The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
One of the three aspects of health, according to this definition by WHO, is “mental well-being”. Emotional Intelligence is an integral part of mental health, which, unfortunately, often gets left out in conversations about health. Many people focus only on the physical aspect of health, leaving out the mental and social well-being, especially in this part of the world.
As an entrepreneur who gets to deal with many people, emotional intelligence is a must-have skill. That is, for entrepreneurs who want to be successful.
But what exactly can emotional intelligence do for you as an entrepreneur?
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1. It will help you identify customer needs more effectively
Getting inside your customer’s head and know what they need is a lot more complex than you think. You can make assumptions; that’s quite easy. But assumptions can be misleading and dangerous.
Therefore, direct communication with customers and data has been proven to be the best ways to identify customer needs. In other words, you need to be able to empathise with your customers to see how to improve your product to serve their needs better. Similarly, it will also help you discover new ways of marketing to your audience more effectively.
2. You will become a more effective communicator
It’s challenging to hold a deep conversation with people if you can’t empathise with them. If you can’t relate to others’ emotions, communication becomes less effective and more complex.
As an entrepreneur who always has to talk to employees, investors and clients/customers, you need a high level of emotional intelligence to see things from their perspective. With this, you’d be able to build strong relationships with all stakeholders and win people over.
3. Emotional Intelligence will help you unify your team through enhanced leadership
Even if you’re just starting your business, you should already be thinking ahead to when you’d have built a team that works with you.
Emotionally intelligent leaders get the best out of their employees. It’s the foundation for cultivating a unified vision, respect, and good morale, which results in improved productivity. Specifically, this is important for entrepreneurs who have employees working from home.
Emotional intelligence is vital for leaders who want productive employees.
4. You Improve your self-awareness
Knowing your emotional stand can be very useful to you as an entrepreneur. Your ability to identify and harmlessly express your emotions serves as a buffer against you having emotions that run wild and distort your perception. Hence, when you improve your emotional intelligence, you are able to make better decisions.
5. Better control over emotions
Entrepreneurship is not a child’s play. You would be faced with several roadblocks on your path to success. Therefore, as an entrepreneur, you will have to handle everything, from demanding clients, angry customers to difficult conversations and disappointing launches.
You may not have control over everything that happens, but with high emotional intelligence, you can get better at understanding your emotions in challenging situations without trying to suppress them or going off at a wrong time.
Also, the ability to control your emotions is crucial when relating with investors and other essential business stakeholders.
For instance, a team of co-founders learnt this the hard way when one of them got a heated debate with an investor. The investor then then started lobbying for him to be fired. And to solve the problem, the investor said there was only one way:
“You need to talk to a coach to work on your emotional intelligence.”
How to improve your emotional intelligence
Now that you’ve seen the importance of emotional intelligence to you as an entrepreneur, how do you go about becoming more emotionally intelligent?
Unfortunately, there is no quick-fix for it. We are talking emotions here so some work and learning has to take place. These steps below are a good place to start:
1. Read, read, read
Majority of high performers have high emotional intelligence, and some of them have books on leadership and emotional intelligence. Reading the success stories of others can show you the steps to take to reach similar success. As far as emotional intelligence is concerned, an excellent book to start with is Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman.
2. Listen and practice empathy
In your everyday conversations with friends, colleagues, and family, try to practice empathy. Pay attention to what they are saying, and try to understand what they might be feeling and thinking. Most times, we want the conversation to go in a specific direction, instead of actually listening and responding with empathy.
3. Talk to a coach or counselor
The above two are things you can do one your own or with people around you. However, it gets to a point when you need to talk to a professional. This is usually because you are either unable to practice on your own and you may need the help of a counselor to assess your progress.
A counselor or coach can as they’ll be able to regularly assess how you are doing and give you benchmarks. Feel free to ask for help when you need it as the process is not always easy.
