
Your club’s emotional quotient is the measure or level of the collective emotional intelligence in your club. And managing and improving the emotional intelligence in your club is a critical leadership skill.
Clubs can be challenging working environments, filled with stress, pressure, anxiety, and even drama from time to time. It can also be a place of happiness, contentment, and excitement. All of these facets determine how someone feels at any given moment, and managing those feelings is the foundation of emotional intelligence.
EI contributes to how people handle their professional relationships. A club with even one person with low EI management may suffer from an increase in workplace conflict, decreased performance, and high turnover. On the other hand, clubs with highly emotionally intelligent team members will perform better, have increased job satisfaction, and experience better employee retention rates.
So, why is it important and how do you develop EI and raise the emotional quotient in your club?
The old way of thinking emphasised a person’s IQ or intellectual quotient. If someone had a high IQ, that meant they were highly employable. That idea has transformed in recent years as more clubs realise it takes more than a high IQ for someone to be an excellent team member. Yes, clubs still want to hire smart people, but even more critical is a team member that knows how to navigate the club environment with all its ups and downs. In this sense, emotional intelligence may play a more critical factor in success than IQ.
Elements of Emotional Intelligence
It’s easy to say that clubs should do all they can to hire emotionally intelligent team members. It’s another thing to recognise what an emotionally intelligent person acts like. The following are considered the key elements of EI, the recognition of which (starting with yourself!) can assist in promoting emotional intelligence in your club.
Self-Awareness
The element of self-awareness involves the ability to recognise one’s feelings and emotions. People with high self-awareness pay close attention to how they’re feeling at any given moment. They understand that their emotions have a close impact on how they respond to certain situations. They know that making a sudden decision during a highly emotional moment might lead to negative consequences down the road. Self-awareness also involves noting what a person’s particular strengths and weaknesses are. Perhaps someone knows they struggle to communicate with others, which makes them aware of what needs to change.
How to Improve Self-Awareness in the Club
Talk with team members and listen to what they have to say
Assess emotional weaknesses
Create routines that set the right mood in the club
Avoid making decisions at the height of an emotional moment
Self-Regulation
After someone becomes aware of their emotions, they next need to learn to regulate them. Self-regulation involves managing one’s feelings and learning how to adapt to different situations. Think of self-awareness as planning and self-regulation as the execution of the plan. With self-regulation, people learn how to control their emotions instead of allowing their emotions to control them.
How to Improve Self-Regulation in the Club
Understand many things are out of your control
Relieve stress with hobbies or meditation exercises
Take a moment to pause before responding to criticism
Call out toxic environments in a constructive manner
Empathy
Those who demonstrate emotional intelligence at work show a high degree of empathy. Becoming empathetic means being able to see what other people are going through. That means understanding how they feel. This becomes especially important when making business decisions that affect people in vastly different ways. Empathising with others also involves reading verbal and nonverbal cues from team members as they may not always directly state how they are feeling.
How to Improve Empathy in the Club
Take the time to see a situation from another person’s point of view
List out the potential outcomes of a decision and how it affects team members
Get to know your team members
Recognise others’ input and thank them for voicing an opinion
Regularly praise other people’s work
Motivation
The motivation element involves what drives a person. There are many sources of motivation such as wealth, fame, and power, but for people with high emotional intelligence, simply doing a good job is enough for them to get up every morning. Their motivation comes from enjoying what they do. They follow their passions and love reaching the goals they set for themselves. In other words, they have intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic.
How to Improve Intrinsic Motivation in the Club
Focus on the positive
Follow what you’re passionate about
Practice having an optimistic attitude
Avoid chasing material rewards
Social Skills
Those who want to work on having high emotional intelligence should concentrate on improving their social skills. This element involves knowing how to react in social situations. If the moment calls for words of encouragement, you give them. If there’s a situation where listening would matter more, you take a moment to listen. People with great social skills say the right things at the right time. They communicate their ideas so others can understand them.
How to Improve Social Skills in the Club
Practice public speaking, like talking in front of a mirror
Be an active listener at all times
Pay attention to nonverbal cues from others
Help resolve workplace conflicts whenever they arise
Clubs with a high emotional quotient are positive work environments where everyone cares about each other’s success and happiness. That makes professional life better for everybody.
One of the key modules in the Club Managers Leadership and Management program – “Developing Emotional Intelligence”, explores these areas and many others as part of building club manager knowledge. For more information on the program and modules visit, https://www.elevateb.com.au/club-managers-leadership-management
We also run webinars that provide food for thought and practical applications for clubs to tap into and develop areas like their Emotional Quotient.
For more information and to register for our upcoming webinar please visit, https://www.elevateb.com.au/club-managers-webinar
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