This blog will help you to develop your Emotional Intelligence in our unique Kataholos way- simple, inspirational and practical!
I will give you 3 practices that you can put into your daily routines to deepen your emotional intelligence. I am very grateful to have been teaching for over 20 years, since I did my first junior instructor martial arts course. In that time I have trained over 11,000 adults with Kataholos so far, as well as taught hundreds of children.
I would like to share with you some insights- and funny moments- from these years, which will help you to practice and improve your emotional intelligence abilities.
These 3 practices that can be put into your daily work routines, and they are totally free- they won’t cost you or your business any money at all. I will relate them to my experience as a Teacher, then how that can transfer over to help you as a Business Leader.
To deepen your emotional intelligence means you need to be willing to go beyond evaluation and analysing, into the realms of motivation, inspiration, good and bad vibes, environments- both inner and outer- and to understand how to motivate yourself and others. You need to be able to understand your own feelings and motivations- and those of others- in order to create engaging, dynamic and enjoyable workplaces.
The main reason for this, is that people love to be in a happy, inspired environment. And these days, whether it be a job, a project or an environment, if they are not, they will just leave. Keep this in mind- they do not owed you anything. A competitive salary is very important to people, but so is work life balance, flexibility, work benefits, compensations and feeling meaning and purpose at work. If you can use your Emotional Intelligence to create deep, trusting and meaningful relationships, and workplaces where people feel that they belong, they aren’t going anywhere- except towards success.
So, are you ready to improve your employee engagement and retention? Then read on.
This practice will allow you to use all four aspects of Emotional Intelligence: self awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
In the classroom
Every single day when I went into the classroom, I set the climate, the weather, the vibe in the room. I couldn’t have “bad days” or angry moments, or tell the children, “just leave me alone today for a few hours.” Because I was always around them, I learned very quickly that I needed to be calm, firm and to create an atmosphere that was level and open. That was difficult, because when the children were upset, they would disturb the climate with their turbulent emotions. But as we used to always say, “I like a challenge!”
So, the key was to find a way to win them round, to calm them down and do to persuade them to re-engage with the process of learning. How did I do that? So many ways! By using distractions, asking them questions, talking about topics they were interested in, using teddies (always a winner) and giving them clear expectations.
In the boardroom
So in your professional leadership role, recognise that you can help to create a climate, a daily atmosphere of how it feels. Most people want a calm, stable environment. They don’t want be overly excited or overwhelmed with stress. Your role is to help to create the optimal environment for them. So pay attention to how it feels, look for what is going on, ask people how they are, you will soon tune into the vibes. Remember, people don’t want to be pacified, children actually don’t want that either- they want a clear and open place to be able to express themselves. In other words, a clear blue sky.
To help to train you to do this, ask yourself this question every morning for a week:
What kind of person do they deserve from me today? (I would suggest your very best.)
This practice will allow you to use aspects of Emotional Intelligence which focus on others: social awareness and relationship management.
In the classroom
The start and end of the days were were very important, in every class I taught. In faith schools, we would have prayers, and I would also give them inspirational quotes and ideas for the day. Then at the end of the day, we would come back together and have some quiet time together. These moments of calm and group self-reflection were very important for fostering a group mentality and feeling of togetherness. Throughout the day, the children would separate into different groups, for different lessons, depending on abilities. And so, I made it a priority to bring them all back together at the end of the day, to remind them- we were all part of one big group, together. Those end of the days moments were some of my favourite times.
In the boardroom
Use calmness, focus and self reflection. This is, again, involve you demonstrating social awareness and relationship management. Why not bring your team together at the start and end of the day? This can be done in however format you want: hybrid, online or in person. Most people really hate useless meetings. But this isn’t that. You could frame it properly by telling them that we are having some time together to help build our connections, to re-focus on what matters, and mostly, to have a moment of belonging to our special group. Never underestimate how much people want to belong.
Where can I create moments in our days or weeks to bring my people together, so that they know that they belong?
This practice will allow you to use all four aspects of Emotional Intelligence: self awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management
In the classroom
Work can be very boring, or at least involve moments of drudgery and turgidness. In the classroom, the challenge every day was to make every lesson and topic exciting, intellectually stimulating and emotionally inspiring. This is not easy with some topics! But again, we like a challenge.
One of the best examples I ever saw of this was the magic cardboard box example, by a wonderful teacher, who helped to train me. She had a group of 20 6/7 years old sat on the carpet. It was the beginning of the lesson, where we were taught that you had to “engage” the children- you basically had to get their interest. It was a maths lesson, so how did she do this? It was incredible.
She started talking about having a magic cardboard box beside her chair. But she didn’t show it. Then she started describing it, and asking the children, “what do you think is in the box?” Then she would listen to their answers. Then she asked another clever question, “what would YOU like to be in this box?” Which is brilliant, because it engaged their imagination.
She then showed a huge expression of shock on her face and said, “wow, can you hear that? There’s something coming from inside.” And all the children stared at the side of her chair, from where she was going to reveal what was in the box. This went on for 10 minutes, and she was so good, I was thinking, “I want to know what is in the box tell me!!” She later told me, there was actually nothing in it. She was just demonstrating how to create engagement, and that I could do similar, any time I wanted. I was floored…
In the boardroom
So think about the cardboard box elements of your work and those of your people: the boring bits, the unexciting bits, perhaps the bits where they don’t know the purpose of the tasks. Your role is to bring them to life! Use enthusiasm, use your imagination, your tone of voice, your facial expressions. Help breathe life into what they are doing. One of the best ways that you can do this, is simply by being enthusiastic. Enthusiasm, like positivity, is infectious. So cultivate enthusiasm, and bring good energy into all of your engagements with your people.
How can I demonstrate the magic cardboard box example in my workplace to engage my people?
To conclude, every person, of every age, wants to be inspired and connected at work.
So, use these practices- the daily climate, a sense of special togetherness and sprinkle of imaginational magic- and you can create a workplace place that feels truly special.
Your Emotional Intelligence potential is as vast as the sky and as deep as the ocean! Enjoy exploring it, deepening it and developing it.
Remember, everyone wants to belong:
so create this place and watch them thrive.
Love and best wishes,
