Sandra Sampson......As a leader over the years I became familiar with the “three R’s of Leadership”. Respect for self, Respect for others and taking Responsibility for all our actions.

Leaders, in order to lead at their best, need to look after themselves and their personal wellness, they also need self-compassion to be able to understand their own strengths and weaknesses and they need emotional intelligence about their own emotions and behaviours to ensure they perform to their best and are able to influence and motivate their followers.

I like the quote “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others." from Jack Welch, former GE chairman and CEO.

A potential leader needs to understand and develop themselves before they are able to step up to a position and lead effectively and to do this they need to really understand themselves so they can use their strengths whilst covering their weaknesses to be seen as a potential leader.

A good deal of leadership is about self:

– Self-compassion, self-understanding, self-development, self-confidence, self- worth, self-reflection, self-image, self-awareness, self-control, self-actualisation and self-appraisal.

So a leader must first focus on themselves before they focus on others and to do this they need to use three of the key dimensions of Emotional Intelligence:

• Self-awareness is all about being aware of your emotional state in order to ensure you are in the right place to achieve.

• Self-regulation is changing your state if it is wrong to make sure you are in the right emotional place the Ideal Performance State.

• Motivation is all about having the motivation to lead and therefore to change your state as needed.

Once self is sorted it’s then the team that matters. And it is here that the other two key components of Emotional Intelligence come into play.

Empathy. Is all about understanding followers in order to deliver the right style of leadership at the right time. It is NOT sympathy it is much more about cognitive comprehension of a particular situation and the needs of the people involved in that situation.

Social skills. This is where the tools of leadership originate from, it includes such things as listening, communicating, presence, relationship building, influencing others, developing others, arbitration, team cohesion and building and inspiring others as individuals and as teams.

So, a leader must always be cognitive of their own position emotionally before they can put themselves in the best position to lead.

Remember......

It is all about attitude and “ a healthy attitude is contagious, but don’t wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier” Tom Stoppard

They must be unselfish, passionate, positive and well-intended in order to influence and motivate others effectively .

We love Mary Anne Radmacher lines “Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen Hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.” Because at Sampson Hall we believe that is how an emotionally intelligent leader should behave.

Please join us to learn and discover more about yourself and from others.

Book tickets here.