Welcome to MY EQ. Please read this introduction carefully.
My EQ is a comprehensive self - development program that will help you to become intimately acquainted with who you are, your personality, your deeply embedded behaviors and attitudes and how they are sometimes productive and emotionally intelligent, and sometimes counterproductive and emotionally less intelligent.
More importantly it will provide you with a unique blend of insights, as well as practical tools and processes that will assist you in the lifelong process of developing your emotional intelligence (EQ) and achieving personal mastery.
Leadership Brand
The extent to which one is successful in developing your EQ and achieving personal mastery will largely determine your own individual leadership brand. A personal leadership brand is a select and overt approach of a leader to address challenges and manage his/her transactions with others. It is the behaviors that people instantly associate with a leader, much like the associations we make with strong brands like Apple, Google, Coca - Cola.
High EQ – High Personal Mastery individuals will have a personal leadership brand that is characterised by self – awareness, authenticity, integrity, resilience and stability in turbulent environments, high levels of engagement with others, interpersonal sensitivity, empathy, a strong work ethic, good judgement, a versatile behavioral repertoire and above all humility and ability to self – reflect, recalibrate behavior and tailor it to the specific demands of situations.
It is this ability to become self – aware which sets the High EQ – High Personal Mastery leaders apart from other leaders, because they can break free from the gravitational pull of self and reflect and develop and apply new, more productive behaviors to deal with diverse situations. Low EQ – Low Personal Mastery leaders react stereotypically, using the same old behaviors, practised over a lifetime to deal with ever-changing circumstances and challenges. You can think of this as the self that keeps spinning around its own axis.
This is the main thrust of My EQ – to equip you to pull away from the "gravitational pull" of your deeply embedded and often unconscious ways of dealing with challenges in the work space and develop new trajectories as you learn new and more productive ways of engaging with the work space. To lead yourself, so that you can lead others.
How does this work in practise – EQ, Productive Behaviors, Counterproductive Behaviors, Leadership Brand, My EQ, Personal Mastery?
The Four Stage of Learning - From Unconscious Incompetence to Unconscious Competence
To understand this better, we need to take a step back and look at a well-known model called The Four Stages of Learning developed by Noel Burch of Gordon Training International.
In stage 1 called Unconscious Incompetence a person is not aware of what he is not competent in. In an EQ context he is not for instance aware (unconscious) that he may be domineering and a poor listener (incompetent or counterproductive).
In stage 2 called Conscious Incompetence he is made aware of his incompetence/counterproductive behavior - that he is domineering and not a good listener.
In Stage 3 called Conscious Competence he learns how to develop new behaviors to offset the counterproductive ones. For instance, learning to take a step back and use active listening skills. It does not come naturally though and he has to work hard and consciously at displaying this new behavior.
In Stage 4 called Unconscious Competence after practising this new behavior repeatedly over time, he will have internalised and automated it to the point where he can display it without thinking about it.
You have been assessed on 16 personality traits as part of this program. Think of personality as the behaviors and attitudes that you have "practised" over and over during your lifetime to engage with the world around you and by now are deeply "burned onto your hard drive". Personality drives much of our behavior in ways which can be either productive (emotionally more intelligent) or counterproductive (emotionally less intelligent) or both.
So let’s see how all these concepts and principles come together within the context of this program - MY EQ.
Putting This Into Practise
Derrick is a senior manager. His personality shows him to be dominant, direct and driven (productive). Because of these attributes he has a reputation for getting results. This is part of his personal leadership brand – getting results. Derrick doesn’t have to work at this, it flows from his personality. It comes naturally. It is an unconscious competence and this is what people associate him with. It is his brand.
The flip side of high dominance, directness and drive are the fact that these traits can also make one domineering, aggressive, disruptive, insensitive, and hostile at times (counterproductive). Because of the “dark side” of his dominance, directness and drive Derrick also has a reputation for trampling on others, bullying people and breaking rather than building bridges. This is also part of his leadership brand -what people associate him with – someone who alienates others. Again Derrick doesn’t have to work at this, it also flows from his personality. The problem is that he is not aware of it – it is an unconscious incompetence.
So the productive and counterproductive sides of his personality traits both impact on his personal leadership brand. Derrick cannot lead himself – modify his counterproductive behavior unless he is made aware of it. Derrick won't become more self - aware without some kind of intervention, like MY EQ. While this is a crucial first step, it won’t make him significantly emotionally more intelligent. It will simply take him to the second stage of conscious incompetence. He will need tools and process to help him to unlearn the counterproductive behaviors and learn new, more productive behaviors like empathy, interpersonal sensitivity, emotional control and active listening. This will bring him to the third stage of conscious competence. As he keeps repeating and practising the new behaviors he will over time reach the fourth stage of unconscious competence where these new behaviors flow naturally. At this point he will have achieved a state of personal mastery with regard to these aspects of his leadership and in the process and over time he will have transformed his personal leadership brand from "getting results but being a bully and someone who alienates others" to being known or branded as someone who gets results whilst also engaging and motivating others.
In the process he will also significantly have improved his leadership capability.
This sums up MY EQ. It is a journey first of all in raising your self – awareness, then in providing you with the tools to reduce counterproductive low EQ behaviors and increase productive high EQ behaviors and to “lock you into a process” that will help you to bring this to a level of personal mastery over time. In improving your EQ and achieving personal mastery you will be improving your leadership brand and leadership effectiveness.
Dive Deep