Child
Consider the following scenarios.
A superintendent who prides herself on emotional self-control and objectivity unexpectedly loses her temper in a board meeting. No amount of effort or apology works to patch her relationship with two board members.
An elementary school principal underestimates the impact of reassigning teachers to different grade levels without their input. Grade-level team meetings erupt in shouting matches and a palpable resistance to the school’s initiatives.
The director of instructional coaching who sees her efforts to embed coaching as ongoing professional development rather than remediation is shocked when her spouse insists on marriage counseling. “You have nothing left for us at the end of the day,” he tells her.
I could make an endless list of examples of leaders who are focused on the strategic and technical aspects of leadership while underestimating the roles of emotional intelligence. I think this quote from Human Capital Institute (2013) best sums up the importance of high emotional intelligence:
We argue that Emotional Intelligence is more than an amorphous concept related to “playing well with others.” It is made up of a specific set of observable and measurable emotional and social skills that impact the way people perceive and express themselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way. (p. 1)
Since the start of the 21st century, the world of business has brought widespread recognition that these soft skills are not only vital but far harder to master and deploy day in and day out than the hard skills such as strategic planning, supervision, and financial management (Cherniss et al., 2006). In this chapter, you’ll understand the case for developing your emotional intelligence quotient, or EQ, you’ll be introduced to an accessible yet robust model for EQ development that we’ll refer to throughout the book, and you’ll determine those EQ skills most relevant to your goals.
The Top Five Truths About EQ
Dismissed at first by powerful executives as that touchy-feely stuff that might decrease organizational drive for results, a growing body of research and empirical evidence supports the key role of EQ in effective leadership. Here’s what you need to know.
1. EQ is the foundation for effective leadership: Leaders in education are, by and large, a smart group, and the vast majority of promotions is the result of proven results with managerial and technical skills. However, the shift from effective manager to effective leader requires EQ. Bill George (2012), retired head of Medtronic, made this observation: “I have never seen leaders fail for lack of raw intelligence, but have observed … more than a hundred who failed for lack of … Emotional Intelligence” (as cited in Human Capital Institute, 2013, p. 15).
2. EQ in education is often oversimplified: EQ is far more than empathy, grit, resilience, and some other repeating themes. Although literature on school leadership often cites EQ, are you seeing investment in assessments and ongoing development and a broad definition that includes components as diverse as reality testing, independence, and stress tolerance? When coaching university and business leaders, I often use the Emotional Quotient-Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i2.0) from MHS Assessments (https://bit.ly/2K4KXRZ), which I believe has the best norms, reliability, and validity of any of the self-reporting tools on the market. Without exception, the educators I work with find that they are overusing or underusing one or more of the fifteen subscales in the model; they need a plan for development. Later in this chapter, you’ll learn more about the four core areas found in robust EQ models (see page 37).
3. Teacher efficacy requires EQ: Without EQ, it is nearly impossible for a leader to create the conditions necessary for collective teacher efficacy, an atmosphere where teachers believe that they have the capacity to reach the goals set out for them and that their hard work will have the desired results (Sun & Leithwood, 2015).
Meta-analyses of over 150 instructional strategies and other influences on student learning show that collective teacher efficacy has the biggest effect size, 1.57 (DeWitt, 2017). However, building collective teacher efficacy requires leadership expertise in several skills involving EQ, including the following.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
Effect size studies quantitatively answer the question, “So how big an effect did this really have?” It is a numerical representation of an effort’s impact on learning, and it derives from measuring the impact of implementing a change versus not doing so using an experiment group and a control group. John Hattie (2012) estimates that an effect size of 0.4 was the equivalent of providing a year’s worth of academic growth.
• Inspiring group purpose—People who feel connected to an organization’s purpose and values are more effective than those who are competent but lack connection to that purpose (Coyle, 2018).
• Providing teachers with individual support—Holding teachers accountable is only one side of the outcomes and people lens, the subject of chapter 11 (page 143). Think, for example, of the different levels of support teachers need to implement the same new strategy, depending on their experience levels, individual strengths, and content-area expertise. Collective teacher efficacy flows from all teachers experiencing the level and forms of support they need to learn. That takes empathy, listening skills, and coaching skills in school leaders.
• Creating an atmosphere of safety and trust—The number-one predictor of effective teams is an atmosphere of safety and belonging (Coyle, 2018). Team members consistently describe the experience of being in such atmospheres as being part of a family. Will Felps, Terence Mitchell, and Eliza Byington (2006) report three key leadership cues that create this safe space: (1) Their energy is invested in the immediate exchange. Group members feel safe sharing problems and mistakes because the leader listens intently and ensures that no critique or judgment comes from others. (2) This individualized attention makes each person feel unique and valued instead of like a problem to be solved or a nameless face in the crowd. (3) The leader makes it clear that the relationship and safe space are ongoing. When we know we are safe, we can tell the friend-or-foe filter in our brains (developed back in caveman days) to take a break and get on with collective efficacy.
• Modeling self-care and care for others—Teachers report increased job satisfaction, loyalty, and effectiveness when their leaders not only care for those around them, but for themselves as well. A leader without work–life balance, the focus of chapter 15 (page 195), the goal orientation and engagement lens, discourages others from striving for it in their own lives (Skakon, Nielsen, Borg, & Guzman, 2010).
4. People crave leaders with high EQ: The Athena Doctrine (Gerzema & D’Antonio, 2013) documents a worldwide study of the skills people seek in leaders. These include connectedness, humility, candor, patience, empathy, trustworthiness, openness, flexibility, vulnerability, and balance. That is basically a list of EQ competencies.
5. EQ requires willpower: Willpower is a finite (but replenishable)
