Article
Article No.: 10-5
Article Title: Using Your Emotional Intelligence to Develop Others
Author: Linda Gravett, Ph.D., SPHR, CEQC
Think about your favorite trainer. Did they leave you with
information you can apply to your daily life? Did they make
you laugh, or make you think? I’m betting that the reason this
person left you with this positive impression is in part because of
their Emotional Intelligence.
If training others is one of your responsibilities, perhaps there is
an area or two where you’d like to expand your skill set; such as
getting off to a positive start, follow-up after training, or
closure on key concepts. This is a good thing:
self-awareness is one of the components of Emotional Intelligence.
One of the challenges with training is obtaining participants’
buy-in of training objectives. First, the trainer needs to
believe in the message before participants will even be interested,
let alone motivated to join in. The Emotionally Intelligent
trainer is keenly aware of motivation principles, such as the fact
that we all have unique motivators. As a trainer, you can
develop your awareness of others by asking potential workshop
participants in advance what their expectations and challenges are
around the training topic. When people get to talk about
themselves and are clear that they’re going to have at least some of
their concerns addressed, they’re much more likely to be engaged
right from the beginning.
Emotionally Intelligent trainers strive to build trust between
themselves and participants from the moment people enter the
training environment. One way to build trust is to be aware of
trainees’ hot buttons, such as issues around compensation levels or
ineffective supervisors. Knowing when to avoid topics and when
to include them in discussions is crucial to building trust.
An Emotionally Intelligent trainer is a change agent. This is
probably one of the riskiest aspects of training. For example,
perhaps your organization has some poor performers and their
managers want to retain them anyway because finding replacements is
time consuming. As a trainer, you may be charged with the
responsibility of magically turning poor performers into stellar
employees. An Emotionally Intelligent trainer will take steps
to assess each individual situation and help the manager determine
whether the true problem is a skill deficit, inadequate resources,
or something else.
A key to increasing Emotional Intelligence is recognizing and naming
your own feelings. Happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and shame
are all dimensions of EI that can surface during training. You
can learn to name and then manage your emotions by becoming
accustomed to tuning in to the physical signs that accompany
feelings. Also, ask your friends and family to help you
identify your emotional hot buttons. Accept their feedback and
look for these indicators in future interactions.
I suggest that you write down the behaviors that allow your emotions
to get the best of you and devise a plan to confront them.
Keeping a daily journal with your action plan is one helpful
approach.
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This article is an excerpt from a book
that Dr. Gravett co-authored with Dr. Sheri Caldwell, Using Your
Emotional Intelligence to Develop Others, released in October 2009.
If you have any questions or need more information about this article, please complete our Contact Form, or contact Dr. Gravett by telephone at 513-753-8870 or e-mail info@gravett.com.