Emotional Intelligence
By Pierrette Desrosiers M.Ps.
Features Farmer Health/Safety Health Poultry ProductionWhat sets the best leaders apart, in a multinational corporation or in a family farm business? For a long time, experts thought that success was based on intelligence, also known as “intelligence quotient or IQ,” and technical skills. These two factors play a role in personal and professional success, but they alone cannot explain it. According to Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence and the skills that relate to it (see table) are twice as important as intellectual intelligence and technical skills as a success factor in business success.
What is emotional intelligence (EI)?
According to researchers, emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions. In fact, EI allows us to use our feelings and intelligence to better manage our thoughts and behaviours in order to achieve our desired goals. These are “emotional competencies” – how we manage ourselves – and “social competencies” – how we manage our relationships with others.
For decades, emotions, or feelings, were considered a sign of weakness, especially for managers. On the contrary, far from being a weakness, the use of emotions, along with proper management skills, represents a major success factor of the best managers.
Is it possible to have all of these competencies at a very high level? It seems that in order to succeed, we do not need to master them all perfectly. However, acquiring or developing these competencies facilitates success.
Why are emotions so important in the workplace? For business managers, the lack of emotional competency in dealing with others weakens their personal performance as well as the performance of their employees. For example, a manager who doesn’t know how to manage his anger and reacts in an impulsive manner will have a very negative impact on his employees’ motivation and on the team spirit. Poor emotional management will also negatively affect decision-making. When under the influence of strong emotions, our ability to make the right decisions is very limited because our judgment is biased and compromised. Furthermore, people who are more competent emotionally are better equipped to sense other people’s emotions, and therefore better able to respond to them. Finally, emotional intelligence allows us to be more creative and to use our emotions to resolve day-to-day problems.
The higher up you are on the ladder, the more complex the job and the responsibilities are, and the more well-developed emotional competencies will pay off. Likewise, the poorer they are, the more they are going to hold you back.
If we wish to expand and to continue to perform in agriculture, we must focus on new competencies that were underestimated in the past: emotional competencies. In order to be more efficient, business leaders need to show emotional intelligence. Fortunately, these competencies can be developed. In the end, it seems that we have to take our emotions to the office – or to the barn – after all.
They’re Doing Time Together
I have addressed thousands of farmers at conferences, most of the time about stress. Several have also come to me for consultation. One constant emerges: the difficult situation farming has experienced in the last few years has been particularly hard on couples.
Take the example of Carol and Mark (not their real names). In their early 30s, Carol and Mark have been married for more than 10 years and have four children. When they met, Mark promised Carol that the old family home was temporary and that they would build a new one. Today, Mark still can’t see his way clear to keep that promise. After a big expansion in their milk production and a few difficult years in hogs, the project just doesn’t seem to be possible.
Carol blames Mark for making his decisions based only on the business. She thinks, because he never talks about it, that the family is not important to him. From his point of view, Mark says he always felt that a more profitable company would allow the family to realize their dreams. When Mark came to see me, he broke down. He confides in me that he feels enormously incompetent and impotent. “If it weren’t for my kids . . . ,” he says.
Carol has no idea how guilty Mark feels for not being able to meet his wife’s needs and how difficult it is for his self-image. In fact, Mark is depressed; he is suffering and can’t talk about it.
It has been a few years since Carol and Mark really talked, except to criticize each other. They never do anything together and they no longer compliment each other: “they’re doing time together.”
As with a lot of couples who are having problems, they have got into a vicious circle. The more stress they feel, the more they use strategies that have been proven useless. They can no longer meet each other’sneeds and they hurt. They are upset with their partner, and the more upset they get, the more distant they become. The more distant they are, the less they both try to solve their problems, and the less they invest in their relationship, the less they understand each other.
Here are the secrets to a happy couple, according to marriage counsellors:
- Give each other five positive feedbacks for each criticism. (Couples having problems have an average of five to 10 criticisms for each compliment.)
- Do a fun activity together at least once a week.
- Share your thoughts, emotions, fears and hesitations as well as your dreams. (Problem couples only share put-downs and don’t know what their partner is like on the inside.)
- Never argue on the spur of the emotion; wait a few minutes to cool down.
- Accept or tolerate certain faults or habits in your partner and stop expecting them to become what you want them to be.
- Let yourself be influenced by your partner. (When a couple is not willing to share power they have an 81 per cent chance of separating.)
Farmers have invested a lot in our companies over the last few years. Unfortunately, for many, it was to the detriment of their physical and psychological health and the health of their relationship or their family. We should never forget that a company having problems causes problems in the couple, and that a couple with problems causes problems in the company too. What if investing in the couple were more profitable than investing in quota?
Pierrette Desrosriers is a work psychologist, speaker and psychological coach who specializes in helping those working in agriculture. She can be contacted by e-mail at pierrette@pierrettedesrosiers.com or if you would like more information, visit her website at www.pierrettedesrosiers.com .
Print this page