Transcript: Emotional Intelligence: A Game Changer in Leadership

 

Robin Hills: There's a myth that goes around about emotional intelligence that it's all about being kind and nice, and it's not. It's about recognizing the emotions within the team, within the organization. It's allowing those emotions to surface and it's dealing with them. It's dealing with them in an appropriate way.

Brendan Rogers: Have you ever thought about how your feelings and thoughts work together when you make a choice or talk to someone? That's called emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence isn't just about knowing what it is. It's about using it in our daily lives to make better decisions and build real connections with others. Today, we have Robin Hills with us. He's an expert in this area. He runs EI4Change, where he's taught over 400,000 people across nearly 200 countries and successfully authored two books on emotional intelligence. Get ready for a great chat that might make you see emotional intelligence differently. Here's Robin Hills. After the fact, as far as Robin, I want to ask you I want you to share with us how you moved into this emotional intelligence space. Share a bit of your story.

Robin Hills: Sure, I started my career in the 1980s, last century, and what I was doing is working in the London area selling medicines within the pharmaceutical industry to doctors, both general practitioners and hospital doctors. I noticed at the time that there were some doctors who I could engage with incredibly well and there were some that I just couldn't engage with at all and I couldn't work out what it was, because they were doing the same role. I was the same person, and it wasn't until the mid-90s, when Daniel Goleman published his books on emotional intelligence, that I realized that that was the key elements that differentiated people. Well, it wasn't cognitive intelligence, because doctors are supposedly some of the most intelligent people in the country, yet some of the ways in which they were behaving tended to suggest otherwise, and I realized that it wasn't the cognitive intelligence element, it was the emotional intelligence element. It was the way in which they were working with their emotions.

Now, my roles in the pharmaceutical industry changed and transformed over a period of 20 odd years, and I moved up to the northwest of England to take up a leadership role. And again, through transformation within the pharmaceutical industry, some of my roles changed to the point where at one point I was made redundant. So I went into clinical research to work with people and to help them develop and grow their careers in the clinical research arena. And that role was made redundant. So I thought, you know, I could make myself redundant here.

What is it that I really enjoy? What do I enjoy doing? And after a bit of soul searching, I realized it was people development. How do I help people grow? How do I help people develop? How do I help people to become the person that they are destined to be, which are all fundamental leadership principles. And I recognized that emotional intelligence was an area where I had a bit of experience around. So I became qualified to use a number of psychometrics, including the EQI 2.0, which is an assessment of emotional intelligence, and over the last 15 years I've built up my company, EI4Change, based around emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence for change at the personal level, the team level and the organizational level.

Brendan Rogers: What was it that you've shared a bit in that story and your journey there? But was there any particular moment that you thought this was the differentiator? This is something that is going to maybe even stand the test of time.

Robin Hills: Yes, I've got a very clear memory of reading one of the Saturday papers in the mid 90s, but no, it was the early 20s. I was sitting downstairs at breakfast time reading one of the Saturday papers and there was a book review and the book review was a book review of Daniel Goleman's work and I thought this is this is really, really interesting. This is absolutely fascinating. This is giving me some answers around some of the fundamental questions of human interaction that I was missing. So I purchased a copy of his book and haven't read it. It's not the easiest read in the world because his English is very clunky and he does tend to go into a lot of in-depth neuroscience, which wasn't a problem for me at all with my background in biology. But hey, it was still a challenge for me. But the fundamental essence of what he was saying was absolutely fascinating. So I think Brendan's wants to answer your question. That was the defining moment for me.

Brendan Rogers: But is there anything you're pondering at the moment around this topic Emotional intelligence and what you're seeing?

Robin Hills: Yes. Well, look, let's bring it back up today. What is it that everybody is talking about globally and where are we seeing the future going? And everybody is talking very much about AI, artificial intelligence, chat, gpt and these are brilliant tools, but they're still tools and it's not going to be the death of the human race, any more than the printing press was back in the early centuries when people started reading, any more than books were when books started to surface. So I think what we've got to do is to look at this and look at where it's going Now.

I've used it and I find it a fascinating tool, but there's lots about the tool that is just not right, and that's from my perspective. So when I actually use it, I actually have to look at the answers and really look at them and think to myself is this correct? And I'd give it seven out of ten, and I don't think we will ever get ten out of ten, because it's a statistical device. Really, what it does is it scrapes through the internet and finds data and does a statistical analysis on the data and is very good at presenting the data back to us based around what we ask. But what it does not have and will never have, is a human brain and because of that, it will never fully understand and appreciate emotions. So, whilst it may be able to give a very good representation of empathy, it really doesn't understand empathy, never will understand empathy.

And last night I was doing some work and I was doing some work around body language and I asked it a few questions around body language and he kept coming up with the same answer, and the same answer was inherently wrong. So I think what we've got to do is to look at this as a tool, embrace it, look at where it's going, but it really is. There's a long way to go with it yet, particularly in the field of emotional intelligence, and the issue behind AI is the fact that it's focused on intelligence. It's not, fact, focused on the emotional component and never will be.

Brendan Rogers: Yeah, I tend to agree with you and I'm going to go down that path a little bit further soon, but I'd love you to just give our listeners and watchers an idea of your definition.

Robin Hills: Sure, I think we ought to have started off with that, brendan, so apologies, what are you talking about? What is this emotional intelligence? It very, very simply, emotional intelligence is the way in which you combine your thinking with your feelings in order to make good quality decisions and build up authentic relationships. And now that's all very, very simply said, but boy, it's incredibly hard to do. Let me repeat it it's the way which you combine your thinking with your feelings in order to make good quality decisions and build up authentic relationships. Now, relationships change, people change, circumstances change. Because of that, the decisions around, the way in which we work with people change, and that will affect the way in which you feel about them. That will affect the way in which you think about them, and we've backtracked it that way around, because most people will track it the other way around. Thinking comes first, then feelings, and it depends upon what paper you read new you speak to as to whether that's the case and then that drives decision making and that drives relationships.

Brendan Rogers: Yeah, fair point. And I have to ask the obvious question why should leaders in a leadership capacity care so much about this topic?

Robin Hills: Well, it's a great question because leaders often don't care, and that's the worry. They have a very simplistic view of emotions. I want all my people to be happy and it's very simplistic and I can come back to that in a minute. But everybody wants to feel good about the work that they do, get some sustenance and engagement through the work that they do, and a good leader will encourage the climate which will allow that to happen. Now, a lot of leaders, as I say, want their people to be happy, yet they're angry and they're inducing fear in people all the time because they haven't hit their targets or they're not delivering to the expectation of the leader because of the fact that the leaders poorly communicated with the people in the first place. So, really, what we ought to be doing is encouraging leaders to understand that they're responsible for the emotional climate within their organization. They're a key part and under pressure, under stress, people will take their cue from the leader. So if the leader is anxious, nervous, suppressing it and inducing fear and anger in people, they're not going to be happy, they're not going to want to come to work, they're not going to want to give their best because they're busy chasing their tail all the time.

Now I said I'd come back to this idea of people being happy. Happiness is a very, very interesting emotion and if people were really to consider happiness and say, do we want people to be happy all the time at work? The answer is no. The reason being is because when people are deliriously happy, they can't make good decisions, you can't communicate with them, they take lots of risks. Um, oh, don't worry about the sales figures, they'll take care of themselves. Just be happy. No, look at the sunshine, isn't it wonderful. Let's go out. Oh, I'm feeling really, really happy.

No, we don't want our people to be happy. We want our people to be contented. We want our people to feel that they're doing good quality work and that they're being challenged. People get up in the morning to do work because it it develops them, it grows them, they feel that they're contributing. How, as a leader, can you enable that process in order that your people can feel contented? There are going to be times when they're going to feel anxious. There are going to be times when they're going to be angry. There are times when you need to be angry. There are times when you need to induce a level of fear in them, but do it knowing that you're working with the emotions in order to get the outcomes that are the best for everyone, contented.

Brendan Rogers: Contented. I like that. I've never thought of it that way, certainly haven't thought of it from a hey, I just want people to be happy either, but I do love the contented approach. Let's just go back to the individual leader, the self, because it all starts there, doesn't it? What's worse, robin, in your experience, is it a leader, someone leading a team who knows they are maybe low EQ, they've got some work to do, versus a leader who is low EQ but is just not aware of that but thinks they have good EQ?

Robin Hills: Well, I think both. I don't think I could distinguish between either of them. The interesting thing is, a leader with low EQ is not likely to admit that. They probably think they are very high in terms of EQ because they know how to use their anger and they know how to induce fear in people. Therefore, they're good at EQ. I think, if I am going to give you an answer to your question, self-awareness is a key component of emotional intelligence, and if leaders don't have self-awareness, then I think they're the ones that I'm more fearful of, because they're the ones who are blaming everybody else. Everybody else is the problem, not them and they don't take any kind of ownership for the situation that they find themselves in. And, quite honestly, this type of leader is going to burn themselves into the ground, so they're going to have not only emotional problems. They'll have physical and health problems in years to come because of their lack of self-awareness.

Brendan Rogers: I'm going to move us back to that AI topic that you conveniently raised. We know how you and I especially you know how important emotional intelligence is and you've shared a bit of that already, and there are people out there leading people that do also understand that. But does this topic become even more important with the birth of artificial intelligence? Does it become almost a superhuman thing? That becomes even more important.

Robin Hills: I would say absolutely without question. I think the interesting thing with AI is, if I take you back five years ago, pre-covid, people were talking about the advance of the robots and I was actually saying to a lot of people you really have to look out for these types of roles which can be done through AI, and the majority of roles out there are going to change in a way that they don't exist in 20, 25 years time. We've talked about doctors. Now I've had many, many conversations with doctors that they do not like by saying to them your job is under threat because at some point you can plug a person into a machine who will give a diagnosis far better and far more accurately than you can. A surgeon. A robot can come along and do that surgery far better than you can Now.

Where are you going to define yourself as a doctor and surgeon in the future? And the future is going to be lying around the way in which you are working with people, understanding people, understanding emotions and empathizing with them. So, as far as doctors are concerned, take the diagnosis from the machine, whether that's you, your colleague, or from a box in the corner with flashing lights. Take the diagnosis and work with the person through a clinical pathway, empathize with them, encourage them, support them in terms of their health management. Go back to your initial training. Look at ways in which you can work with disease prevention, and that's the way for the future for the medical profession.

Now, if we're looking at something as complex as the medical profession, then we can look back at any other type of role, be it in logistics, in finance and in any kind of industry. We've got to look at what is it that can be automated, because if that can be automated at some point in the future, it will be automated. What is the differentiator? It's people. How are you going to work with people within your role? Define that, work with it, focus in on it, because that's the future. That's the bit that AI can't do and that's the bit that AI will never do, and I'll repeat what I said earlier AI does not have a human brain.

Brendan Rogers: How does an emotionally intelligent person approach what you just said, which is I don't know, can we say anything certain, but it's a very highly likely outcome of the future, isn't it? Given the automation and the intelligence that's around, how does an emotionally intelligent person approach that scenario?

Robin Hills: Well, I think an emotionally intelligent person will probably not be thinking oh, I'm emotionally intelligent, therefore I couldn't protect myself for the future Now. An emotionally intelligent person will be already engaging well within their current environment, working well with people. They're probably not even thinking along the lines that you and I are talking because they're so busy doing a brilliant job, working cross-culturally, globally and helping people to be the best that they can be working within their circle of influence, and I think that's where the emotionally intelligent leader is currently working.

Brendan Rogers: What do I see, robin and I think this sort of matches with you I'm positive it matches with your thinking is that we know that EQ is such a massively important topic for anybody, but particularly when you're engaging with people and leading people, that it's almost like with the emergence of AI and where that future goes to the leaders who are emotionally intelligent or those that are continuing to be self-aware and develop themselves in this space. It's going to be like the Kreen they're going to rise to the top even sooner than those that are just lacking.

Robin Hills: Yes, I think so. Sorry, what would you say about that? Yes, I think so, but again, I think what we will see and it's going to take a long time to do this, because it's so ingrained in the way in which we work is that we need to move away from leaders who are cognitively intelligent and leaders who behave in bad ways, and what I mean by that who don't necessarily have the right morals and the right ethics to go about transforming people and transforming the world. We've only got to look at our politicians for brilliant examples of that, and what they will do is what people will do is they will look at that and say, well, that's the way to be, and often a lot of people are very, very successful because they've behaved in those ways rather than behaving in more ethical and appropriate ways. And I think what we've got to do is just to live with it, work with it. It's not going to happen in my lifetime, and we just have to optimistically and positively look towards a great future that we are setting the groundwork for.

Brendan Rogers: Yeah, absolutely. I want to go back to that just from what I've been saying earlier and probably checking my own understanding as well. Is that how I took something you said earlier is that people have a level of emotional intelligence anyway and some use that for good interactions with people and others use that for negative interact, although the output of that like emotional intelligence scenario is negative reactions. Is that, is that right? Did I understand that correctly?

Robin Hills: Yes. So, look, we're talking about emotional intelligence here. Am I emotionally intelligent? That's an interesting question, isn't it? Because if I answer yes, it's rather arrogant, self-conceited and it suggests that there's no room for improvement. If I answer no, what am I doing talking to you about emotional intelligence? It depends.

There are going to be certain situations where I will go in there and I'll interact and engage with people at a really deep level and everything will click and everything will work well and I'll come out a bit feel good about it and think, hey, I've got this emotional intelligence sorted now. And there'll be situations that I go into and I completely screw up, and the reason being is I'm human and I'm interacting with other humans and I have my bio rhythms. I react to air pressure and temperature like anybody else. So you know. The question there, therefore, am I emotionally intelligent? Is wrong. It is work in progress. There are ways in which I'm looking at improving and, prior to coming on, AU and I had brief conversation and as we get older, we get more experienced, we get more mature and because of that, our emotional intelligence will develop. So I look at myself now and look back at how I was 20 years ago, 40 years ago. 40 years ago and I cringe with embarrassment, but that was me. And here I am now.

Brendan Rogers: Now, yeah, ok, I understand that, and there's so many nuances in any situation and again, you can Gel with a group of people and they can gel with you, and then you can go to another group of people and maybe not gel. So I get that and there's no, there's no perfection out. There Is there. None of us are perfect beings and these things were always working on. Can you maybe, just to help all of us, give us an example of, say, an emotionally charged scenario that might happen day to day, in an office, for example, and with that, how a person who has a level of emotional intelligence or high level of emotional intelligence would handle that emotionally charged situation?

Robin Hills: Let me give you an example around sales figures. So I mean most, most organizations are sales driven organizations. So you got an organization which they have a series of sales targets and you're halfway through a quarter and the predictions are coming in that the, the targets are all way off. You're way off the target. Now the, the leader, has to go to create a, make a presentation to the board around what's happening and what they're going to do about it. Now they're probably feeling very anxious, very nervous. They're not feeling very good about that at all. Now an emotionally unintelligent leader is going to be blaming everybody else for it. They're going to be shouting at everybody. They're going to be demanding that people do something about it and it's all going to be very input focused. You know a number of telephone calls, number of face to face calls, number of letters sent out or email sent out, number of contracts signed. You know all those sort of measurable things.

Now an emotionally intelligent leader is going to recognize that things are not going to be easy. People are going to be feeling very unpleasant about it. They're going to be feeling very unpleasant about it. They're going to have to stop, take stock, get the team together and say this is the situation that we face. How can we help each other, how can we support each other? What is it that we need to do in order to move ourselves forward? And a very good leader shows a level of vulnerability there and a degree of honesty and says I have this meeting ahead of me. I have to go and present these figures to the board and answer some very difficult questions. I need your support. What is it that I can do? How are we going to help each other? How are we going to support each other? What is it that you're going to do? What is it that I can do to help you?

Now an emotionally unintelligent leader will be banging the table, will not share that information, will go along, meet the representation, come back. They've been put through the grill and they're not feeling very good about it. They create this environment of fear. People think that they're going to be in a situation where they're not going to think. If I don't hit these targets, I'm going to lose my job, my promotion might be on the line. There's a whole host of things that I might lose money, I might not get my bonus. They're all those sort of things. So people are running around trying to do the best that they can with a climate which is not conducive to people giving their best.

Now, this is a set of circumstances where people are not performing well, for whatever reasons. It might be market conditions, it might be things that people are not doing, it might be sick leave, might be a small pandemic going through the organization so that everybody's away, everybody's under stress. It might be holiday time. There's a whole host of reasons why targets are not being hit. They need to be determined, it needs to be analyzed, and it may be that the leader has to have the emotional intelligence to go to the board and say these figures are wrong. Your analysis, some of the assumptions you've made, are incorrect. Now, a lot of leaders have not got the emotional intelligence to do that. It's very much topped out and that's the way it will be, and there are leaders that I worked for at the beginning of the century that just hadn't got the capability of doing that. So the whole team, the whole organization, suffers because of it. So hopefully that gives you an answer that you're looking for, brendan.

Brendan Rogers: Certainly does, I think, a really relevant example. I can think of some examples that I've seen firsthand. To be honest, around that sort of scenario, how do you help that unintelligent but the emotionally intelligent leader, or is the person who is not that emotionally intelligent leader in that example? What's your first step?

Robin Hills: Well, it's very, very difficult because, in the first instance, they're probably not coming along to talk to me because you probably feel that they don't need any emotional intelligence training.

Brendan Rogers: Now it's the leader that probably doesn't really tell and we've said all and it's come into their mind and said I needed to contact Robyn.

Robin Hills: Yeah, no, the first I told you to contact Robyn, that's right.

I think, in the first instance, when I'm sitting and working with a leader, we're looking at the ways in which they're working with their team and we're looking at their development. The first thing I would do is to encourage them to look more internally to develop their self-awareness, and I've got a range of psychometric tools that I've got in my kit bag that I can pull out, and if I haven't got a relevant one, I've got a team of people within my network that I can go to to get the measures that I need. But a very good assessment is the EQI 2.0. Now that is a very, very, very powerful tool that looks at 15 facets of emotional intelligence and really gives very good, defined measures of emotional intelligence that can then be looked at, analyzed, discussed, debated and an action plan put in place based around what the leader learns about themselves. Now, some leaders and many, many organizations have used the Myers-Briggs type indicator assessment, which is an incredibly good coaching tool and that can be used in terms of improving and helping people with their self-awareness. So, in a way, it really doesn't matter what assessment is used. I mean we could even use a pack of tarot cards. What we need to do is to engage with the leader and help them to develop their self-awareness around what's going right so we can get even more of it and what could be improved.

But more often than not, I'm not looking at their weaknesses. I'm not looking at their liabilities. I'm not looking at what they're bad at in order that I can work and make it well, take it from being bad to not bad. What I'm looking at is what they're good at, looking at what they're excellent at, focusing in on that and really getting them to shine in those areas and helping them by saying look, these are areas that you're not good at, Get somebody else to do it for you. Who in your team can do that bit? Because I'm wanting you to concentrate on the things that nourishes you, the things that energize you, the things that you really are excellent at, Because if we can get you to excel at that, interestingly enough, some of the weaknesses and lovabilities disappear.

Brendan Rogers: Yeah, good point. In regards to the 15 aspects in the EQI 2.0, can you give us the example of just maybe a few?

Robin Hills: Sure, I just pulled off some stray off the top of my head assertiveness. If somebody's being over assertive, they almost come to the point of being aggressive. If they haven't got sufficient assertiveness, they're being almost passive. And what we've got to do is to ensure that they're not being passive, aggressive, because that indicates there may be, in the long term, mental health issues. Another one empathy.

People with very, very, very high levels of empathy find that they can't engage with people if a person has got a particular problem, because they will take on board all of those problems emotionally and it affects them to a point where they're almost frozen because they can't do anything further. And that's too much empathy. We don't really need to define very, very low levels of empathy. But people with very low levels of empathy just can't pick up on other people's emotions at all. So let me give you another one problem solving. That's another facet. So we've looked at what a fifth With problem solving. You're too much of a problem solver. You're looking at problems all over the place, everything is a problem, and if you've got low levels of problem solving, you don't see any issue of a talk anywhere. And that's very, very, very simplistic ways of looking at these measures.

Brendan Roger: Now you mentioned at the top of the show. Sorry, yes.

Robin Hills: Don't worry about it. You can see how all of these then become quite dynamic. So one of these facets will then affect the others. So if you focus in on one that's doing really, really well, you can then pull all along the others and develop those. So, rather than looking at the one that's not doing so well and try and move along the scale because of the dynamics, you pull it along the scale and it might pull down some of the ones that you need to really focus in on.

But the interesting thing about these scales is that when we're going through our academic career, we're looking to get the biggest and best score that we can for our work. We're looking for 10 out of 10. Now, when we're looking at these scales, everybody has that mindset I'm looking to have 10 all the way down the line. No, it doesn't work like that, because here's another hackney phrase that we often use a strength overplayed becomes a weakness. So if everybody's at a 10, there's, like I say, no room for improvement at all. So what we're looking for in terms of these scales is a blend of six, seven and eight, and most people are very disappointed when they get scales of seven and eight. That's not good enough for them. Yeah, that's fine. That allows for the variabilities that we've been talking about in terms of human interaction. So I'm looking for sevens and eights all the way down the line, because that really gives me somebody who is emotionally intelligent, knows that they get it right on many occasions and knows that there's still room for improvement.

Brendan Rogers: In your experience, Robin, is there one of the 15 that you find is the greatest lever to improvement around the cube?

Robin Hills: I wouldn't say it's one of these measures.

I think it's a blend of the measures, but I think the key component that falls out of that is the ability to coach, and I think a lot of leaders fall into the trap of I'm a leader, therefore I tell people what to do, which is the old militaristic way of leadership, and it's also part of a lot of sports coaching that people will see of sports coaches the person at the sidelines telling the players what to do. What people haven't seen is behind the scenes, where the person is actually doing the true coaching. Right, how did that feel? How can we get more of that? What went well? What didn't go so well? That's the bit that people don't see. So, really, in terms of emotional intelligence, what we need to do is to encourage the coaching capability, the leader who is working with the team and has got the ability to ask questions. It's going to take time, and it's probably going to take longer than actually being the dictatorial leader that people assume is the right way of doing it, but being a coaching leader is being an emotionally intelligent leader.

Brendan Rogers: And how do you start to leverage that? What sort of things do you advise?

Robin Hills: Well, the ability to coach. It's interesting, brendan, because when I'm running live workshops, when I'm presenting a conference is what I do is I talk about the capacity of the brain and the fact that our brains are such wonderful tools, but they can only work with limited bits of data, certainly in particular moment in time. So what we're very good at doing is focusing and concentrating on a particular topic, and as we're concentrating and focusing on what it is that we're doing, we miss a lot of information in the environment. Now you get more and more and more people working together. Some people will be seeing things and perceiving things in completely different ways. Their way is no more right or no more wrong than anybody else's way. So what we've got to be doing as a leader is say to them that's interesting, I've missed that.

What is it that you've seen? That I've missed doesn't take anything away from you as a leader, doesn't detract from your capability of a leader in actual fact, paradoxically and makes you a better leader because you've got the ability to ask that question. I've missed the. I use the typical hackneyed phrase. I've missed the elephants in the room. Tell me what is it? What is it? What color is it? How big is it? What should we do around it? What is it that I need to do that I'm not doing? And again it goes back to this key components of good quality leadership vulnerability.

Brendan Rogers: It also feels like the ability to ask good questions is another supporting element of this bigger basket of emotional intelligence.

Robin Hills: It is, and when I work with people, what I do tend to find is that most people haven't got the capability, naturally, of asking good quality questions. Most of the questions that they ask are closed questions, and with closed questions, it pushes people into a particular corner. Oh, I'm coaching people Right, we've got these sales targets hit. This is the way to do, it, isn't it? What is it that you're going to do based upon what I tell you and most of the coaching is focused around that, rather than asking the open question and then the other key component of that is the ability to listen, and what I mean by that is to deeply understand what the person is saying, not just hearing the words.

Brendan Rogers: Yeah, listening comes up a lot on our show as well. So many of these aspects I'm so much linkage just all the way through with absolutely. Are there any pitfalls potential pitfalls in a leader relying too much on emotional intelligence?

Robin Hills: I think the answer to that is probably not, because emotional intelligence is so all embracing. Now, I hesitated in answering the question that way because I think there are certain components of emotional intelligence that are not covered within leadership, and that is what makes the leader the specialist that they are in the field that they're in. So it's the technical capability. So you may be the most emotionally intelligent person on the planet, but it may not make you the best accountant, it may not make you a very good musician. You do need a certain level of technical capability to get to where you need to be as a leader, but in terms of anything that involves engaging and working with people, then, yes, that's where emotional intelligence is going to give you a head start and I think also in terms of answering your question, let's talk about the broader concept of emotional intelligence.

You've used the term EQ quite a bit, rather than Brendan. Eq is emotional quotient, which is those components of emotional intelligence that can be measured. There are parts of emotional intelligence that can't be measured and these are things like preferences and attitude and biases, particularly unconscious biases, and I think what we've got to be aware of is the fact that there are those elements that can't be measured and indeed, if they are unconscious by definition, we're not going to be aware of them. They're not in our consciousness, so what we've just got to do is to recognize them and just accept that they're there.

Brendan Rogers: Is that part of the problem around some of this stuff in emotional intelligence that there's, there are elements that are measurable and people like to know black and white. There's some comfort in that. But then you're saying there's other parts of emotional intelligence that aren't measured.

Robin Hills: That's right. That's right. And, again, I think it goes back to our upbringing, our societies, the ways that we've been over the last millennia, in the fact that we get more comfort from measurables and things that we can define and things that we can put numbers against. And if it's measurable, then it's right. And I think a lot of academia tends to push people along those lines rightly so, because it's an easier way forward. And I think what we're doing here is moving into more philosophical areas. There are, I say, even more spiritual areas. These are things where we do not have an understanding and there are certainly no measures there. I think these are areas that we look forward to for the next millennia. And going back, looping back to our conversation, these are the bits that I can't do.

Brendan Rogers: Absolutely Spot on. If I'm in a team environment and let's just, the leader is obviously part of that team, but there's a person other than a leader within that team who is low in emotional intelligence, what sort of impact does that have on a group of people?

Robin Hills: It will have an impact, particularly if that person might be emotionally intelligent in certain areas, in the fact that they are very good at warmly engaging with the team and they're almost the glue that holds the team together, but they don't agree with the leader in the active, passive, aggressive ways. There are going to be situations where that occurs and the leader has to take responsibility for recognizing that and dealing with it in an appropriate way coaching the individual and bringing it to their attention, getting the person on side, helping them to understand there are different ways of doing things, determining what it is. That is the problem, working with that, with the team and the team member. It's not allowing the team member to get away with any bad behaviors. Now there are certain times when somebody will be brought into a leadership role and these bad behaviors have been allowed to flourish over the years. Certainly within organizations you've got people who just got away with it. Now a very good leader will come in and they'll recognize that and they will start to do the work that they need to do around developing that individual. But at some point a good leader has to be incredibly firm and say this either changes or we have certain protection mechanisms in place that we will go down that route. So it might be that you then put the person through a disciplinary procedure and you manage that in an appropriate way. You want the person to stay within the organization they've got years of experience, they're well liked but ultimately, if it's down to bad attitude and bad behavior, then that needs to be managed in an appropriate way and the leader needs to be very, very, very firm about it, knowing full well that that's going to have consequences elsewhere in the team.

But it's a case of. We have a metaphor here in the United Kingdom. It's one bad apple ruins the. I can't remember it, but it's taking the bad apple out the barrel, because if you don't take the bad apple out the barrel, it makes all the other. Yes, and I can't remember the actual phrase off the top of my head, but you know what the metaphor is. A lot of leaders find that that is very, very, very hard. I know I certainly did when I was working back in the corporate environment. It did not sit comfortably with me. That was me not being my most emotionally intelligent, because it was almost. Well it was. It was too hard.

Brendan Rogers: Yeah, that does come up a bit. It feels like what you're saying to me, if I can put it in certain words, is people can be have a level of emotional intelligence which is, say, quite high around that seven, eight level on the on the assessment, but their intent is a big thing in dictating how they use those emotional intelligence skills.

Robin Hills: Yeah, there's a myth that goes around about emotional intelligence that it's all about being kind and nice, and it's not. It's about recognizing the emotions within the team, within the organization. It's allowing those emotions to surface and it's dealing with them. It's dealing with them in an appropriate way and the word appropriate is an opinion by your values and your ethics and your morals. So if they are aligned, then what it means is that that will then enable you to pull out your decisions, make your decisions, build up these authentic relationships. And it's not about being kind and nice, it's about doing the right thing. So there are times when you're not being kind and nice, you're actually being a, a person who people doesn't do not like, but you're doing the right thing and you're helping them to understand why you're behaving that way.

Brendan Rogers: Absolutely. If somebody wanted to dive into this topic a lot more. What's a good starting point? I know you mentioned Daniel Goleman. He's the sort of the godfather of, I suppose. What's? What's the resource you found for that novice person that wants to start digging into some of this stuff?

Robin Hills: Well, I found that there wasn't a lot of stuff out there other than pulling out a lot of information from various different sources. Daniel Goleman has written a really, really good book. Like I say, it's not the easiest book to read, but then there are other great books on emotional intelligence that are out there. Just just read anything that you can. What I've done is I've developed a, a web, as in EI matters, ei-matterscom where people can go to and they can read articles on emotional intelligence. That will help them to get more information, more background information.

I would encourage that if people, if leaders out there, are really really interested in emotional intelligence and really want to put something into their leadership kit bag, consider becoming qualified in the, an emotional intelligence assessment such as the EQI that we've been talking about. I am qualified in the EQI 2.0 and it's the one that I chose because it's it's got global norms and it's the most scientifically validated and assessed emotional intelligence questionnaire that's available. There are other very, very good emotional intelligence questionnaires that complements this or that compete with this. Get qualified in any one of them. It will help you to have better conversations with your people through your ability to coach whether you actually use the measure or whether you don't use the measure. So, rather than going down the book route, go and read articles that are of real interest to you, that help you in terms of your leadership capability, and consider becoming qualified in an assessment.

Brendan Rogers: Great advice. Is there anything I can do days a day just to practice becoming more emotionally intelligent?

Robin Hills: Yes, and the reason why I hesitated is it's not going to be a popular answer. Get feedback. That's for feedback. Can't do that. That's terrible. Yeah, look out. The thing is just to do self-reflection as well. What went well, what didn't go so well? What is it the people are telling you? Is there a common theme there? Is there something that you need to learn from that? One person may say I'm not very good at this. Other than other person might say they really like that aspect of the way in which I work. So you're not going to please everybody all of the time. If it's a problem and if you keep getting the same level of feedback over and over and over and over again, go and do something about it. If it isn't, roll with the punches. You're going to get some people who don't like you. That's their prerogative. I might not like that.

Brendan Rogers: I do love that answer, mate. It does not take much to ask for feedback, just a little bit of courage and a little bit of want to change self-reflect, potentially. So love it.

Robin Hills: What I'd like to do is to get away from this myth. We haven't fallen into this trap, brendan, and it's been great, but let's get away from the idea of emotions being positive and negative. So people talk about positive emotions oh, happiness, great. Positive emotion, contentment yeah, lovely. Anger oh, negative emotion. Now, emotions are emotions. They are reactions, physiological and psychological, to the environments around us. Now, our emotions are not positive or negative. It's the behaviour, it's the response from the emotion that should have the label positive or negative. So let's look at each emotion as either being pleasant or unpleasant. Some emotions are pleasant emotions happiness but they can be used in a destructive way, as we've discussed. Some emotions are unpleasant this anxiety, this nervousness of going to the board. We don't like that emotion. But constructively, if we focus ourselves in an appropriate way, it enables us to deliver a really good presentation. So let's look at emotions as either being pleasant or unpleasant and let's look at ways in which we can use those emotions constructively and stop ourselves from using them destructively.

Brendan Rogers: That sounds like a very good myth to bust mate Once again. You didn't use these words, but what's sort of come to my head is that it's almost like okay, the emotion, it's not positive or negative, it's just emotion. It's a bit like feedback. It's not positive or negative feedback, it's just feedback. But then it's, if we respond, in a way, that's almost like a positive response, a positive way to handle it, but if we react, that's normally a negative reaction.

Robin Hills: Yeah, let's look at some of the people who have changed the world for the better People like Nelson Mandela, people like Mother Therese. They've all had their personality issues, but what they've done is they've taken anger and they've actually focused it in a way that has used that emotion constructively to change the way in which we operate now in the world. So let's look at using our emotions more constructively. We've talked about fear being a. It can be an unpleasant emotion, but it's often the short-lived emotion that we can manage well when we go on a roller coaster or when we watch a horror movie and we get a lot of enjoyment from that. So it's not a negative emotion in those circumstances. It's just a fleetingly unpleasant emotion that we're controlling.

Brendan Rogers: Yeah, I understand, robin, what has helped you become a more confident leader and, I should add, emotionally intelligent leader.

Robin Hills: What's helped me to become a more confident and emotionally intelligent leader is, firstly, recognizing what the emotional intelligence component of my persona is, becoming more self-aware, also learning and growing through the life that I've had, and learning and growing through the mistakes that I've made, and not berating myself for making those mistakes, because at the time I felt that was the best way to be and reflection suggests that I could have done it a different way. But I'm not going to have the opportunity to go back and change that. Here I am comfortable being me. I've got a great future ahead of me. I'm very, very optimistic. So let's take that emotional intelligence and change the world.

Brendan Rogers: Good point, mate, and I have to give people an example. So last we were supposed to interview or record this interview last week and I had an offsite for the day and I should have known that I was going to be drained, because that's what these things do to me. But I sent a note to you and said, look, I need to postpone, I'm not going to be at my best. And I have to say your response was very emotionally intelligent and it made me feel good about the situation and it made me look forward even more to having a conversation with you to say, well, this guy just lives and breathes what he's doing and talking about. There's no fluff in this. So I really appreciate your response there. It made me feel better About the situation because I don't like postponing and cancelling these things.

So you live and breathe what you do. In the conversation we've had over the last hour, I can see how you live and breathe. You're very, again, cool, measured Person and very thoughtful in your approach on things. So I can see where this topic really aligns with who you are and what you're about. So I want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for being a fantastic guest on the cultural news.

Robin Hills: You can. I thank you for that feedback that. It makes me feel very pleasant, it makes me feel good. But you know that I'll go away from our conversation and I'll reflect on it and I'll be saying to myself Robb, you idiot, why did you say that way? Why did you do that? Why didn't you mention this? What is it that you played about that? This is where the imposter syndrome kicks in. Yeah, it hits me too, as a leader, thank you.

Brendan Rogers: Thank you that you talk about again. You talked about self-reflection during the conversation and you're going to do this, as we all should. This is the great thing I have to say about even doing a podcast and then listening to the post-production side of the podcast. You pick up all sorts of things that you just didn't realize you did, or how you said something, or I wish I asked that question at that time now. So, hey, we're all about continuous improvement, and particularly that always should start with ourselves, as we said so thank you.

Robin Hills: Thank you, it's been brilliant. Brendan really, really, really enjoyed it.

Brendan Rogers: My pleasure. Emotional intelligence helps leaders to lead with confidence by fostering self-awareness, empathy and effective interpersonal skills.

These are my three key takeaways from my conversation with Robin.

My first key takeaway confident leaders self-reflect. They take time to think about their actions, decisions and emotions. By understanding themselves better, they make better choices and connect more deeply with others. This self-awareness is a core component of emotional intelligence and is crucial for confident leadership.

My second key takeaway Confident leaders have the ability to coach. They help lift others up and reach their potential. By encouraging coaching skills and asking the right questions, they develop others. Being able to coach shows they're an emotionally intelligent leader who prioritizes the development of their team.

My third key takeaway: Confident leaders understand nuance. They recognise the subtle differences in situations and people's emotions. By grasping these nuances, they make decisions that are more in tune with people's needs. Emotional intelligence is on show when leaders navigate these intricate aspects of human behavior.

So, in summary, my three key takeaways were: confident leaders self-reflect, confident leaders have the ability to coach, and confident leaders understand nuance. Let me know your key takeaway on YouTube or at thecultureofleadership.com.

Thanks for joining me and remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.