Why Emotional Intelligence is Needed in Leadership

Why Emotional Intelligence is Needed in Leadership

by | Mar 1, 2018 | Emotional Intelligence, Leadership

From a very young age, we are taught how to read and write, we are taught about sciences, mathematics, languages, fine arts, and social studies. Unfortunately, though, we are not taught the fundamental skills of emotional intelligence (EI) – the ability to use the information provided by our emotions in an effective and meaningful way; to act appropriately in the face of daily challenges.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotionally intelligent individuals are self-aware, better able to regulate their actions, and have more empathy for others. An increased level of emotional intelligence can also help individuals manage stress better, build healthier relationships, be more effective at work, and be more fulfilled in general. Effective elements of leadership skills include these qualities and soft skills.

Increasing your emotional intelligence means increasing your emotional awareness of both yourself and others. People with high emotional intelligence are able to recognize and manage their own emotions while also being aware of and considering others’ feelings.  Being in tune with how you are projecting yourself and how others perceive your energy is a good indicator of your EI.

Human Resources professionals insist that while a high IQ might get someone hired, a high EQ will get them promoted!  Emotional intelligence skills are critical for career success – your attitude, your work ethic, your communication, conflict management, and stress management.

Consequently, why aren’t schools emphasizing these emotional intelligence skills in the classroom?

As a university professor, I see it almost every day. We, instructors, cause a lot of stress for our students, but we never think to teach them how to manage it.  We put students in teams; but rarely teach them exactly how to work within those teams – or give them any guidelines on how to collaborate with others who have different personalities, communication styles, or cultures.

The same holds true in the corporate world.  Corporations seem to expect people to know how to behave on the job. They assume employees innately know the importance of being on time, taking initiative, being friendly, thinking clearly under pressure, and producing high-quality work.

Why is emotional intelligence important in leadership? Not only is it an important skill to have if you want to be an effective and efficient leader because a “high EI is a [strong] predictor of success,” but EI has the ability to affect various aspects of your leadership role. “Being able to relate behaviors and challenges of emotional intelligence on workplace performance is an immense advantage in building an exceptional team.”

Leadership in today’s environment is all about inspiring, motivating, and igniting passion in others. This helps attract and retain top talent, in addition to increasing productivity. So, how do we coach people to inspire, motivate, and ignite passion? This is done through developing the skills of leading with emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is important in being a successful leader because it helps defeat communication deficiencies that are detrimental to any group and team. When leadership roles are filled with individuals who are not yet emotionally intelligent, communication difficulties arise – team members are not heard, leaders are not able to adapt to individual needs, and messages are lost in the midst of the chaos.

Effective leaders are able to lead their fellow people by understanding their needs and reacting to those needs, not from raw emotions, rather, from self-awareness – “How are my verbal and nonverbal communication styles affecting my team?”

The following are the four key emotional intelligence skills you need to build and enhance to be an effective leader.

How Emotional Intelligence Affects Your Leadership Skills

SELF AWARENESS

Self-awareness is your ability to recognize, understand, and regulate your own emotions, strengths, and weaknesses. Being self-aware allows you to fully understand your personal values, beliefs, motivations, strengths, fears, and limitations. When you know what is important to you, and the external factors which challenge you, you will be able to react in a controlled manner, rather than blowing up without first assessing the situation. This, of course, is an integral characteristic of being a strong leader. There is nothing worse than being in a leadership position and projecting your insecurities to those who you are trying to lead; when you don’t truly know who you are and what you need to work on, the people who are following you will feel just as lost as you appear.

 

SELF-MANAGEMENT

As one of your major duties in a leadership role, you need to be able to foster a positive work environment. Being able to practice self-management means staying focused and composed when times are difficult and trying. This is another important characteristic that leaders need to have.

If you lose your calm and controlled demeanor when situations turn challenging and chaotic, your team members may feel and internalize your energy, and they can project the same disordered dynamic. Inevitably, a lack of self-management will affect your work environment in a significant way – remember, when people look at you as the leader of the pack, they turn to you for cues on how to react and how to respond.

 

SOCIAL AWARENESS

Being socially aware is having the ability to practice compassion. Though closely related, compassion and empathy show differences in their nature. Compassion is the ability to show concern with one’s suffering or needs, whereas, empathy is the capability to understand those feelings and appreciate them as if they were yours – putting yourself in others’ shoes.

Practicing compassion and empathy is imperative in any leadership role. It nurtures a sense of trust between you, the leader, and the individuals you are trying to lead; trust in a group strengthens your personal and collaborative relationships, positioning you in a role of strength.

 

HAVE WELL MAINTAINED RELATIONSHIPS

Emotionally intelligent leaders have well-maintained relationships. They are able to develop and maintain relationships both outside and inside their positions. Conflicts are inevitable. But how are you managing them? Are you a person who blows up and makes the situation worse? Or are you a person who acknowledges the situation and tries to mend the problem, turning it into something productive? If you are the latter of the two, then you are on the right track for exhibiting emotional intelligence. Leaders who are adept at this skill know that conflicts will arise undoubtedly. However, these leaders are able to push through the superficial issues and turn them around into a productive experience from which the entire team can benefit.

There it is, the four personal skills you will need to develop if you want to grow into the kind of powerful, yet personable leader you want to become.

Remember, as an organizational leader, you are leading people, and people have feelings. Ultimately, this means that you are also managing people’s feelings so they are able to produce quality work. By improving your emotional intelligence through the use of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and maintaining relationships, you are en route to honing your leadership skills. If you want more tips on how to Learn More. Be Better, check out our services!

To learn more about emotional intelligence and how it benefits your organization, sign up for our biweekly newsletter here, where you will receive our latest updates, an inventory of resources, and much more!

If you need help leading your organization to success, book a call with us here; we’d love to listen and provide support in any way we can.

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Emotional Intelligence Interview Questions

Emotional Intelligence Interview Questions

by | Feb 15, 2018 | Emotional Intelligence, Hiring and Recruiting, Interview Questions

Are you tired of having to constantly recruit fresh new talent? We spend significant resources of time and money in creating emotional intelligence interview questions for leaders because we all know that people can make or break our business.

Are you sure you are hiring the best people into your organization? Will these individuals stay for their entire careers? Will they be a catalyst that pushes your company past all of its competitors?

The answers to all of these questions are YES…if you are hiring emotionally intelligent candidates.

Recruiting Emotionally Intelligent People

We all know that the higher up the proverbial corporate ladder you go, the more important your emotional intelligence skills are. Unfortunately, when you are entering the job market hiring managers tend to stick to more traditional interviewing methods (such as one-on-one job interviews) and hiring techniques (such as ubiquitous series of interview questions).

As an HR professional, your goal is to improve the candidate pool and hire the best. You want the cream of the crop to pick your organization as their employer of choice to continue their career. However, during the traditional one-hour interview you do not always wean out the best of the best. So, why is that?

Well, potential candidates are often asked more interview questions relating to their IQ and technical skills, and very few, if any, EQ interview questions.

Although you might be hiring a recent graduate who was top of his/her class, you do not know if they have the emotional intelligence skills needed to lead teams in the future.

According to Daniel Goleman, “as a leader moves up in an organization, up to 90 percent of their success lies in emotional intelligence.” It’s an essential skill that in the past has been undervalued as a ‘soft skill’, but now these skills are at the forefront of great leadership. “The rules for work are changing. We’re being judged by a new yardstick: not just by how smart we are, or by our training and expertise, but also by how well we handle ourselves and each other.”

The Core EI Workplace Competencies

Richard Boyatzis has identified 14 core competencies that differentiate “outstanding leaders, managers, advanced professionals and people in key jobs” from average performers. Only two of these competencies are cognitive – the remaining twelve are emotional and social intelligence competencies.

So, ask yourself:

  • Are you tired of gambling to see if the up and comers you hired for their technical skills will have the talent and skills to provoke and ignite passion in others?
  • Will these candidates have the leadership you will be looking for later on in their careers?
  • How will you know if these individuals, as smart as they are, will have the skills to energize and inspire employees to make their best contribution to the organization?
  • Do they have the ability to motivate other great employees to stay?
  • Will they be able to keep all the best talent within your four walls?

Testing for Emotional Intelligence

Many hiring managers have a hard time constructing interview questions to test emotional intelligence and emotional self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Therefore many HR professionals fall back on trusting their gut instincts and subjective first impressions.

The secret to enhancing your HR techniques and practices and ensuring you are screening out the best of the best is to utilize a few emotionally intelligent questions throughout your interview process.

People who have low emotional intelligence do not understand or know how to manage their own emotions. Additionally, they also don’t know how to read emotions in others. This much is evident when we see employees struggling to deal with stress, overcome obstacles, or resolve conflict. We see people who struggle with emotional intelligence when they are negative, blame the system/process, are excessively entitled, point fingers at others, resist change, procrastinate, and/or are overly sensitive or critical.

Nowadays every smart or experienced candidate has figured out how to answer the basic interview skills questions. While they may be technically competent, it is your job as a hiring manager to move away from the traditional interview model.

The traditional interview model consists of probing individuals about their past experience, and/or coming up with hypothetical and situational questions about similar circumstances. To move forward, the interviewer needs to delve into the candidate’s views and awareness of themselves, particularly in relation to others. These questions need to be non-leading and open-ended behavioral questions…which can reveal a lot about a person’s emotional intelligence level in how they answer them.

This will allow a candidate to open up and offer their own candid perspective versus the scripted one they practiced to land the job back at home role-playing when facing the mirror in their bathroom.

Emotional Intelligence Interview Questions

Here are a few questions you can use throughout your interview process to gain a better sense of the candidate’s emotional intelligence level.

1) Can you tell me about a time when you made a mistake in the workplace?

An emotionally intelligent person takes responsibility for their mistake; the non-emotionally intelligent candidate blames others for the mistake. Someone who has a high EQ would know it is okay to make mistakes; sometimes that is where the most profound learning comes from. They would also acknowledge the error, learn the lesson, make adjustments, and share with others how to avoid making similar errors.

2) Share a time when you received negative feedback about your performance

The emotionally intelligent person is open to feedback, appreciates him or herself, and is self-aware. They would use this feedback as an opportunity to grow and develop. Someone who has low emotional intelligence would become defensive, offended, and perhaps shut down.

3) Can you tell me about a time when you accomplished something you were proud of, but required help to do it?

An emotionally intelligent individual would share his or her success. Watch carefully the word choices the candidate uses. If they use words like ‘I’, ‘me’ or ‘my’…they may be self-centered and ego-focused. If they acknowledge the team for their help in achieving the success the team had, they take into consideration the feelings and efforts of others.

However, be careful – it’s a fine balance of using ‘I did…’ to show leadership, versus ‘I did…’ to take all of the glory. Traditionally behavioral-based questions are intended to lead into the ‘I did….’, or ‘my involvement was…’ answers, but you want to see if the candidate can answer these types of questions in that fashion while including and appreciating the rest of the team.

4) Describe a time when you had to share some bad news with a colleague.

 People with high emotional intelligence will display empathy in their delivery of the bad news.  They would be able to share the news while staying composed and not getting enmeshed in the other person’s stuff. They can respect and appreciate the feelings of the other person, but they can separate themselves from that person.

These four interview questions on emotional intelligence are just a starting point; so use them as a springboard for coming up with more, or adapting these to better fit your needs. Either way, with a few good emotional intelligence questions spread into your interviews, you can start to identify the level of emotional intelligence the candidate holds.

If you are meeting with someone who can demonstrate self-awareness about their own emotions, positive or not, and those of others, then you are heading down the right path. Chances are these candidates can move past anger, doubt, and anxiety; and they are flexible, empathetic, and confident when working with others.

To learn more about emotional intelligence and how it benefits your organization, sign up for our biweekly newsletter here, where you will receive our latest updates, an inventory of resources, and much more!

If you need help attracting and recruiting the right people for your organization, book a call with us here; we’d love to listen and provide support in any way we can.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Instagram to keep up with our latest blogs!

 

Five Tips on How to Coach Employees

Five Tips on How to Coach Employees

by | Feb 1, 2018 | Coaching, Interpersonal Relationships

So, you have been coaching employees within your business for quite some time now. Your employees’ lives have drastically improved and they have achieved more than what they thought possible before. Nonetheless, you feel like you have reached your peak as a coach; you have given them your best work and all the techniques you know, and have taken them as far as you can take them. However, now you’ve run out of tricks up your sleeve, or tools in your toolbox, and you need a kick in the pants to take your coaching career and your coachees’ lives to a whole new level. Luckily, we’re revealing five tips on how to get a grip on coaching for greater effectiveness so that your employees or coachees will be challenged to be their absolute best.

We have all been there…we have all reached a point where we are stagnant in our careers, and we want to push further. When we get complacent in our coaching, we become too comfortable with the coaching techniques and tools we use and share with our clients. Yet, we know deep down inside we need to introduce some new ones for your own skill development. Fundamentally you know you need to be continuously monitoring your work to stay current and ahead of the marketplace in order to enhance your personal coaching brand and increase the value of your coaching sessions.

Let’s be honest. The Internet has assured us that there are no secrets. Anyone can get anything, anytime, anywhere, and for free. Essentially, everyone knows what you know. Therefore, great coaches understand this ideology and constantly strive to accelerate their learning. As a coach, you must be committed to life-long learning, honest personal and professional evaluation, and continuous self-improvement.

With that in mind, here are five tips on how to coach employees and the techniques to use during your coaching sessions to step up your game.

1) Focus on the word “Instead”

Have you ever had a coachee that is faced with a problem, but seems lost as to where they actually want to go? If this is the case, there is a simple technique you can use with them when they lose sight of their goal. It can help them get to where they want to go if they aren’t quite sure where that is.

The coaching technique I have found that works well is to use the word “instead”. For instance when your coachee is faced with a big problem…ask them to focus on the following:

  • What do you want to be doing, INSTEAD of what you are doing now?
  • What do you want to be thinking, INSTEAD of what you are thinking now?
  • What do you want to be feeling, INSTEAD of what you are feeling now?
  • What do you want to be saying, INSTEAD of what you are saying now?

Once they determine what they want to do, think, feel and say, you will be surprised at how quickly your coachee can come up with alternative solutions to do INSTEAD of what they are currently doing.

2) 10,000 Hours to Master Your Craft

In the book Outliers: The Story of Success, author Malcolm Gladwell, says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.  To motivate your coachee to step up their game, ask them to think about their goal, and work out how many hours they have put into achieving it. Then have them think about how they can increase these hours, and what they can do to reach their goal.

Asking your coachee to break their goal up into the number of hours they have dedicated to will help them figure out a tactical plan on what they need to do to achieve it, and when. Ask them how will they achieve their goal? Do they need support from anyone else? What resources do they need? If any problems come up then what can they do to overcome this?

Focusing on the fact that everyone needs to put in 10,000 hours to master their craft will help your coachee to push themself beyond what they think they can do. This will help them when they need the extra mental energy to push.

Challenge your coachee to push themselves to take one step further to reach their goals, even when they feel they can’t do anymore.

3) Help Them Learn From Their Mistakes

A technique on coaching and developing employees I find to be helpful for my clients is to encourage them to learn from their mistakes. Albert Einstein once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

Unfortunately in our society, making mistakes is often frowned upon. However, the purpose of coaching employees is to develop their careers and build meaningful relationships. Mistakes are bound to happen, therefore, the key is for your coachee to learn from their mistakes.

As their coach it is your job to encourage them to try new things…and help them realize that making mistakes should not be so feared or considered taboo. Whatever the past mistakes your coachee feels they have made, as their coach, you need to help them reframe it and look at them as learning opportunities. They need to look back and realize that they made a choice based on the knowledge and experience they had at that particular time, and that’s okay.

If they were faced with making that choice again today, they would make a more informed decision. As a journaling exercise, have your coachee share their learning lessons, and knowing now what they do, have them share how they would make different decisions currently. With their knowledge, ask them what they would do differently today based on what they learned from their mistakes.

4) Set Manageable Goals

To be a better coach, set manageable goals for your employees. Ask your coachee to set a goal that is short and to the point. In the book, Your Brain at Work, author David Rock states, “A goal that is three to seven words is fantastic. If you can’t remember something, it doesn’t live in your world. It’s got to be embedded in your brain.”

Ask your coachee to come up with goals that are expressed positively rather than pessimistically. For instance, “Relax More” versus “Be Less Anxious.” Then ask your coachee to draw out a chart and write down all of the items they want to achieve in one column. In the next seven columns beside each goal ask them to document what they did each day that week to focus on their goal.

By the end of the week, your coachee will have a record of how their week went. Did their actions line up with what they valued or wanted? If not, then why not? Where did their week break down? What areas need their attention?

This is a clear tool and technique for your coachee to see how their actions are lining up with their goals.

5) What Would My Hero Do?

We have all had someone we look up to. It could be a great artist, philanthropist, a fictional hero from the movies or a comic book, or even a mentor or family member.

They embody who you want to be and have something you want. Now ask your coachee what your hero would do to get what they want.

Ultimately your hero is an ideal version of you…a better version of yourself. They will tap into what this third person would do and realize their true potential.  Your coachee will then use the strength, imagination, and qualities that they admire from their hero to get them closer to their own goals.

So there you have it – five coaching points on how to coach employees to help you stay on top of your game. Whether you are a manager or a coach, you need to be constantly finding new techniques that will help you get the best out of your coachee.

To learn more about emotional intelligence and how it benefits your organization, sign up for our biweekly newsletter here, where you will receive our latest updates, an inventory of resources, and much more!

If these five coaching tips above are not enough to help you and your coachee maximize your full potential, connect with us for more tips and programs on how to reach your coaching goals.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Instagram to keep up with our latest blogs!

New Year, New Outlook

New Year, New Outlook

by | Jan 1, 2018 | Personal Development, Wellness

Oh, 2018: a year of new beginnings. As we enter 2018 it is important to take a moment to reflect on the previous year and look ahead to the new year in front of us. What did you accomplish in 2017? What do you want to accomplish in 2018? How can you make this possible?

We’ve all heard the phrase “New Year, New Me.” But every year, our New Year’s resolutions don’t end up following through. We end up forgetting about them or just give up before the year ends. This year, try and break that cycle by creating a New Year’s resolution that’s worth following through with.

Practicing optimism and positive thinking in your everyday life can drastically change the way you live. By taking steps to change your outlook on life you can begin to improve your mood and change both your personal and professional life for the better.

Now you may be the kind of person who can remain cheerful, despite rejection, failure, loss, or trauma.  You may be able to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again and continue to see the positives in life. But for those of us who don’t naturally have a positive outlook on life, it can be much more difficult to change our thinking.

Perhaps there have been a few negative situations that have occurred in your life recently that have caused you to start seeing things through slightly grey-tinted glasses.  Subtle, and easy to miss, your mild depressive thoughts start to take over and you don’t even notice you are not as positive as you usually are.  You are still taking part in life and even smiling along the way, but just not reaping as many pleasures as you once were.

It can be difficult to remain positive about the future when faced with adversity; however, it is entirely possible. Switching your focus from a pessimistic view to an optimistic view can dramatically improve your quality of life as well as your relationships.

Viktor Frankl, in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, stated, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Learning how to stay positive during negative situations is an invaluable skill to master to live a healthy life.

You can build up a mindset based on positivity.  Here are three simple, but effective tips to get to the silver linings amongst the grey clouds:

1. Stop and Unplug

In today’s technological era we spend so much time in isolation in front of our computers.  People become so attached to their multiple social media accounts that it overtakes face-to-face interactions.  With social networks constantly at our fingertips, it can become our nightly ritual to compare our perceived humdrum lives to those of others who appear to be glamorously based on what they’re posting on Facebook.

Additionally, people are able to hide behind their computer screens, which makes it much easier to spew negativity. Anonymously behind the safe haven of their screen, the negativity can be released through harassment, rumor mongering, rude comments, or exclusion of others by a simple click of a button. Gretchen Rubin, the author of “The Happiness Project” said it best when it comes to our constant attention to our social media accounts – “technology is a good servant but a bad master.”

As well, technology allows us to film every waking moment.  Some of us can be so caught up trying to capture all of life’s precious moments on camera that we lose the thrill of just enjoying the actual moment.  Why put a screen between you and your life?  It’s isolating enough when you’re alone in front of a computer, but now many of us are doing it when out amongst the crowds.  By recording the moment, we miss feeding off the energy of others and contributing our own energy to these once-in-a-lifetime moments.

Therefore it is important to take the time to stop and unplug from the digital world and connect with others.  Be present.  Live and experience each moment with all of your senses.    Interact with real people in real-time rather than connecting virtually through your mobile devices.  “To be able to stay positive it is essential to have influences in your life that support you and lift you up instead of dragging you down.”  Staying in touch with friends and loved ones is extremely beneficial for our happiness and well-being. Research demonstrates that spending positive time with other people improves our happiness immediately.

2. Practice Self-Care

In order to stay positive during difficult times, it is important to take care of ourselves.   “Inadequate self-care, that is the inability to put yourself first by making sure you get the rest, nutrition and movement you need to perform is the cause of much stress, re-work, and poor leadership.”

We all know that exercise is good for our bodies, but it is also great for our minds.  Study after study has shown the positive effect that being active has on our brains. Exercise produces endorphins and proteins that make us feel happier – it increases your cognitive abilities, helps you sleep better, enhances your self-perception, and improves your overall sense of well-being.   Exercise is also an excellent way to ward off negativity and stress.

In addition, consuming healthy, wholesome fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, grains, nuts, and seeds provides your body and brain with the nutrients needed to function at optimal levels and to stay healthy and happy. Unhealthy foods, especially those that contain processed carbohydrates, sugars and fats, and artificial sweeteners have been linked to many diseases, depression, and even brain shrinkage.  Remember – you are what you eat.

Finally, getting enough sleep is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Sleep gives your body a chance to recover from the day and repair itself.  Sleep is also important for increased happiness. Having a good night’s sleep can have a big impact when we have a lot of tension inside and our thoughts are pessimistic.  When we are well-rested, we can think more clearly and optimistically.

Therefore, in order to stay positive about the future, make self-care a priority, especially given the emotional strains inherent in our professions and personal lives.  Don’t feel guilty about making time for yourself.  Studies show that when we care for ourselves, it not only has an impact on ourselves but also on others that we interact with.  Here are some ways to incorporate self-care into your busy lives.

3. Clean Up Your Life and Be Grateful

Many times there tends to be a reason when you have a negative attitude or outlook. Maybe it’s the negative people you surround yourself with, or maybe it is the dissatisfaction you have with your current job. Whatever the reason, remember you only have one life, so make sure that you make the necessary changes to live a more positive life. Oprah once said, “Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.”

Once you have taken an inventory of the negative influences in your life, cleanse yourself of everything keeping you down.  Get rid of the negativity, and remember to shift your focus onto all of the positive aspects of your life.

Voice your blessings and commit to practicing gratitude on a regular basis.  Keep a gratitude journal and write down what you are grateful for each day – like a daily appreciation exercise. Share these thoughts with friends and family and show your gratitude to others often. Continue to talk about the things you truly feel grateful for.

The power of positive thinking can put negative situations in perspective and can help us deal with them as they arise.  On especially difficult days, read back through your gratitude journal to help shift your attitude and remind yourself about all of the good things in your life. Winston Churchill’s famous quote said it best – “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

There you have it, three simple steps to becoming more positive for New Year 2018. Don’t worry if it doesn’t happen overnight…these three steps are progressing you in the right direction – onwards and upwards.

To learn more about emotional intelligence and how it benefits your organization, sign up for our biweekly newsletter here, where you will receive our latest updates, an inventory of resources, and much more!

If you need help leading towards success, book a call with us here; we’d love to listen and provide support in any way we can.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Instagram to keep up with our latest blogs!

Appreciation in the Workplace

Appreciation in the Workplace

by | Dec 1, 2017 | Leadership, Work Environment

Consider this: you have two employees who share the same job. Let’s call them John and Jane. They have the same duties, same daily responsibilities, and work with the same teammates. Jane is highly motivated and continually achieves exactly what you request of her. You set daily operations meeting first thing every morning to set targets and goals for the day and this has proven to get the results you need out of Jane. You are committed to ensuring your team is working cohesively so ensure you make time to have lunch with the employees and even schedule monthly team-outings.

John, on the other hand, is more than capable of meeting these targets and even outperforming Jane, but doesn’t have the same consistent results. John receives all the same instructions as Jane, he always participates in the operations meetings and team activities, but you just can’t figure out why his performance is inconsistent.

Last month, you sat down with John and told him he was a star and you value him as an employee. Everything was great after that meeting; he quickly moved to the head of the pack in terms of performance, but now it has tapered off again.

Have you ever been in a situation at work where you just can’t figure out what motivates someone?

By all accounts, it sounds like you are committed to your team, you want to ensure the employees are engaged and supported and care about their success. So why is John not performing consistently?

John and Jane are motivated differently, and you have fallen into the one-size-fits-all leadership approach. Each of these employees requires a different method of appreciation to motivate them.

“The highest driver of engagement in whether workers feel their managers are genuinely interested in their well-being”. How can employees be appreciated if you are not recognizing them in their language? Gary Chapman and Paul White discuss this very topic in The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.

Read on as share the five languages of appreciation in the workplace: quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation, tangible gifts, and physical touch.

Quality time

Quality time refers to people who accept appreciation through quality time spent with their superiors and coworkers. Giving full, undivided attention to employees while both in a team or one-on-one setting is key to making them feel appreciated. Negative feelings can arise if not enough attention is given or if you seem distracted and not present.

Acts of service

Acts of service refer to people who accept and show appreciation by doing things. They believe that actions speak louder than words and want to see quality work being done. It may offend someone if a commitment to do work is made and doesn’t get done.

Words of affirmation

Words of affirmation mean that people will receive appreciation through words. Positive language and words of encouragement are needed to make some people feel wanted and appreciated in the workplace. Likewise, if too much negative language is used it can demotivate employees and make them feel isolated.

Tangible gifts

Tangible gifts are used for people who express appreciation in the workplace by giving and receiving gifts. This could be a dinner, tickets to a sporting event, or even a box of chocolates. When an employee does a good job it is best to give them a small gift instead of giving them praise.

Physical touch

Physical touch can be the main driver of appreciation for some people. Be careful, because this can be tricky to use in the workplace. A solid handshake or a pat on the back will let employees know that their work is appreciated, but doesn’t cross any workplace boundaries.

In our example, Jane definitely feels appreciated by quality time. She thrives on having daily operations meetings, enjoys team lunches and is encouraged by team outings. On the other side of the equation, John may enjoy these same things, but it is not what motivates him and makes him feel appreciated. He is driven by words of affirmation. He requires the individualized feedback he was given during his private meeting last month. Now that you understand each employee may require a different type of appreciation to stay motivated and feel engaged, think about how you show appreciation in the workplace to your team.

 

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