The Stairway Consultancy use emotional intelligence in many of its interventions and are accredited coaches and users of the emotional intelligence diagnostic.

In the 1990s Daniel Goleman identified that success in a job is not due to one’s rationale ability (often associated with IQ – intelligence quotient). Rather, in most business environments, success is driven by emotional intelligence (called variously EQ, EQi or EI). Unlike IQ which peaks in ones teens and then remains static, emotional intelligence is something that everyone can improve and develop to enhance their leadership ability.

Emotional intelligence diagnostic
The Stairway Consultancy is an accredited user of the Bar-On Emotional Intelligence inventory. This is a well validated indicator of emotional intelligence and improves self-awareness in the following five areas:

• Self-perception
• Self-expression
• Interpersonal skills
• Decision making
• Stress management.

The output of these components provides a comprehensive overview of the emotional intelligence of each individual. It helps them increase their awareness on how to develop effective relationships, build confidence and self-esteem, manage and adapt to change. By focusing on a specific component of emotional intelligence, business leaders are able to enhance their effectiveness as well as their well-being.

Developing emotional intelligence

Stairway coaches, consultants and facilitators successfully use the emotional intelligence diagnostic in a wide number of organisations to facilitate quality conversations in the following ways:

• As part of one to one executive coaching
• In order to identify leadership potential
• As part of talent development programmes
• In leadership recruitment
• As part of assessment centres
• To increase the ability of service providers to demonstrate empathy and understanding of the customer
• As part of leadership development programmes.

Individuals undertake the emotional intelligence self-assessment on-line. It is easy to administer and takes no more than 20 minutes to complete. Stairway then produces a confidential emotional intelligence report. This benchmarks the emotional intelligence of each person against their age, gender and profession.

The feedback we receive on the emotional intelligence diagnostic is that it is very comprehensive and extremely insightful. Each person’s report contains tips and techniques on how they can improve their emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence debrief, coaching and training

We hold one-to-one debrief and coaching sessions with each person about their emotional intelligence report. This can be undertaken face to face or via the telephone. The output of this session is the development of a personal action plan for each person, outlining what they need to improve in terms of their emotional intelligence, how they will do this and by when.

In addition we design and facilitate emotional intelligence workshops and other learning interventions to help increase the level of participants’ emotional intelligence. This has included leadership interventions around the use of emotional intelligence as well as workshops for teams in managing change intelligently using emotional intelligence. We also include emotional intelligence in our customer service training interventions as it enhances people’s ability to empathise and put themselves in the shoes of the customer.

Emotional intelligence and the Leadership Compass™

Emotional intelligence is a key component of The Leadership Intelligence Compass™.

This is a framework we use at The Stairway Consultancy to develop leadership skills and help leaders to effectively manage change.

The Leadership Compass is based on research demonstrating that successful leaders have high levels of intelligence in four areas:

SQ - Spiritual Intelligence represents the areas of self-awareness and self- development.

EQ - Emotional Intelligence comprises the interpersonal qualities needed to build effective relationships.

PQ - Political Intelligence represents the skills, knowledge and behaviours required to influence and negotiate effectively with others.

BQ - Business Intelligence are the skills, knowledge and behaviours needed to be commercially aware and business focused.

We use this model to help current and future leaders to successfully navigate the changing business environment.

Workshop, articles and books from The Stairway Consultancy on Emotional Intelligence

Here is a selection of other Stairway material on emotional intelligence including the Stairway Emotional Intelligence Workshop. This course aims to help you build better relationships with your customers, colleagues and team members through enhancing your emotional intelligence.

We have also written a range of articles and books on emotional intelligence in relation to both customer service:

Using Emotional Intelligence to Serve the Customer as well as leadership skills: Leadership in a Difficult Climate.

You’ll find more on the emotional intelligence and the change compass in the article: Leadership Potential Model. You can see how to use emotional intelligence in an organisational context via Building Trust into your Organisation. Our book Change Management Excellence also provides comprehensive ideas and exercises on how to increase your emotional intelligence.

For further information on emotional intelligence email us or call on 01628 526535.