Emotional Intelligence — For IT Professionals
Picture the scene in your mind’s eye…
The CEO is in the doorstep of your office or cubicle, he is angry, even a little enraged. Email is down and he is awaiting a critical message regarding a key acquisition. However, your organization is on Office 365. You have placed a support call and you are now waiting for Microsoft to resolve the issue. You still have to communicate with your CEO and help him understand the issue and what is being done to resolve it. But you are a technician, you deal in objective, black and white problem solving and troubleshooting. You do not fix emotions, you fix technical problems. However, like it or not, you are now out of the realm of technical skills, you need another skill to manage the emotions your CEO is currently experiencing.
As IT professionals we spend a lot of time keeping our technical skills up to date. This is critical. If we do not find time to practice Stephen Covey’s seventh habit of “sharpening the saw“, our technical skills will become dull, and ultimately irrelevant. Whether it is through formal training, online courses, reading technical books, or listening to podcasts, it is important for IT professionals to continue to keep their technical knowledge current.
However, if we want our careers to progress from IT professionals to IT leaders, the non-technical, or “soft skills”, become more critical than technical skills. Being a great developer, or a great network administrator, or great at security, or being great at any particular IT skill set will only get you so far. At some point, to progress in your career towards IT leadership, the technical skills start taking a backseat to your “people” skills.
If you want to progress in your IT career and increase your influence within your organization, you need to put a premium on developing these people skills. The best way to improve these skills is to increase your Emotional Intelligence.
What is Emotional Intelligence?
So what exactly is Emotional Intelligence? Wikipedia provides us with a good working definition. They define Emotional Intelligence as:
“The capability of individuals to recognize their own emotions and those of others, discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt to environments or achieve one’s goal(s).”
Emotional Intelligence is about understanding your own emotions and emotions in others. As we better understand our own emotions we can eventually learn to master them and work towards better understanding and managing emotions in others.
EQ vs. IQ
Emotional Intelligence is very different from “standard” intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is also referred to as emotional quotient, or “‘EQ”. EQ is defined as an individual’s capacity to identify, monitor, and control emotion. The measurement of intelligence is referred to as intelligence quotient, or “IQ”. IQ is a score derived from standardized tests that measure an individual’s intelligence and academic abilities.
So which is more important?
As IT professionals it is important to be “smart”. A certain level of IQ, or let’s just call it intelligence, is needed. IT professions require intelligent people. Building an application is hard, managing a sophisticated network is hard, building an effective cyber-security plan is hard; it takes very intelligent people to get that work done. But it has been proven that in order to continue to progress in your career your technical skills and intelligence (or IQ) will take a back seat to your “people skills” (or EQ).
The Emotional Intelligence Spectrum
Emotional Intelligence spans across a spectrum starting with how we manage our own emotions, to how we manage, or influence, the emotions in others.
- Knowing your own emotions – This phase of Emotional Intelligence is about being self-aware. You are aware of your current emotional state, but in a neutral fashion. Not absorbed in your emotions, just aware of what emotions or mood you are currently feeling. In other words: “Know Thyself.”
- Managing your own emotions – This phase is about keeping a bad mood or negative emotions at bay. The goal is not to become emotionless or passionless. It is to experience appropriate emotions in any given situation.
- Self-Motivation – In this phase of Emotional Intelligence we shift our focus from managing to mastering our emotions. We become adept at harnessing our emotions and putting them to positive use.
- Recognizing emotions in others – In this phase of Emotional Intelligence we use empathy to become more attuned to the feelings of others. As we master earlier phases and better understand our own emotions, we become more skilled at recognizing emotions in others.
- Managing Relationships – In this phase of Emotional Intelligence we turn our attention to our relationships with others. Having learned how to master our emotions and identify emotions in others; we can attune ourselves to others to help them better manage their emotions.
How Emotional Intelligence Can Benefit IT Professionals
Let’s face it, we IT professionals get a bad rap when it comes to emotional awareness and communication. The stereotype of IT professionals is that we can tend to be aloof, stoic, and overly objective. Basically, we are not typically seen as having high empathy or being great communicators. I am not saying this is true in all cases. But I do believe that every “front line” or “hands on” IT professional who progressed into effective IT leaders either naturally had, or purposefully developed, their Emotional Intelligence.
As practical and objective we strive to remain as IT professionals, the truth is that emotion is all around us. From the employee who is frustrated their mouse isn’t working to the boss who is angry the project wasn’t delivered on time and budget. The better we become at identifying and understanding emotions in ourselves and others, the better we become at communicating, and ultimately leading.
I often tell my IT team that we are not solving technical problems, we are solving people problems. There are people behind the technology we develop and support. When someone’s keyboard is not working, or there is a bug in an application, or the mail server has crashed, there are real people who are frustrated, and even angry, with these problems. IT leaders and teams not only need effective technical skills to solve these problems, they need effective people skills as well. They need Emotional Intelligence.
How to Start Practicing Emotional Intelligence
Here are some tips to practice that can help develop your Emotional Intelligence across the spectrum.
- Name Your Emotions – Start naming your emotions as you feel them. “I feel frustrated.”, “I feel nervous.”, “I feel happy.” Just inside your head, give your current emotional state a name as you are feeling it. Next, as you are naming your emotion, do a quick body scan. How do you know you are frustrated, nervous, or happy? What in your body is telling you this? This practice will help you to become objective, curious even, about your emotions. And this is the first step in Emotional Intelligence; being aware of your current emotional state.
- Create the Space – Next, work on creating some space between an event and your emotional response. Identify what events trigger a negative emotional response and practice putting some space between the event and your response. Do you get mad when someone cuts you off in traffic? Next time it happens, name your emotion (“I feel angry”) and intentionally create some space before you emotionally respond. The classic “Count to Three” method can help here. It is all about stimulus and response. You want to create a space between a stimulus and your negative emotional response. If you want to get really good at creating a space between stimulus and response and develop the ability to choose your emotional response to just about any stimulus; I highly recommend practicing Mindfulness Meditation.
- Capture the Energy of Your Emotions – After you get good at identifying your emotions and creating some space between stimulus and response, you can now work on bypassing a negative response altogether and funnel your negative emotional energy into something positive. Nervous about the presentation you need to make? Use that nervous energy to help you better prepare. Frustrated about the promotion you didn’t get? Don’t give up; use that frustration to your advantage to help you continue to develop yourself to become a better candidate for promotion. Upset the mail server is down? Channel that energy into finding a solution to the problem.
- Name Emotions in Others – Practice identifying emotions in others. Observe your co-workers and family members to determine what their current emotional state is. “Bob is mad.” Observe their body language and communication. How do you know Bob is mad? Taking a moment to identify emotions in others will guide you towards empathy. You cannot empathize with someone if you do not know their current emotional condition.
- Develop Empathy – Now that you know the emotional state the other person is in, you can start practicing empathy by verbally acknowledging their emotional state. But do not do this in a way that would make them defensive. If you sense that someone is angry, you do not want to say “I know you are angry.” This could potentially add defensiveness into the mix and make them even more angry. Instead, say something like “I understand this is a very frustrating situation.” This helps them know you are attuned to their emotional state in a compassionate instead of an accusatory way.
Conclusion
So, lets return to our earlier scenario of the CEO being angry at the email outage. As an Emotionally Intelligent IT professional you would be able to quickly and objectively asses your CEO’s emotional state and manage your own emotional response. Being aware of the emotional tone of the encounter, you could provide an empathetic response to their concern, as opposed to responding to your CEO’s frustration with an unsympathetic, or even worse, angry response. You can respond in a fashion that meets them in them in their emotional state.
“Yes, this is a very frustrating issue. I understand it is critical that you receive your email. I am doing everything in my power to get this issue resolved as quickly as possible. I will keep you updated on progress.” This is a response that lets your CEO know you understand and are empathetic to his emotional state. It is far better than being aloof, defensive, or confrontational. This is the kind of response that will make you be seen as calm, compassionate, and in control…a Leader.
If you want to learn more about Emotional Intelligence, the definitive book on the subject is Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. For anyone looking to develop their leadership skills and be more successful, this is required reading. There is a lot of brain science behind Emotional Intelligence that is beyond the scope of this article. If you are interested in the science behind how the brain works in regards to emotions, definitely read the book. It goes into full detail of how our brain developed and how emotions are processed. It is very helpful to have a better understanding of the brain physiology that is responsible for creating emotions. It helps you to get a better objective understanding of why you, your family, friends, and co-workers respond in an emotional manner.
The farther you go in your professional life, the more important your “people skills” become. As a matter of fact, poor people skills will prevent you from getting far in your career. Emotional Intelligence will help you better identify and manage emotions in yourself and others. This is at the heart of being a good “people person”. Being emotionally intelligent will have a positive impact on your development from IT professional to IT leader.
“People with well-developed emotional skills are more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of mind that foster their own productivity; people who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life fight inner battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought.”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence
