Improving Your Team’s Emotional Intelligence: 6 Strategies for Success

Emotional intelligence (AKA emotional quotient or EQ) is central to your ability to feel successful in life. But being tasked with improving your team’s level of emotional intelligence can feel overwhelming.

In our beginner-friendly guide, we’ll give you everything you need to know about boosting EQ, including why it matters, skills that go hand-in-hand with EQ, strategies to leverage to develop your team’s skills, and a tool you can use to put their skills to the test. 

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence — also referred to as emotional quotient or EQ — is a person’s ability to understand and regulate their own emotions. People who know how to manage their emotions can build and maintain stronger relationships in both their personal and professional lives. 

There are specific skills folks can home in on to further develop their own emotional intelligence, like: 

• Self-awareness
• Social skills and social awareness
• Self-regulation
• Empathy

Emotional quotient vs. intelligence quotient

Emotional quotient (EQ) and intelligence quotient (IQ) are closely related but distinct concepts. Their relationship to each other is important, though. Whereas IQ measures your intellectual and cognitive abilities, EQ measures your social skills and emotional abilities. 

Although some folks feel that a high IQ is all they need to succeed in life, EQ is equally important. 

Why is emotional intelligence important? 

Emotional intelligence is important because it’s the key to being able to communicate, solve problems, and face conflict. People who don’t have high levels of emotional intelligence have trouble dealing with stress and knowing how to empathize with other people. 

A lack of emotional intelligence can hold you back in life and make it much more difficult to feel happy and successful.

5 Skills That Help Develop Emotional Intelligence

As mentioned above, focusing on certain skill sets can make it easier when it comes to developing your EQ. Here are five core skills that’ll help you further develop your own level of emotional intelligence.

Empathy

Emotional intelligence and empathy go hand-in-hand, and for good reason. Empathy is the ability to understand the perspectives and feelings of other people. While it comes naturally to some folks, it’s an ability that can be practiced and learned, too. 

Learning how to listen with empathy, for example, is a good place to start. Knowing how to listen and then respond with understanding and compassion will go a long way in building your EQ. 

Self-awareness

One of the best skills to sharpen when it comes to building your level of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. Self-awareness is a person’s ability to identify and understand their feelings without judgment and how they affect behavior. Although it doesn’t sound like much, the ability to recognize your own emotions is huge, especially when it comes to EQ. 

Part of self-awareness is acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses. You can also go to others for honest feedback to see where you can improve (both in your personal and professional lives). Understanding the areas in which you can improve is key for boosting your EQ. 

Social skills

Not surprisingly, social skills are closely tied to emotional intelligence. People with solid social skills have a much easier time building their emotional intelligence. If you feel like your social and relationship skills could use a little work, you’re not alone. Most people are actively working on building and maintaining those skills. 

Knowing how to communicate effectively is perhaps most important. Social situations at work and outside of work are less daunting when you can express yourself. Efficient communication skills can help you build and keep relationships and solve problems as they come up.

Motivation

Although it might not be top-of-mind, the ability to motivate yourself to achieve goals is a skill you’ll want to hone when working on your emotional intelligence. It can be tough to find ways to keep yourself motivated, especially if there are other unexpected difficulties that crop up. However, knowing how to set realistic goals (think SMART goals) and recognizing your own accomplishments will be essential for staying motivated. 

Self-regulation

Similarly to self-awareness, self-regulation is a skill that stresses the importance of learning to manage your emotions. Out of all the core skills listed, this one might be the most challenging. It involves knowing how to manage and relieve stress, which can be tricky. However, experimenting with a few stress management methods like meditation, mindfulness, or deep breathing techniques can be a great place to start. 

To work on your self-regulation abilities, try delaying immediate gratification to reach your long-term goals. A huge part of this is managing your impulses. For example, maybe you want to buy a new gaming console but you have an exam coming up in a few months. Instead of buying the console now, you could postpone the purchase to pivot your free time to studying. Then, after your exam (achieving your long-term goal), you can pick up that new gaming console and enjoy it.

6 Strategies to Develop and Improve Your Team’s Emotional Intelligence

If you’re a team lead looking to improve the EQ of your employees, you’re in the right place. It’ll take time and patience to sharpen your team’s skills, but it’ll be well worth the effort. Here are six straightforward strategies you can use to build your team’s emotional intelligence.

1. Invest in your team’s conflict resolution abilities.

Team leaders looking to boost their team’s emotional intelligence should first look to their conflict resolution skills. A person’s ability to brainstorm creative, innovative solutions to problems is related to their EQ. 

Start investing in your team’s abilities to problem-solve and negotiate solutions, especially when other teams are involved. There are plenty of workshops, classes, and trainings for conflict resolution that can give your team an overview of resolving conflict and arm them with the skills they need to succeed.

2. Cultivate a positive, supportive team environment.

One of the things that could potentially hinder your team’s ability to boost their overall emotional intelligence is a hostile or toxic work environment. If your employees aren’t comfortable at work, emotional intelligence is probably the last thing on their mind. Team leaders looking to boost their employees’ EQ should aim to create a positive, supportive environment for their team. 

Your team should feel comfortable coming to you and their peers to discuss their ideas, perspectives, thoughts, and feelings. Encourage your team when they do. For example, thank team members when they bring ideas to the table (even if their idea isn’t used). This will also work to foster a culture of open, honest communication.  

3. Encourage healthy, open communication.

Always encourage a healthy, open dialogue amongst your team to provide an ideal environment where they can work on their emotional intelligence. Make sure they’re well-versed in the skill of active listening. Being able to actively listen to others can prevent misunderstandings, confusion, and communication breakdowns at work. 

If you or your team are struggling with open communication, try implementing routine check-ins. For example, having a weekly team meeting to check in with everyone, including their workload, wellbeing, and other agenda items you might have, can promote an open dialogue. You can use these meetings to celebrate wins, recognize good behavior, and discuss issues or difficulties the team faces.

4. Provide plenty of opportunities for your employees to grow.

Similarly, you’ll need to make sure you provide a multitude of opportunities for your team to grow when investing in their emotional intelligence. Personal and professional growth is closely tied to EQ. For example, consider providing your employees with opportunities to attend workshops, conferences, mentorship programs, and training for further development.

5. Model the behaviors you want to see from your team.

One of the most effective strategies for improving your team’s emotional intelligence is to lead by example. In other words, model the exact behaviors you want to see from your team. If you want your team to communicate openly, that dialogue starts with you. If you want to see your team showing more empathy, show them how.

For example, if a team member has a medical emergency and you, as team leader, are most concerned with whether or not they’ll be able to attend an upcoming meeting from their hospital room, how can you expect them to build their EQ? Demonstrating your own level of emotional intelligence by showing that you care about their wellbeing is much more effective. 

6. Home in on feedback reception and how your team handles criticism.

You can also offer coaching and constructive criticism or feedback on a routine basis. For example, you might do quarterly reviews to see where each team member stands and what they need to work on. Implementing more routine feedback can help boost your team’s feedback reception skills, too. It also helps promote a more open, honest dialogue amongst your team members.

How to Practice Emotional Intelligence With Your Team Using Yoodli 

With something like EQ, it might seem like the only way to practice would be live, in real life, like at work or at school. However, you can encourage and practice using emotional intelligence and its related skills with an AI-based tool such as Yoodli.

Yoodli is a communication coach that leverages AI to provide folks with realistic conversational roleplay so they can practice skills like effective communication and active listening in a completely safe space. 

Because emotional intelligence involves being able to empathize and self-regulate your emotions, it can be tough to practice in real situations. Plus, because everyone is unique with their own personality, learning how to make adjustments to your communication approach can take time. However, that’s where Yoodli comes in.

This AI speech coach offers a plethora of various personas and personalities your team can experiment with to practice their emotional intelligence. They can choose to practice with an AI-generated partner who’s stressed, frustrated, friendly, skeptical, or reserved, among others. That way, your team can get used to adjusting their approach based on the person. 

Because Yoodli is a communication coach, it also gives your team members an in-depth evaluation based on how their conversation went. Each team member will get personalized metrics and actionable feedback for improvement, whether that’s word choice, filler word usage, or something different. With admin access as a team lead, you’ll get to see a bird’s eye view of your entire team and how they do. 

If you’d like to explore how you can improve your team’s emotional intelligence, learn how you can use this speech coach for free at https://yoodli.ai/.

The Bottom Line 

There’s no drawback to investing in improving your team’s level of emotional intelligence. Having a high level of emotional intelligence puts you and your team ahead of the game. With a resource like Yoodli, developing EQ at scale has never been easier. 

Sources

• HelpGuide.org: “Improving Emotional Intelligence (EQ): Expert Guide.”
• Mental Health America: “What is emotional intelligence and how does it apply to the workplace?”
• Harvard Business School: “Emotional Intelligence in Leadership: Why It’s Important,” “How to Develop Emotional Intelligence Skills.”
• Verywell Mind: “3 Simple Steps to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence.”