Emotional Intelligence
You can use your emotional intelligence to make the best judgment calls for the team and to communicate effectively about what you’ve used your technical skills to calculate, such as earned value and schedule dates.
A great project manager applies just the right amount of technical skills and soft skills, but the term “soft skills” doesn’t quite do it justice. Emotional intelligence (EQ, like IQ) is the combination of emotional awareness and emotional management that is then applied toward problem solving. Consider how you might frame a request to a co-worker you’re familiar with versus a stakeholder. You wouldn’t use the same language or tone with one as the other if you want to get the best results. EQ isn’t some vague concept, though, it includes the following five pillars:
Self-awareness: Knowing how your actions/emotions affect those around you.
Self-regulation: Staying in control, such as making calm decisions.
Motivation: Helps you to keep moving forward, taking pride in your work.
Empathy: Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
Social Skills: Good communication and diplomacy go a long way!
For example:
Managing scope creep uses self-awareness and self-regulation.
Managing resources uses motivation and empathy.
Managing communications and risk uses empathy.
Can EQ Be Learned?
Of course! To enhance your own EQ (or the EQ of your team), here are some free EQ exercises, as well as some reading on the link between mindfulness and EQ.