Creating Successful Teams With Emotional Intelligence

The set of skills you use to recognize, transmit, and manage the flow of emotional energy in your relationships is generally referred to as Emotional Intelligence (EI). Correctly identifying your own feelings and the feelings of others are essential factors in being able to positively influence others and maintain your resourcefulness in today’s complex workplace and world.

The development of skills related to EI is particularly significant in a team environment.

Research shows that teams with a greater level of EI consistently outperform teams with a lower average EI. In one study, the ability to understand one another’s emotional expressions explained 40 percent of the variance in team performance. Once a team’s members understand how to develop and align themselves in seven key areas – Team Identity, Motivation, Emotional Awareness, Communication, Conflict Resolution, Stress Tolerance, and Positive Mood – they can consciously engage these forces to model empathy, build trust, and deliver results.

The good news is that EI skills can be improved through individual and team practice.

Organizations that focus on increasing the emotional and social intelligence of their individual contributors and teams will see sustainable increases in productivity. Highly emotionally intelligent teams not only adapt well to change, but are able to effectively direct change.

Recent contributions in the study of neuroscience have supported the idea that chemical changes in the brain occur during social interactions, and can impact mood and a team’s ability to collaborate. Both positive and negative social interactions actually change the brain and individual behavior – for better or for worse.

At the team level, there are seven core skills that, when properly developed, can lead to positive results and lasting benefits:

1. Team Identity is about how well the team demonstrates belongingness, a desire to work together, a sense of role clarity, and the pride that goes with being part of something that is unique. Successful teams have a sense of purpose – that what they’re doing makes a difference – and related goals for which they are willing to be held accountable.

2. Motivation is a competency that measures the team’s internal resources for generating and sustaining the energy necessary to get the job done well and on time. Motivation comes when people see that team goals are linked with intrinsic and extrinsic measures of success that are important to them personally.

3. Emotional Awareness considers the amount of attention the team pays to noticing, understanding, and respecting feelings of team members. Emotional awareness among individuals and within the team requires first that individuals develop their ability to determine their own emotional state and that of the group as a whole. The latter is often overlooked resulting in heightened emotional states that can impair the team’s ability to be strategically aware and make good decisions.

4. Communication measures how well the team sends and receives emotional (and cognitive) information. The ability to send and receive communication about feelings, not just content, is essential to optimal team building. Communication has to do with how well team members listen, encourage participation, share information, discuss sensitive matters and give feedback to one another.

5. Conflict Resolution is about how willing the team is to engage in disagreement openly and constructively without needing to get even. It is also a measure of whether the team is able to effectively deal with adversity in order to enhance its functioning. Keys to good conflict resolution include “collaborative communication” and “empathic assertiveness.”

6. Stress Tolerance gives the team an indication of how well it’s doing in managing the pressures of workload, time constraints, and work-life balance. Managing stress is certainly a skill but, in a team setting, not exacerbating another’s stress is potentially even more impactful. It’s crucial to know when we’re taking one another over the edge.

7. Positive Mood highlights the level of optimism and sense of humor present on the team as well as how successful the team expects to be. The ability to tolerate stressors and maintain a positive mood are closely related skills that help teams build resilience and stamina. Team members are all responsible for maintaining a positive team attitude.

Increased trust, loyalty and performance will flow directly from better emotional awareness within a team. And trust is the glue that holds effective teams together.