Why Businesses need Emotionally Equipped Leaders

It's shocking how companies have dealt with the mass-layoffs and uncertainty this year. Despite the focus on mental health and employee wellbeing, despite employees consistently saying they need better-work life balance and are stressed, despite mounting evidence that people need to feel psychologically safe at work to be productive, engaged and create their best work..... despite all of that, global companies and the top leaders & CEO's across the world have created exactly the opposite effect.

It is NOT business as usual.

Anxiety, uncertainty and disruption are what businesses are dealing with on a daily basis and will continue to encounter in the coming years. Leaders need to be emotionally equipped to handle increasing employee churn, declining revenues, difficult employees, hybrid-workplaces, moonlighting, economic depression and greater overall stress levels.

Gone are the days of tough, dominating leaders whose mantra was - 'My way or the High Way'. 

'Contrary to popular belief, the omnipotent, macho-style effective leaders are not the ones who can best guide their countries or organizations through difficult, uncertain times.' - say Amy C. Edmondson and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic in a Harvard Business Review article.

More companies need emotionally equipped leaders who don't blame, shame or get aggressive with employees. 

According to the World Economic Forum, during this Fourth Industrial Revolution, the changing dynamics mean that people need new skills to succeed in the workplace and Emotional Intelligence has been listed as one of the top 10 most critical skills needed by today's leaders.

Today's workplaces need leaders who:

1. Recognise how their employees feel and how it affects performance

2. Create an environment where employees feel safe to voice their opinions, collaborate with others, and stay motivated

3. Provide employees the right tools and equip them with skills to handle challenging situations by emotionally regulating themselves at work

4. Be vulnerable enough to admit their own mistakes, ask for help, apologise and be empathetic

Being emotionally equipped as a business not only affects how people behave and perform at work, but also affects financial performance, client engagement, sales performance and improved creativity & innovation at work.

As younger generations enter the workplace, as Diversity-Equity-Inclusion takes centre stage, as people continue to value work-life balance and demand better company cultures, and as industries grapples with AI, data-protection and changing geo-political dynamics, it is people who are emotionally intelligent and businesses who are emotionally resilient that will be best equipped to handle the change.