CHIBUIKE OKEY

“CEOs, on average, have the lowest EQ scores in the workplace.” However, CEOs with the highest EQ scores outperform their low EQ colleagues.   Emotional Intelligence 2.0 4 ways to elevate EQ for leaders: #1. Embrace the genius of ‘and’. Be tough   and   emotionally intelligent. Don’t choose between tough leadership and emotional intelligence.  Reflect on your feelings   and   the feelings of others.  Express empathy   and   high expectations. Believe in relationships   and   results. Give support   and   challenge. Enjoy power   and   give it away. Celebrate wins   and   set new goals. Make tough decisions   and   remain compassionate. Use ritual for stability   and   force yourself into new experiences. Apologize with humility  and   press forward with confidence. Express what you really want   and   stay open to others. #2. Believe negative feedback. One symptom...

Pessimistic leaders are almost right. They say, “I’m not a pessimist. I’m a realist.” Research shows that those who tip slightly toward pessimism have the clearest view of reality.* Optimists overestimate a bright future. Pessimists overestimate darkness. Pessimists: Pessimists use a dark future as reason to do nothing. When nothing happens they say, “See, I told you so.” But there’s more to the story. A little pessimism: Small doses of pessimism take optimists further than buoyant overconfidence. Avoid leaders who habitually say, “Things will work out,” but don’t plan for success. Inspires teams to plan.  Improvisation works within a plan, not as an excuse for lack of planning. Overconfident leaders – who don’t plan – are surrounded by frustrated people who are taking up the slack. Drives leaders to run from failure. That’s useful if you’re also running toward success. Encourages leaders to monitor progress. A little paranoia helps. Motivates leaders to protect gains. Convinc...

If you think it’s difficult to have a tough conversation today, waiting makes it worse. Time makes elephants fat, complacent, and harder to confront. Patience: It’s not patient to tolerate poor performance. It’s neglect.   Poor performance, bad behaviors, and difficult situations continue until leaders speak up. Be patient   after   you bring up issues. The conversation you should have had: Kind candor and courageous vulnerability chart the path forward, when you should have said something sooner. #1. Don’t lay the law down. Delay elevates frustration. Anger fuels courage. You end up sharing a piece of your mind you can’t afford to lose. #2. Don’t speak to the whole team when there’s one offender. One person habitually leaves early, arrives late to meetings, or misses deadlines. Have a one-on-one, even though group comments feel safer. #3. Meet resistance with courageous vulnerability. Tom habitually misses deadlines, for example. When you bring it up, he protests. “Why d...

There’s a thin line between stubborn and persistent. Successful leaders make decisions quickly* and change their mind reluctantly. But stubbornness refuses to consider alternatives. Stubbornness makes decisiveness a disaster. But success requires persistence. 3 dangers of stubbornness: My observation is that decisiveness and stubbornness often live together. #1. Stubbornness promotes ignorance. Stubborn leaders refuse to consider alternatives because an alternative might require change. Why even think about alternatives when your way is the ‘right’ way. “I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” Abraham Lincoln #2. Stubbornness motivates people to stop trying. Persistent leaders inspire people. Stubborn leaders de-motivate teams. Why bother if the boss never changes her mind. #3. Stubbornness alienates the best and brightest. Stubborn leaders shoot down suggestions and ideas. The best and brightest go somewhere else. 4 ways to deal with stubbornness: I...

Summer is a season of brief delights.  Tiny beings on gossamer wings cloud the air for fleeting moments.  Meadows undulate in an abrupt dazzle of colour.  Birds swoop in from their long journeys to a frenzy of feasting and breeding.   It is a season where things appear like magic, before vanishing as though they were never there.  Where do they come from – the flies and the beetles and the butterflies?  Where do they go to when their season has ended?  They appear and then they fade, leaving behind traces on the air and the memory of wings.  Summer’s long, light days can seem tantalisingly slow, and many of us remember treacly summers of our youth that were never-ending.  But summer’s delights are ephemeral and the season rarely seems to linger in the way the dark, raw days of winter do. In the long, slow turn of the seasons, I see the pattern of a writer’s life.  A cycle of hope and despair, of tunnell...

Maybe you should stop fighting your inner critic. Hug her. Take him to coffee. Your inner critic speaks the truth he sees. Sometimes he’s right. We start talking to ourselves as soon as we learn to talk. Some of us do it out loud. My wife asks me, “What are you thinking? You’re lips were moving.” One study indicates that we can say 4,000 words a minute to ourselves. That’s 10 times faster than talking out loud. ( The Atlantic ) Inner critics: One leader said his inner critic has two voices. Maybe you have even more. Inner voices might sound like parents, bosses, a divorced spouse, or teachers. Add your own voice(s) to the mix and you have an angry mob with pitchforks in your head. What if rejecting your inner critic is self-rejection? Intelligent conversation: Have a conversation with your inner critic. Don’t simply respond, “You’re right,” when an inner critic says, “You’re a loser.” Ask a few questions. What makes you say that I’m a loser? Take your inner critic seriously. He may be ...

Look for leaders with forward-facing curiosity. “The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions.”  Peter Drucker The right questions: Confront wrong thinking. Search for root causes, not just symptoms. Explore commitments. On a scale of 1 to 10, how committed are you? Begin with what or how. Move from the big picture to the small. A truly dangerous question: Why aren’t we achieving our goals? Smart people become dimwits when leaders ask why-questions. They don’t know the answer. If they did, they’d be doing it. It’s not likely they have enough information to answer such a broad ambiguous question. People’s minds shift toward blame when managers ask why something isn’t working. Use ‘why questions’ when exploring purpose or broken processes. Other than that, begin questions with what and how. Powerful questions: What is the goal? Why does this goal matter? How would you know if you reached your goal? ...