Leadership acts as the foundation for any business. Good leaders drive culture, motivate teams and inspire employees to take risks in the business to lead to greater productivity and profitability. Organizations know how important it is to invest in their leaders, with 56% expected to increase spending on leadership development in the next two years and 76% already making significant updates to their leadership programs in the past three years [2024, Gartner].
Work in 2024 is different, with employee well-being at an all-time low, the rise of AI and only 50% of employees feeling that they can trust their organization [2023, Gallup]. In the HR 2024 predictions by The Josh Bersin Company, Bersin says: We have to 'hoard our talent,' invest in productivity, and redevelop and redeploy people for growth. This means… continuing hybrid work models, investing in human-centred leadership, and giving people opportunities for new careers inside the company.’
A survey by Harvard Business Review outlines human-centred leadership requires:
- Compassion
- Empathy
- Psychological safety
- Intellectual honesty
In order for a leader to put these into place, they need to understand their own levels of compassion, empathy, psychological safety and intellectual honesty. This is no mean feat. Research by Organizational Psychologist, Tasha Eurich, found that 95% of people believe they are self-aware... when in reality it's closer to 12-15%.
Leaders need further tools to gather the level of self-awareness required for human-centered leadership. Emotional Intelligence assessments, (or TEIQue), are a science-backed, quick way for someone to easily see their workplace levels of self-awareness in:
- Happiness
- Optimism
- Self-esteem
- Emotion regulation
- Impulse control
- Stress management
- Empathy
- Emotion perception
- Emotion expression
- Relationships
- Emotion management
- Assertiveness
- Social awareness
- Adaptability
- Self-motivation
By having an entire leadership team take an Emotional Intelligence assessment, you’re gaining a ‘birds' eye’ view of the teams' strengths, weaknesses and gaps. Perhaps they all possess high levels of optimism, which could explain why they run into trouble when doing their quarterly forecasting? Or a team who all experience low levels of assertiveness may need extra support to empower and lead different teams.
Taking an Emotional Intelligence assessment with Thomas takes you one step further, as we provide personalized development programs to help your leaders and employees grow, all written by our team of Psychologists.
A leadership team steers the ship, and just because they all agree on what direction it needs to go doesn’t mean that everyone has the same idea on how to get there. Giving leaders a deeper, accurate insight of their Emotional Intelligence – and the Emotional Intelligence of their peers – allows teams to work to their strengths, develop where needed and ultimately develop a deeper connection with their team and colleagues throughout the business.
