EntreLeadership - The 3 Keys to Gaining Influence as a Leader with Daniel Ramsey

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

One of the primary tools in a leader's tool belt is emotional intelligence. But what even is emotional intelligence? And how can you improve yours—not to mention your team’s? In this episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we sit down with EntreLeadership Executive Vice President Daniel Ramsey to find out. He walks us through what emotional intelligence is and gives us three steps to improve it. Then he takes two calls from listeners and answers their questions about how they can help their teams improve their emotional intelligence—and how you can do the same!   The EntreLeadership Podcast Recent Episode: How to Run a Resilient Business with Marcus Buckingham Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching. Take the Leadership Growth Assessment. Schedule a call with Tim, our producer.   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY  |  Gravy  |  Hite Digital | NetSuite Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Influence is foundational to leading people, but it's not a one-time thing. It's an everyday thing. So what are the steps to gaining and maintaining your influence as a leader? From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, George Camel, and in today's episode, we talk about how to be influential through emotional intelligence, which connects to our business driver of personal.

Our guest on the show today is Daniel Ramsey. He's the executive vice president of Entree leadership, and we sat down to talk about emotional intelligence, aka people smarts, why it's crucial to gaining influence and the three steps you need to focus on to get there. Then after our interview, Daniel coaches two small business owners as they call in with their questions on emotional intelligence, so you don't want to miss that. Up first, let's get to my conversation with Daniel. Daniel, good to have you back on the podcast. Thanks. Good to be here, George. Well, you've been doing some awesome things as the executive vice president of Entra leadership, really leading them towards the current vision, the future of what it's going to be. And along the journey, you've realized that there's this thing called people smarts, an emotional intelligence that plays a huge role in the way that you lead and influence. So I want to unpack this with you because you've got a great framework for this.

So I want to start off with this. Do you think it's possible to fix someone's people smarts? Can you go from a two to a six or a seven to a ten? Yeah, so there was one time I was sitting around, probably two years ago, I was sitting around with a group of leaders, and we were having this conversation. We were saying, hey, we've got this team member. Is it worth the energy and effort to try to make them more aware? And obviously, the answer is yes. But, like, as leaders, we were sitting around just frustrated of, like, is it really possible? You know, Patrick Lynchione has the framework of the ideal team player. The ideal team player is humble, they're hungry, and they're people smart. And, you know, hunger, you can give someone a kick in the pants and get them going.

Humility, like, you can humble someone? But, man, can you really wake people up to the awareness factor, to the emotional intelligence of what's going on around them? And so I really struggled with this question. I thought about it a lot. And I'm a huge optimist. And I was like, man, I believe the answer is yes, but I don't know how. And so I kind of went on a journey over the course of some time that really first started

with me trying to figure out how I can help my team. And I ended up learning a lot more about myself than I intended and realized that I actually can improve my own people smarts through what we're going to talk about today. So from where you are today to where you were, was there this day that you realized you needed to get better at this idea of people smarts? Yeah, for sure.

I can't think of a specific day that it happened, but I can definitely think of a few moments. You know, last year for me was a huge growing year. 2020 was crazy for a ton of people. And for me personally, I had a couple big life changes that happened. And so I really had to do a lot more intentionality around how can I roll with the punches better. How can I adapt quicker? How can I not get buried under the stress and the responsibility of everything in life? And so, yeah, part of that journey was me recognizing, man, I need to get more in tune with myself. And then that's going to help me be more in tune with others. So you have this framework that I want to jump into. It's three steps that you've laid out. They're going to help all of the leaders listening get better at this idea of emotional intelligence.

Before we jump in, I have to give a warning to the audience, right? Like I want to say what we're talking about is incredibly important and good. And in the wrong hands, you could use it for evil. You know, using some of these things, there's a fine line between manipulation and influence. And I would say the difference between those two is intent. Your intent as a leader, your intent as a friend, your intent as a spouse is going to be everything in how you relate to other people, how you actually, you know, if you have their best intent in heart and you're really trying to do what's best for them, then that is influence, right? But if you're actually just trying to get your way or trying to get your team to get in line with your ideas, that's manipulation. And so we're going to talk about, you know, reading people's body language.

we're going to talk about being able to take action and how to steer your team in a direction. But it should be for the intent of the betterment of the organization, the betterment of the team, and good for everyone. And so definitely has to put that caveat, that warning to say, don't use what we're talking about today for evil. So check your motives at the door, listeners. That's right. As we jump into this. Okay, so lay out these three steps that we need to focus on to increase our EQ, our emotional intelligence. Yeah, so really there's three things. The first is you need to become self-aware. The second is you need to be others aware. And the third is you need to be aware of how your actions affect those around you. And so talking philosophically, getting above the framework, I believe that people, one of their deepest desires is to be known. And so we as humans, we desire to be known and not only just known, but known and love for who we really are. And so, you know, we grew. We

grow up in a world where we often aren't, you know, love for who we are and we create these defenses. We have these defense mechanisms where we guard ourselves from various things. And we put up a front. We wear a mask, if you will, to people around us. We show them what we think that they want to see of us. And so a really big part of this in being self-aware and being others aware is how can you get around those defenses? How can you get around the own defenses you put around yourself and how can you get around the defenses of the people you love for the sake of bettering them. And so, yeah, let's dive into what it means to be self-aware. And so, you know, for me personally, I've discovered that I, on the Myers-Briggs scale, I'm much more of a thinker than a feeler.

And so if somebody is giving me really hard news, I can think of a time this past weekend I was sitting with a close friend of mine and he was telling me some really hard stuff. And my mind starts really logically breaking down what I'm hearing. I actually don't really feel emotions around things until after the fact. I'm not like, you know, crazy or anything like that. You're not a robot. Yeah, I'm not a robot. You're processing the thoughts. But my emotions are often delayed. And so for me to actually be a good friend, I have to force myself to think about and to acknowledge and see what am I actually feeling. Not what should I be feeling, but like how is this affecting me, this news that I'm hearing, how is it affecting me? And then I can use that by being more aware of that.

I can use that to actually be a good friend and have just an empathetic conversation with the person across from me. And so why is self-awareness important? Well, like I just mentioned, it helps you gain control of both your thoughts and your feelings. And we have to say, too, like your thoughts and feelings are real, but they're not always true. Meaning like, you know, the things you're feeling, the things your thinking are not always the truth of the situation. They're not always accurate to what's going on around you. They're real inside of you, but you have to be able to discern that as well. So the emotions versus the facts can be, there can be a gap there. That's right. Yeah. You know, there are thoughts that go through our head that are wrong, their negative self-talk, or they're us

jumping to conclusions that aren't real or that aren't true. And so we have to be, you know, we have to be aware of that. And so when you are aware of your thoughts, your thought patterns, when you are aware of your emotions and the things stirring up in you, you can take control of them. And so, yeah, we can dive into that more. It's kind of this like getting out of your head for a second and going, what am I actually feeling and how is it affecting my behaviors? That to use self-awareness. Yeah, that's right.

And that can be a squishy concept for a lot of people to put into practice in their day-to-day. So how have you done this? How have you improved in this area? Yeah, I'll use a sports metaphor here and say in football, there is a coaching position called an offensive coordinator. and, you know, in football, this offensive coordinator, during the game, they're actually often not on the field. They're up in the press box above the field looking down on the situation. And so the reason is they can get a better perspective, a better view of the game and what's happening.

And so being up above something, the whole game tends to slow down and they can see things that you wouldn't see if you were right there in the action. And so when you're in a meeting with a team member or when you're in a pitch with a client, things are going to be. fast. You're feeling adrenaline. You know, things are moving quickly around you. But if you can learn the practice, and this is something I've had to do with myself of saying, hey, how can I be present in the moment and also at the same time get above the situation and see things from a more objective point of view? What am I going to notice about first myself and then we'll talk later about how you can really notice others? But like, how can I objectively, without getting caught up in my thoughts, without getting caught up in my emotion,

how can I think about how this meeting, how this news, how the information that I'm receiving, how is it affecting me, and how can I really like take account of it? And just by acknowledging what it is that I'm thinking, what it is I'm feeling, like I mentioned, you can gain control over it just by being aware of what it is.

Yeah, that's a healthy place to be. And probably the best use of a sports analogy on the Entrail Leadership podcast. Well done. I like that one. Thank you. So do you have an example of, of a time that you were self-aware

where you felt like you experienced this? Sure. So, man, there is a lot, there's a lot of situations that come to mind that I was not self-aware, and there were others where I was. Man, for example, I'm going to talk about Dave for a second. I hope that's all right.

The listeners love it. They are here for it. So Dave is both my leader here at work and obviously my father. And, you know, Dave, working for him is incredible experience. He is so brilliant and quick and fast in the way that he does business. And so for me, he is a challenger by personality type.

He enjoys a good argument. And I like to spar with him occasionally too. And so there are situations where I can think of, gosh, two weeks ago, I got in an argument with him over something. And honestly, like my emotions got the better of me where I wasn't being heard in that argument and my point wasn't getting across and I was getting frustrated and so I was like I let my emotions take over too much I didn't do anything inappropriate but I definitely didn't hear him what he was saying because I was too worried about winning the argument and I was too worried about yeah I guess just

winning the argument and so that's an example where I let my emotions really take over and I wasn't actually like in control of myself versus you know there's another good conversation argument we had actually earlier this week. And it was about a great topic. And I was actually able to really like set back, take account of, hey, listen to what he's saying. And I didn't let the argument get away from me. I didn't actually let my emotions or my thoughts run too far. I was able to to take account of them, control them, be able to listen and make an articulate argument where I feel like at the end of it, it was way more productive for everyone involved. Yeah, so instead of having this kind of defensive posture where you're trying to win this thing,

you're really listening to understand and come to an agreement. That's right. That's a healthy place to be. So, once we've got this down, we have become self-aware, we have to move into this others-aware. So what does that mean versus self-awareness? How do you define others-aware? Yeah, well, being others-aware is really like, you know, going back to Earth, earlier we talked about the importance of making people feel known, knowing other people. And so

you have to really focus on knowing them. And what happens when you know someone is you gain a ton of empathy for them. You get inside their head a little bit. You understand what it's like to walk in their shoes. And so knowing what someone is thinking, what they're feeling, what they're experiencing can help you get deep insight into what's going on with them, which gets you empathy. So empathy is the key here. I'm really feeling like I'm in this person's head, I'm in their shoes, I can feel what they're feeling, and therefore I can help serve them in a better way. That's right. And it's not all lovey-dovey. It's not just like, oh, I really want to be compassionate. Yeah, that's super important. But again, what we're talking about here is influence. And you can't

actually have influence with someone unless you really know them and understand where they're coming from. So we talked about what this is and what this might look like. Is there a story that you can think of when you are other aware. Yeah, so, you know, first of all, as I lead into the story, let me say that when you are becoming others aware, it is important to know someone's past, know their history, like, you know, classic kind of counseling, you'll dive into someone's childhood, their bring up, their personality style, all that stuff. All that stuff is important, and you should try to learn that about your team members or the people around you. But what I would say is even more important to put emphasis on is knowing them in the present moment. When you're in that meeting with

them, when you're in that one-on-one or that group stand-up, how can you really scan the room and know where people are at in that moment? And so the story I would sell about this would be, I had a team member a couple months ago who, man, I loved working with him and he loved this brand and product and still does. We were having some conversations. The topic kept coming up of work from home and how we were addressing that as leaders with our teams. and I noticed whenever the conversation came up that his body language shifted. He seemed uncomfortable. He seemed, yeah, things just kind of shifted in him.

And he would argue kind of both sides of the argument. And it seemed like he was really wrapping his head around it himself, which a lot of us were to some degree. But his was different. And I can't really put my finger on it. And so I noticed that happened two different times. And then as I was driving home one day, I realized I was thinking to myself, what is going on with him? Well, he had also just gotten back from a vacation where he had been with his family. He has a large family, and he's from Montana, and he loved, you know, he has deep love for that state and his family and where he's from.

And I kind of started to put two and two together of seeing, all right, I noticed this person I care about, wrestling with his subject, and his body language seemed like he was, like he was chewing on a lot. And so, come to find out about a week or two later, he actually resigned. he took a role where he was going to be working from home. And so I'm not saying that I had figured it all out. I'd solve the mystery ahead of time. But when he did resign, I wasn't surprised. And so I was able to brace for the impact a little bit. When he came in to have that conversation, I was like, yep, that makes a lot of sense. Man, I hate it and whatnot, but it made a lot of sense. And I was proud of him. I was able to, by expecting it, I was able to embrace it and be happy for him. And he's a huge fan and he's probably going to listen to this episode. Yeah. So others aware. It reminds me of our Marcus Buckingham episode, which you were on that one as well, talking about feeling loved at work and having this vulnerability, which can be awkward for some people when they go, hey, listen, I just work here. I'm not trying to make friends. Is part of that really getting to know someone? Can that get too personal? Where do you draw the line when it comes to being others aware? Yeah, you have to use a lot of discernment, right? Like, you don't want to, if somebody is clearly uncomfortable, you don't want to dig in past their comfort zone. You know, like, you're not trying to be, do an in-depth counseling session. There is so much you can pick up and learn from by just looking someone in the eyes.

You know, it's said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. And just by looking someone into the eyes when they are, when they're talking, or maybe when they're not talking, when someone is doing a presentation and you're scanning the room and you see someone's eyes, you're going to learn so much. You'll see that they're disconnected, that they are angry, that they're, you know, all sorts of different things. And just by looking into someone's eyes, you can learn so much about them. And then obviously there's a lot of body language cues that, you know, we don't need to dive into too deep here, but, you know, people crossing their arms, people not making, you know, not paying attention, people, there's all the telltale signs of body language that shows, gives you clues or indicators about what people are thinking and feeling. But really,

reading someone, look in the me eyes, reading their body language, another thing you can do is ask some questions, just ask him, hey, what are you thinking about this? Really, like, reading someone should be a prompt to start a conversation. And then as you're digging in with someone, you need to use discernment on how far is too far to dig in and where do you stop and where do you pick up later. Yeah, I think there's a ton of examples in which I would recommend something different for that. So it's a mix of body language, having intentional conversations, and being as present as possible to make them feel seen in the workplace. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, if you're in your argument with someone, the worst thing you can do is be thinking about your next

rebuttal, the thing that you're going to come back at them with, or you need to be present, you need to be actually listening to what they have to say, and just by you listening and then responding in a way that shows you were listening really helps that argument go so much more smoothly. And that's the case in an argument, but I would say that applies to any conversation. Yeah, and a key to having influence, you would say, is learning to be others aware. That's a huge part of it because of how it creates relationships and depth and trust on the team. Yeah, that's great. So once we've got these two, we've got self-awareness, we've got others aware.

Now there's this piece that involves actions, being aware of how your actions affect others. What do you mean by that? Yeah, so I mean, I believe that really like, once you put into practice, knowing yourself, being self-aware, being others aware, Now putting it into action is really where influence comes from. The knowledge of those things are great. Knowing yourself, knowing others is great. But here's really where the rubber meets the road. Here is where you as a leader are actually making an impact.

And so what that looks like is, you know, oftentimes if you're having a meeting with a team member, they're coming into your office. Naturally, their guard is going to be up. And so as a leader, be intentional. Think about how can you make them feel comfortable? How can you disarm them? How can you connect with them? so you can just have an open and honest dialogue instead of them trying to posture to you what they think you want to hear.

And so going back to the offensive coordinator example that we talked about earlier, if you can get above the situation, see the different things that are playing out, then you can make adjustments on the fly. So a coach doesn't just watch the game, a coach coaches the game. They actually make adjustments to the plays in real time. And so, you know, if you're having a one-on-one with the team member and they're coming in and they have their guard up, what are simple things you can do?

Well, you can maybe, if you're leaned back in your chair, maybe you can uncross your arms and lean forward and put your hands on the table or put your elbows on the table and just lean in and engage and nod and smile and just basic human things of how you interact with someone. You can repeat back what you hear to them. So yeah, I don't know.

I was thinking of a time where I was giving a team member some constructive feedback. And this person, they didn't really, I could tell that the feedback wasn't hitting with them. They were starting to get offended a little bit. It was starting to hit their ego. And so in real time, I saw them start to get more defensive. I saw them get more rigid. I saw them start to like, their body language shift and change and change, okay, they're changing. I need to change my tactic real time. And so what I did was I had to take a step back. And, you know, in my mind, took a step back. I actually leaned back to my chair and

said, hey, let's pause here for a second. Let's talk about the reason why I want to talk about this. I'm not trying to just come down hard on you on this issue. I'm talking about this because I see what you're capable of. And I started to paint in a picture of the future I saw for them as a leader, what I saw in them that was untapped or unrefined. And so I'm like, hey, I'm talking to you about this because I care about you and because I see how you can become more effective with your team. And so by reframing the conversation and saying, hey, my motivation here, I'm telling you my motivation and why I'm giving you this feedback, really helped reframe the conversation and almost start over where I was able to then connect with them and make it heard, make my feedback heard. Yeah, that's huge to show your heart behind it. It changes the posture. So what was their reaction once you kind of changed the tune of that conversation? Yeah, I mean, I think it definitely took a minute.

You know, there's probably several examples where something like this has happened. And I think my reaction, you know, would be different, different times. There was one time where it was clear that the meeting should end. And so we said, I just kind of reframed the why. And I said, hey, let's pick back this conversation up at another time. And so the next one-on-one, we started back over and started to have that conversation again, I think, a week later. In other cases, yeah, that type of change in tactic helped them to, let their guard down and be in a place where they were able to receive. One thing I love to do is just

simply ask them, like, are you okay continuing this conversation? Are you okay? Do I have your permission to continue to give you feedback? Do I have your permission to continue to lean in here? And I mean, most of the time they're always going to say yes, but you actually need to read them just because they say yes doesn't mean they mean yes. And you need to watch their cues and say, all right, hey, thank you, and let's save this for another time, or thank you, all right, let's continue, let's continue to dive in. Yeah, that takes some discernment. There are some pieces here with the self-awareness and other awareness where you've got to discern,

is this the right thing to lean into and do I need to change? And there's a lot of, you know, brain calories being burned to figure all this out. What are some practices that you do to make sure that you are aware of your actions? I think one thing is you can only be so self-aware of yourself, right? You need to ask others input. So what I try to do is I try to, you know, as the leader, I'm giving feedback to my team. But I often need, it's a healthy practice for me to ask feedback of the people around me. So if I was in a meeting, man, I had a meeting a few weeks ago where I was talking to the leadership of Entree and I was saying, hey, I think that we could do a better job of the certain aspect of our team.

And afterwards, I pulled one of my leaders on close with the side and said, hey, I want to make sure that came off the right way that I was intending. How did you interpret that conversation? And so I was able to get feedback from them to say, hey, yeah, this is how I read it as a team. This is how I saw it. This is how I heard it. Another thing I love to do is if I'm in a room, especially like a larger room where there's multiple people, if I see someone's body language change in a meeting, let's say we're having a debate about our marketing strategy or something like that. And I see a couple people arguing about something. And I see one person who was in the argument.

I see them disengage. I see them lean back and cross their arms and not be involved. Or maybe I see something else where I see someone seem to get really frustrated, but they don't speak up, which is really dangerous, right? And so one of the best things I can do as a leader is either in real time or sometimes after the fact, go to that person and say, hey, what's on your mind? I noticed that you seemed like you had a lot in your mind. What was that? I don't label it. I don't go and say, hey, you looked really mad right then because they're going to get defensive and say, no,

wasn't mad but if i can go to them and say uh maybe real time in that meeting and say hey it looks like you you have a lot in your mind will you share with the group what what you're thinking uh draw them into it it lowers their defenses they feel known they feel heard they feel seen and they're able to be an active part of the conversation yeah that's an incredible way to use your influence for good when you're bringing people back in the conversation making them feel seen and heard uh this stuff is it's so interesting because of the two components coming together with the self-awareness and others aware because you're on one hand being very observant of the room and the body language and the tone and what's being said but you're also in your head going okay

how am i reacting what are what am i feeling right now and how should i behave what should my next action be how do you kind of marry those two in real time yeah definitely so i would say yeah these things these exercises this practice takes time it is like a muscle you have to build that muscle up at first it's going to be overwhelming trying to be so present that you're thinking about all these different things while you're listening to the other person. You get better over time. And so the more you can step back from a situation, the more you can get over a situation, it really slows down the conversation and you have time to really see it. So yeah, it takes time, be patient with yourself. The more you do it, the more you are intentional and proactive in it,

the more it just happens naturally and subconsciously. I find that a lot of leaders sometimes underestimate their influence that they have in the room. And they don't understand fully. how their actions, their behavior, their tone, their body language, makes the team feel. So for the business leaders that are listening out there, what would you say to those that maybe are problem unaware right now that this is them and how their influence is affecting the team in a bad way? Yeah. So you as a leader, I mean, your title grants you authority.

And with that authority, you know, you can tell people what to do, but that's not really leadership. That's not leading people. That's just pointing in a direction, ordering them to go somewhere. to have real influence is to have people follow you and to motivate people. And, you know, there's a lot of ways to motivate people. I believe that doing the things we're talking about today is actually the quickest way and the most effective way for a team to win because they're actually going to be more aware

and more motivated and have a better understanding of why they're doing what they're doing and what it takes to win. So motivation's not going to come from the sales quota. It's going to come from the influence that you have on your team through, this emotional intelligence. Yeah, and through a ton of the factors that we talk about here at Entree. That's good. So as we wrap here, give us some takeaways for the leaders listening out there that they can go do today to maybe improve their emotional intelligence. Yeah, I mean, all at all, I'd say just be intentional about thinking about what's happening around you. What's happening with you

first, then what's happening around you. And the more you can just make an exercise of recording things you see, just taking mental notes of, man, when this happened, this chain of thoughts went through my head or this emotion went through me and just being aware of those things, taking notes of them and starting over time to identify patterns. By being aware of those patterns, by being aware of that, you can anticipate yourself and you can gain more control of yourself and being intentional about just focusing on watching and looking for change. Is that something that you do mentally, or is that maybe something you actually write down in a journal or on your phone, you jot down, hey, I notice this.

It's almost like when you start budgeting, you have to track your expenses and you go, oh, I didn't realize that, but I just saw this happen in a meeting and I'm aware of it now because I'm thinking through this framework. I'm going to jot that down and make a note to try to improve that for next time or notice that more next time. I think that's a great practice. I think journaling is an incredibly great thing. So reflecting on your day, reflecting on things is really, really powerful. Yeah, for me, oftentimes it's just a mental note.

With my team, if I'm leaning into someone helping to train them on what we're talking about today, I actually give them homework and say, hey, we have this meeting upcoming. After the meeting, my assignment for you is, I need you to tell me one thing you notice from someone else in the room. Just anything that you notice in a change of posture or you just feel like you pick up something about someone that you didn't recognize before. So I actually give my team homework of, hey, be intentional about something and report back to me what you see.

So that's just kind of an exercise to start this conversation. Some great tips there, some great takeaways. Daniel, I appreciate you sharing this framework with us, and I love that this is something that you live out. This isn't theory to you. This is something that you've really used to influence your team. I love the way you're leading the Entree leadership team, and I'm just grateful for you. Thanks for being on. Thank you. Yeah, well, I've got so much more to learn, and I'm excited to continue to dive into this stuff myself. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks so much, Daniel, for walking us through that emotional intelligence framework. As he talked about, your emotional intelligence is something that you can always be working on.

So coming up, Daniel helps some small business owners walk through their emotional intelligence questions. We'll get to their calls right after this. All right, like I mentioned, Daniel took some calls from a couple of our Entree Leadership podcast listeners. Check it out. So we got Jen here from Homer, Alaska. Jen, how can we help today? I have a question for you. This is something that I come into all the time.

Influence doesn't typically take the time or energy that emotional intelligence does since you're not having to build a relationship first, right? When I've spoken to other leaders about this, they question the efficiency of it and if it's worth the time. So how do you feel emotional intelligence benefits the workplace culture so this loss of time and energy is not a factor? Man, okay, let me unpack this for a second. When you say influence, I think a lot of people have different definitions of what that means. So unpack what you mean the difference between influence. And influence and emotional intelligence. So for me, when I'm talking about influence, that's more focusing on your scripts and your way,

kind of persuasion, right, of getting your point across. Okay. For me, emotional intelligence is having more of that family unit. I know where you're coming from. I know your family or everything else. So now we have a deeper connection. So when I'm asking you to do something, I'm thinking about the totality of it, rather than just focusing on the business and coming from more of a persuasive or influential

stance from the business perspective. That's how I've always taken it. Gotcha. So, yeah, I would say I would probably use the word authority here and saying, like, your title, your authority, your position versus emotional intelligence. So, like, I would say that influence really comes from, I think emotional intelligence really feeds influence and gives you more influence. But let me dive into your question.

I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So diving in here a little bit, you're asking, hey, why is it worth stopping to take the time to do this, to actually focus on this? Shouldn't I focus on just leading the business? Shouldn't I focus on just getting the task at hand done? And like anything in business, there is always a dynamic at play of urgent versus important. And urgent things matter. You should do them. But if you don't take time to invest in something that has long-term payoffs, you're always going to be a rat in a wheel. you're always going to be on the treadmill. And for you to get off the treadmill, you have to slow down to speed up, right? You have to work on things that have long-term impact.

And so when it comes to your team, when it comes to gaining emotional intelligence with your team, to understanding them, to knowing them, I would kind of break the paradigm a little bit and say, I don't think that it should take a massive amount of time. I think that for you to gain a ton of emotional intelligence, it should happen in the trenches, in the moment, in your regular day-to-day operations.

So in your meetings, emotional intelligence is about just paying attention, being perceptive, watching, listening, looking for things. You being intentional about that has massive payoff. And so while I think it's very important for us as leaders to take our team to coffee, to get to know them, to learn about their family, learn about their childhood, all of that is good. I think what is incredibly important and maybe even more important, might go that far, is in the moment, in the present, how can you make them feel known? In that meeting, can you make them know that you care? And caring looks a lot of different ways. I think knowing their

kids' names, knowing their family, that does mean something. But what matters more is that you can follow up later and say, hey, how is your spouse, I know they were sick last week. How are they feeling? Like, that means that you actually listened to them last week when they told you they were sick. So in the moment, when you're having a dialogue with one of your team members, when you're having, whether it's a tough situation or just, you know, you're just at the water cooler or getting coffee, how can you just be present in that moment? That's what matters. So I would argue that it doesn't take any additional time to have a high emotional intelligence, to be aware of others. And just showing your team that you're aware of them, that you notice them, that you care about them in the moment, gain so. so much influence. And that gains so much trust. And man, the impact of that for you as their leader goes so, so, so far. And so I think you should do both. I think you should invest in your team by learning about their history, by knowing them. But I would argue where you should really put emphasis on is your time in the present, in your regular day-to-day operations of your business.

Yeah, absolutely. So basically you're just saying it's not a time or efficiency issue. It's just a focus issue on what you pay attention to. That's right. Yeah, I mean, think about it. How often are we in a meeting or are we going through a situation where we're on cruise control, where we're half checking email, half paying attention, what would it look like for us to close our laptop and just be fully engaged in every moment that we're in? That's a high bar. I don't do that for sure. But the more I can just be fully engaged in the present, in the moment, whether that's, I'm doing a presentation or someone's giving a presentation to me or I'm on a sales call with a client. How can I just be completely present in that

moment? That's what it's about. Love that. Love that. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome, Jen. Thanks so much for being with us today. We appreciate you. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah. Up next, we have Andrea from Des Moines, Iowa. Andrea, how can we help today? Yeah. I was wanting to know how do you maintain unity and calmness with a team while knowing all of the unseen details happening below the surface. It reminds me of an analogy of friend shared with me of being like a duck on the water with other ducks who are on your team. So many things can be happening below the surface from, of course, big picture decisions

to challenging team relationship. But a leader is called to remain calm and lead the team while pulling them without pulling them below the surface to the chaos below. man i love that analogy that is so funny because it's so true right as leaders we uh we are working so hard we're paddling so fast uh and oftentimes you know we have a calm face we have a calm demeanor and uh we have to be in control of how we're expressing you know what we're really feeling underneath so you know it's funny i was actually just having lunch with one of my best friends he runs a restaurant here in Nashville and um uh we were talking about the same thing

he's going through some issues he's facing and yeah so i think this applies this is really top of mind for me so i appreciate that well first of all i would say different situations require different responses you know there's different types of things going on under the surface there's things that that your team is aware of uh like the elephant in the room and then there's issues and situations that your team is not aware of and so you know it's good to categorize that it's good to just call that out and be honest with something and so if it's a situation that, let's start with the situation that your team may not be aware of. There are things that you should share with your team and there are things that you should not

share with your team. You have to use your discernment and what that is. And so I'll give some examples here. If you are feeling you are not going to be able to keep paddling at the rate you are and you're feeling a ton of stress or anxiety or whatever, I think in many circumstances, it is actually healthy. It's a good thing to be open and honest with your team about that and to tell some your core team members like, hey guys, I am paddling really hard right now, and it's hard. I think that is a fine conversation to have because what that does is that actually invites the conversation for you to ask them for help, for you to ask them to take on some of your burden, even if it is just for a short season. You know, that gives them permission to lean in and to help

and carry some of your weight. It also, on the other hand, it helps gain a lot of trust. You're being honest. You're being authentic with them. So it creates a, a culture amongst your team where they can be open and honest about what's going on inside of them. Now, you don't want to overshare, right? Like, if you are considering quitting and closing shop, like you don't want to talk about that because crazy thoughts go through your head a lot that you shouldn't share, you know, all the time. I know they do for me. And so you have to use your discernment on what is oversharing versus what is appropriate to share and good to share. With that, too, you know, you don't want to just sit there and tell them all the emotions,

you're feeling and just dumping it on them, you want to take productive action from that and say, hey, this team member just left our company, they resigned. And guys, this is really hard for me. You know, I have a relationship with this person, so that part hurts. There's also a lot of work that this person did. That work's not going to get done. And so, man, that is hard. So you say that, and then you follow up with, and here's what we're going to do about it. For now, you know, I'm going to take on this aspect of the responsibility, this project, we're going to put on pause and we're intentionally not going to do it. And we're going to try to hire someone.

We're going to backfill this person. We're going to reorganize the area. And hey, we may not have all the answers right now, but as we go, team, I'm going to keep updating you. And so bring them into the problem and then be honest about what you see around the corner. Now, most of the time as leaders, we don't have a very clear picture of what the future has in store. But share at least what you do know about the future, what you are certain of, what you may be thinking about and considering. And that invites the team to maybe add to it and help you plan and help you create a clear picture for the future. So that's kind of a situation that the team

may not be aware of. It's similar for the elephant in the room situation. If there is an awkward circumstance, if there is an issue, maybe the marketplace is shifting. Maybe there is a difficult situation going on within your office. You know, if appropriate, it's good to just acknowledge the elephant in the room and say, hey, guys, I recognize that the market is shifting. I recognize that our sales in this area are going down. Here is what I believe to be true about that. And invite them to say, hey, what do you think about that, depending on the circumstance? So what that does is say it tells your team that you're not blind to the problem,

you're aware of it, and that you are actively looking to solve that problem or to address it. And so, man, that deflates the pressure so much. it really takes the tension out of the room when people know that their leader is at least aware of it and can just say it out loud and just point to the obvious. Cool. So all in all, you're going to have to use some discernment here to say what is appropriate. But I think it is wrong as leaders. It would be wrong of us to just always put on a smiling face and always pretend like

everything's great because that's not real life. And the more we fake it, the less our team is going to trust us. So the more authentic we can be, the more real we can be to an appropriate extent is going to build trust with the team and help them see what the future has in store or a clearer picture of what the future has in store. That's awesome. Yeah, it's such a challenging place to be in to like keep a great mindset and decide when it's a time to filter it and when it's the time to share and be human and relate in that way. I find that to be a challenging balance for sure. Definitely, definitely. Yeah, and often it's a case-by-case basis. So I can't help you with every specific

situation. But that's why we're leaders. That's why we are given this responsibility is to help navigate through this. So one question I have with that is, you know, as a leader, you really work to maintain, of course, like your own perspective and mindset while you're helping your team with yours. So, of course, we're called like to a higher capacity as leaders. So when you have like, I guess, sub-leaders underneath you, how do you decide what to pass on to them to care? some of that high capacity with you. Is there another filter you kind of put it through where, of course, you would share more with your leaders than you would share with just your team members? Is there like another filter you have within that? Sure, sure. So, I mean, delegation has a ton of layers

to it. There's a ton that we could talk about around how do you know what to really delegate? How do you know what to bring certain leaders into the fold on? And I guess you need to ask yourself, what is your intent with a certain issue? You know, something, that you don't want to burden your team with because they don't have the ability to solve it. And by bringing up the problem, it may make them feel helpless. Other situations, you're making them aware of a problem. You're bringing them alongside you while you solve it in an effort to train them and to show them how you think and you're helping to grow them so that you can, in the future,

be able to delegate more things like that to them. So being intentional on, hey, what are the things I just need to bring visibility into and talk them through, hey, here's what's going through my head. here's how I'm processed in this situation. And other things are, man, in the case of my friend who runs a restaurant, they, you know, they're really in need of adding some hourly team members. And so by bringing his team into that, he can say, hey, guys, we really need a couple extra sets of hands.

We're going into a busy season. I need y'all's help in finding some hourly team members that we can hire. And so, guys, can you all brainstorm with me solutions to this problem? Are there people we know? Can we offer referrals to our team members? to help solve this problem. Can we go recruit in this aspect or this way or that way? So yeah, I think there's kind of three different scenarios of some things that are really your burden to bear as the leader and may not be appropriate for you to share. Others, you can bring people alongside you

and train them so that you can hand a similar situation off to them next time. And then the other is, hey, bring them in to help solve the problem with you, brainstorm with you, bring ideas to the table, maybe, you know, through that brainstorming, you can say, hey, I really like that idea. Would you mind running that down and seeing if that works? Would you mind owning this aspect or that aspect? And so I think, you know, when possible, try to involve your team in the problems you have because they're going to have ideas that you didn't. They're going to have new perspectives that you didn't. Yeah. So good. That's so good. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. Andrea, thanks so much for today. I really appreciate your questions. And, man, I'm really excited about our

listeners hearing this. Thank you. Thank you, Daniel, for taking some calls from our Entree leadership listeners. As we talked about in today's episode, emotional intelligence is key to growing as a leader. And if you want to gain some self-awareness in this area, you can take our free leadership growth assessment, which is going to measure your effectiveness to influence and lead. To take this quick assessment, just click the link in the show notes. Hope you enjoyed today's episode of the show. If you did, leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And if you're a small business owner with 2 to 200 team members, we want to hear what you think of the show, what you like, what you don't like, and what we could do better. Give us your feedback by clicking

the link in the show notes to schedule a call with Tim, our producer. If you want to keep up with us on social media, you can follow us at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison and Bob Borquez, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like The Ken Coleman Show. Are you doing what you were born to do?

I'm Ken Coleman, host of the Ken Coleman Show, where I give you practical advice to help you discover your purpose and then map out a plan to get you there. From accounting to advertising, from plumbing to production, you were created to fill a unique role, and the world needs what you have to offer. Join me on the Ken Coleman Show, wherever you live, to podcasts.