Watching Xander Schauffele win Olympic Gold in men’s golf last week was inspirational. A true picture of emotional intelligence in the moment.
For those who don’t know the entire story; a few weeks prior at the Masters, Schauffele was in the lead on the final round, ready to win one of the most prestigious golf tournaments on the tour, when he hit a shot in the water coming down the stretch to the end of the tournament. That one shot cost him the coveted green jacket, giving the prize over to Hideki Matsuyama.
Fast forward to the Olympics and Schauffele is in the lead and one of the guys right behind him is Matsuyama. It had to be nerve racking knowing you had a one shot lead when just weeks before you made a critical error that cost you the tournament.
How did Xander hold it together?
I would argue it was his emotional intelligence that paved the way to gold.
Your Path To Gold
Xander’s story is not too unlike leaders who are cruising along in their career when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, something happens. Things change, people change, markets change. You were cruising along, winning your own personal golf tournament, and all of a sudden you hit one in the water.
That is what training and coaching are all about. Preparing you for moments of adversity and controlling what you can control. If you play enough golf, once in a while the ball is going to go in the water. It’s not IF, but WHEN. The question is, how will you respond?
Xander, if you could bottle the emotional intelligence you showed at the Olympics, Pharmaceutical companies would line up to put it in a pill to sell. Dude, you were brilliant!
Here is the thing, just like Xander, emotional intelligence is something you were born with. But also like Xander, it is something you have to consciously work on in order to improve.
We all start with a base-line amount and it is up to you to either let it languish or to grow and develop it.
Even professional golfers had to swing a club for the first time.The reason they are so good is not because they never hit a bad shot, but because they know how to recover when they do.
Four EI Skills to Always Be Working On
Emotional Self-Awareness
“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.” - Dale Carnegie
So many of the leaders I get to work with see themselves as perfectly logical and rational creatures. We all want to see ourselves this way. The problem is, if you read folks like Danny Kahnemann or Adam Grant, you will notice that we are not as rational as we give ourselves credit for.
With that in mind, it seems the work here is not in trying to be more logical, but is instead in being more aware of your emotions and the impact they are really having on your judgement.
Skill to work on: Being in tune with your emotions all of your waking hours.Decision Making
”If we lack emotional intelligence, whenever stress rises the human brain switches to autopilot and has an inherent tendency to do more of the same, only harder. Which, more often than not, is precisely the wrong approach in today's world.” - Robert K. Cooper
As leaders, it is important that we are solving the right problems.
I had a conversation with a leader recently who was so upset about something that he experienced an amygdala hijack. He was on auto-pilot, so focused on how he had been wronged. How can he use emotional intelligence to turn these negative feelings into productive, positive outcomes for the organization?
Skill to work on: Not letting your brain switch to autopilot and just act.Humility
Edgar Schein says, “Here and now humility is how I feel when I am dependent on you.”
I love that. Humility is realizing that I can not do or achieve anything on my own. I am dependent on you. If that is true, then my connection to you is vital to my success.
This truth requires me to learn and understand your strengths and abilities. I have to take the time to get to know your desires and motivations. It is vital that I recognize the inherent worth you have and the ideals you value.
Sometimes, when things don’t go your way or you are in a pressure cooker situation, it is a good practice to take the focus off of you and become curious about what it is like to be the other person. Sure, the situation you are in might suck for you, but humility is recognizing it probably sucks for the other person as well. Can you reach out to them in their hour of need, even when you are feeling the pressure?“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” - Theodore Roosevelt
Skill to work on: Developing the discipline of reading the emotions of others and identifying with what it must be like for them in the moment.
Emotional Management
Let’s face it, the ball hits the water once in a while. When it does, you have a couple of choices.
You can be angry about it or you can try and understand what actually happened. For me, when I hit one in the water I can get mad and let the shot define me, or I can shift the blame to the club, or the condition of the course, or my partner that day who sneezed during my backswing.
The truth is, if I want to stay in control and be the master of my own destiny, I have to manage the anger.
I am in no way advocating for suppressing anger. I am, however, advising you to know WHO you are really angry at and WHY you are angry. The goal, when I really stop and reflect on this, is to see the places where I am really angry with myself.
“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.” - Epictetus
Skill to work on: Personal reflection on who am I angry at...really.
What You Need To Know About Building Emotional Intelligence
Why build your emotional intelligence? Because facing setbacks in life is inevitable. When you do, you will be glad you worked on emotional self-awareness, staying humble, managing emotions, and the impact your emotions have on your decision-making.