Up to this point, Goleman stresses the importance of mindfulness (being attentive, open, and curious to one's surroundings) and empathetic. In chapter 8, Goleman addresses the difficulty of adopting new leadership skills for long lasting implementation. Due to the limbic system being more primal, as well as emotionally driven, trying to override bad habits and stressful reactions to contextual developments require extensive practice as well as intensive self-regulation. Much of an individual's reactions are due to years of exposure to others, as well as autonomic use.
The chapter does make simple inferences to creating personal development goals. This self-directed expectation can be quite difficult. Many of the examples within the chapter point to leaders using trained executive coaches to help develop goals of incorporating self-regulation and repetitive implementation of empathetic processes. The key is to eventually override the engrained habitual reactions to a stress-inducing environment. With coaching help, the goals that develop for this have to be a personal process/motivation, as well as a 'step-by-step' feasibility of progress, for example: Try to listen and let others speak; rationalize objectivity; and ask earnest and clarifying questions.
The goal: Re-wire the brain with overriding pathways to achieve more productive empathy and mindfulness.
My organization is undergoing an effort to bring more of this type of thinking and practice to staff at every level. While the senior leadership team is working directly with coaches, the rest of the organization has formed BE-IT (Being Emotionally Intelligent Together) Teams of 3-5 people that check in regularly to talk about using tools around conflict resolution etc. It does help keep it all at the forefront of your mind.
ReplyDeleteHave you had any experiences with coaching?