Emotional Intelligence and Great Leaders

Overview:

Most of our default behaviors are developed by the time we are five years old, says motivational speaker, Bill Benjamin. This week on Military Woman and So Much More, your host Sharika LaBrie welcomes her first ever male guest to the show to discuss emotional intelligence and the role women play in leadership.

Even though Bill is sought out for his emotional intelligence training, he has not always been emotionally intelligent himself. In fact, this is something Bill had to learn himself. When he was struggling in a leadership position, a mentor of his opened his eyes to the emotional areas that he was lacking. Bill says anyone can learn how to retrain the brain; it just takes practice. Reading, watching videos, attending training, and hiring a coach are a few ways one can begin to practice and relearn their old behaviors.

Bill wants women to know how valuable they are in the workplace. According to a naval study, teams of men and women are far more productive than teams of only one or the other. Women’s brains are naturally wired to trigger more emotional and empathetic responses to stressful situations. It has been proven that empathy is a key contributor to strong leadership.

Tune in to this week’s episode of Military Woman and So Much More to hear more about Bill’s 8% philosophy, and how we as women can utilize our emotions to become emotionally intelligent leaders.

Quotes:

“Our default behaviors and our emotional behaviors are neuropathways that get seared in overtime and most of those are developed by the time we are 5 years old.” (10:21-10:32)  

“We really say leading by example is not the main means of influencing people, it’s the only means.” (11:15-11:18)

“Teams of combined men and women outperform teams of mostly or mostly women.” (23:03- 23:10)

“Empathy is not giving in all the time; empathy is not someone else has to be right. It is simply acknowledging someone else’s point of view.” (26:02- 26:11)

“The goal of mediation is not to calm our minds down, that is a huge misconception. The goal of mediation is to be aware of our mind wandering, it’s to practice some slow breathing. An outcome might be that we feel calmer, but it might not be.” (30:38-30:52)  

Links: 

https://www.ihhp.com