a step further to discuss emotional intelligence… which is a piece of our philosophy that we haven’t had the chance to embark upon up until this point. I can’t overemphasize it; it’s thrilling to be able to take those foundational pieces — natural preferences — and see how they fit into the emotional component of leading strategically.

“To put it simply, you’re using emotions in a strategic manner to achieve what you need as you lead others and meet the goals of your organization.”

Claressa: I have to echo that — I love the emotional intelligence piece of this puzzle. As a leader, emotional intelligence is imperative. It’s one thing to know yourself and how you should approach something; it’s another to actually do it and do it strategically. To put it simply, you’re using emotions in a strategic manner to achieve what you need as you lead others and meet the goals of your organization. It’s intriguing, to look at that, and surprising that leaders are expected to inherently have the motivation and knowledge needed to take those steps.

“… Emotional Intelligence is to understand one’s own emotions as well as the emotions of others around them.”

Martha: For those of you who are unfamiliar with emotional intelligence, that’s okay! That’s what we’re here for! A very basic definition is that having Emotional Intelligence is to understand one’s own emotions as well as the emotions of others around them. I think the most amazing thing about emotional intelligence is this: research shows that the higher up in leadership people will go, the more relevant emotional intelligence is… the more essential it is for you to understand personal traits and to develop the emotional components that accompany them.

Claressa: Absolutely. As I’m sure our readers can see, natural preferences and emotional intelligence are big topics. You and I could talk about them all day! Because we want our audience to love and understand our philosophies just as much as we do, we’ll be launching a blog series dedicated to them. We’ll take each of the five components, the five characteristics that make up emotional intelligence, and highlight each of those in their own separate post. This will give people a greater understanding of where they fall on the spectrum of emotional intelligence — including weaknesses that could benefit from improvement. Think of it as a “beginner’s guide” to achieving the skills of a strategic, emotionally-intelligent leader.

Martha: Sounds like a date to me! We’ll be back next time to talk about the first component of emotional intelligence: Self-awareness.

Wait! There’s still a moral to this story!

Martha: I’d say the moral of today’s chat is that it’s important to understand your foundational pieces and preferences… but in order to take it to the next level, you’ve got to learn and understand the many facets of emotional intelligence. Unlike IQ (which is an unchangeable fact about ourselves), EQ is something we can actually strive to improve, so that we may make positive changes as leaders.