[Alicia Davis] If you’ve been wondering about how to use emotional intelligence in really practical ways as a leader, we would love to have you listen to what we’re sharing today. Because you had a really practical application experience from one of our leadership forum participants, didn’t you, Stacie?

[Stacie Watson] Yes, you know, it’s so interesting how sometimes topics become the “topic of the month,” and it feels like emotional intelligence has been that for us. We’ve done a lot of sessions on emotional intelligence, and just last week, I was with a group of leaders, and we were talking about emotional intelligence and, really, how you bring a kind of emotional intelligence to your team in practical ways. One leader offered a strategy that she used – that I was so inspired by – I just thought it might be nice to share with our group – with all of you.

[Alicia Davis] Yeah.

[Stacie Watson] And so what she does is she creates her agenda for her team meeting on some sort of shared document, so everyone can add or remove things. And she added three sections at the bottom of the agenda. One is a section for successes, where everyone can reflect back on any success that they have experienced or their team has. Another one was sort of what’s keeping us busy, which she said is really helpful because you may not always know what folks are really busy doing or engaged with, and maybe we can help, or maybe there’s something else, and so it’s sort of what’s keeping me busy. And then the last section is what I could use some help on or what I’d like to brainstorm, or where I might need, you know, the support of my teammates. And she said that, over time, she’s been doing it for a while, it’s really created this sense of trust, and this sense of connection among all of the team members. And it just made me think about emotional intelligence on a team. I don’t know what your thoughts are, but it inspired me.

[Alicia Davis] Well, you know, emotional intelligence is so many different things, right? It’s being able to share in a really real genuine way, whether it’s about a success, whether it’s about something that you need help with, right? And to do that in this kind of structured way. I mean, I think part of what we are talking about – one of the things that we talk about in our upcoming session in the Learning Academy, we do emotional intelligence for leaders, right, leaving with your head and your heart. And this, that’s exactly what this leader was doing, right? It’s like being very intentional and structured in offering a way to reflect, and then starting with successes is a very heart-opening, connecting way of creating support on the team, right, and be able also to say – you know, what do I need help with – like that really has a sense of, you know, we’ve got each other’s back, like we’re here to really support each other. And so I just think that’s a fabulous approach – and, you know, if you’re interested as a leader in how to really think about emotional intelligence and apply it, we’d love to have you join us in June for our Emotional Intelligence: Leading with Head and Heart session. So you get more information at academy.tlstransforms.com. And I’m Alicia Davis.

[Stacie Watson] I’m Stacie Watson.

[Alicia Davis] And we are the co-owners of Transformative Leadership Strategies. So thanks so much for listening. We appreciate you.

[Stacie Watson] Thank you.