Introduction

As a project manager, your job goes beyond defining scope, meeting deadlines and staying within budget. You are managing teams and without the understanding of emotional intelligence, it can contribute to whether a project is successful or not. Abraham Maslow said: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will treat everything as a nail.” Understanding and using Emotional Intelligence (EI) is now critical for success. 

What is EI?

Mygrow has taken some definitions from psychologists into consideration and have summed it up quite nicely, they define EI as “a set of emotional skills that makes people great at managing themselves and interacting with others”. EI is the ability to intentionally manage your emotions so that they work for you both professionally and personally. It is not about being nice or friendly. It is about being authentic and meeting your own, unique identified needs while helping others to identify and meet their unique needs. It is absolutely necessary to have good EI in order to reason well and be competitive. EI is not something we necessarily born with, or is inherent, but it is a skill that we can develop - so, not all hope is lost after all! 

The EI Model and how you can apply it as a PM

The notion of EI consisting of five different components was first introduced by Daniel Goleman, a psychologist, and best-selling author. According to Cherry (2018), the 5 components of EI are:

1. Self-awareness

• This is the ability to understand your own strengths and weaknesses, and how often your actions affect others. 
• You are able to handle and learn from constructive criticism.

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Tip: To increase your self-awareness and be fully present, try the following:

•   Use your physical senses to alert you to “feelings”—tightness in stomach, tension in neck.

•   Name the feeling—are you angry or disgruntled or upset or furious? Understanding the degree of the emotion and being able to name it helps you with perceptive.

•   Journal—you know from your project environment, once a problem has been identified in black and white on paper—once it is tangible then you can plan how deal with it with some objectivity. Also use a journal to monitor and express your feelings in a safe way.

•   Seek input from others.

•   Take time to reflect about your intentions behind your feelings.

2. Self-regulation

• You are able to express emotions with restraint and control.

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Tip: Try doing the following things to increase your ability to self-regulate and make choices and act intentionally:

•   Identify your values. Values are your guiding principles in life. Write them out and then prioritize them.

•   Accept responsibility. You are responsible for your behavior and your response to life. Being accountable is a way of exercising your power. You are where you are because of choices you made along the way.

•   Pre-plan and monitor your self-talk. Those who are good at self-management are: thoughtful in making decisions, take initiative, frame events appropriately, have perspective, and respond swiftly.

•   Take a six-second pause to allow the information to get to your rational brain. Say: “I pause and think before I act.” or, “If I were wise, reasonable and compassionate how would I choose to respond, using my very best self?”

•   Monitor your self-talk. The words that you say to yourself are extremely powerful. They go immediately to your subconscious, which reinforces the messages you give to yourself. Avoid negatives, generalizations, and labeling.

•   Re-frame. Focus on the big picture to help put the current project difficulties into perspective.

•   Invite feedback.

•   Move. Physically move to view yourself and the situation in a different way.

•   Find the humor. Laugher releases endorphins, hormones that work in the brain to reduce perception of pain.

3. Social skills

• You are able to build rapport and trust quickly with others.
• Avoid power struggles, and backstabbing.
• You enjoy other people and have their respect.

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Tip: Effective Project Leaders who have great social skills do the following:

•   Communicate regularly.

•   Are humble. They never exaggerate. They are ambitious for the project team's success not their own success.

•   Create a context and help form a project culture within which the project team can function with meaning, significance and a sense of community.

•   Are visible.

•   Model and reinforce agreed upon values.

•   Demonstrate belief in the team recognizing that part of human motivation is related to feelings of self-respect coupled with pride in their work.

•   Demonstrate passion.

•   Keep their project team focused. Lack of clear focus has caused more projects to fail than competition or technological concerns.

•   Help the team celebrate success.

4. Empathy

• Compassion and understanding of human nature.
• You have the ability to connect with others on an emotional level.
• Provide a great service and respond genuinely to others’ concerns.

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Tip: Try doing the following things to recognize and respond appropriately to those in your team:

•   Truly listen without judging, without attempting to problem-solve.

•   Empathize.

•   Draw others out and encourage them to share their creative ideas or concerns.

•   Be congruent. Other people often only see your behaviors but not your intentions. You know your intentions but often cannot see your behaviors. An Emotionally Intelligent Project Manager is conscious of the impact of his or her verbals and nonverbals and because of high self-awareness is able to align intentions with behaviors to get great results with people.

•   Disclose some of your thoughts and feelings keeping in mind how others may react.

•  Test assumptions. Understand you are always only hearing part of what is being communicated due to your personality, experiences and mental state. Ask questions.

5. Motivation

• You are self-motivated.
• Resilient and optimistic.
• Driven by inner ambition. 

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Tip: To motivate yourself and your team:

•   Visualize. Human beings have a unique ability to paint mind pictures. When you create a picture of what you want, you induce the physiological responses that would occur if the vision were real.

•   Set meaningful, realistic, challenging goals with your project team complimented by targeted tasks.

•   Affirm and use conscious positive associations.

•   Network. Create a network of people to help you focus on your goal. I often say that people are not your most important asset, but rather the “right” people are your most important asset.

•   Renew yourself. Have time by yourself, balance your spiritual, mental, social and physical needs.

Conclusion

There is no better working environment when you have a team that is made up of people who have a clear vision, a sense of autonomy, who act intentionally, are self-motivated, are able to collaborate and network and most importantly, who feel fulfilled daily. This doesn’t happen naturally, and it takes some intervention from Project Managers who understand the talents, values and potential of not only themselves, but their project teams. It is your responsibility as the Project Manager to ensure that everything comes together - the tools, processes, teams and systems - to carry out the project vision and goals. 

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