For Productivity, Engage Team Members with Emotional Intelligence

team member and leader engaging in emotional intelligence training and discussion

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

(Editor’s Note: Today’s article is brought to you by our friends at DDI, a global leadership firm that helps organizations hire, promote, and develop exceptional leaders. For the seventh year in a row, Training Industry named DDI to its top assessment and evaluation companies list.  Congrats to them and enjoy the read!)

A couple of weeks ago, I published an article about “3 Proven Ways to Make New Team Members Feel Welcome and Included”. Since then, I’ve been thinking about the article, and it reminds me that welcoming a new team member is only the first step. Once the team is together, they need to be engaged.

When it comes to creating employee engagement, leaders play an important role. But we need to remember that team members also share in that responsibility. 

Employee Engagement: Defined

First, to make sure we’re on the same page, let’s do a quick refresher on engagement. According to Investopedia, engagement describes the level of enthusiasm and dedication someone has for their work. I don’t want to do a deep dive into a bunch of statistics, but engagement drives several key business indicators such as lower absenteeism, fewer workplace accidents and incidents, lower turnover, less shrinkage, better quality, increased productivity, and of course, profitability. 

Bottom-line: engagement is important. 

So, the question becomes how can organizations take an honest look at employee engagement? I recommend exploring the following questions:

If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, then maybe the organization needs to examine their engagement levels. 

How Organizations Can Create Employee Engagement

Now that we’ve reviewed engagement and its impact on the organization, it’s time to talk about how to create it. And maybe the best place to start is by saying employee engagement isn’t a program run by the human resources department. 

Engagement happens when it’s a part of the organizational culture. Employees will be enthusiastic and dedicated to their work when they are trusted and treated with respect.

I’ve been a part of teams – and maybe you have too – where the team leader was great, but the other members of the team were rude and gossipy. I was cautious about what I did and what I said because I didn’t trust them. After the meeting, I would chat with the team leader because I trusted the leader. This type of arrangement doesn’t help anyone. 

I’ve also been on the other side – teams where I loved the other people that I was working with, but the team leader had their own agenda, which didn’t really include us. So, you weren’t always sure if the team leader was going to take your suggestions and make them their own. 

The reason I’m spending this time to set up what engagement is and why it’s important is two-fold: 1) sometimes when a term like engagement becomes a catch-all, it’s necessary to step back and reexamine what it means, and 2) because it’s important to remember that everyone plays a role in engagement.

I believe a good place to start addressing engagement is with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is our capacity to be aware of, control, and express our emotions. The five core components of emotional intelligence include: empathy, effective communication, self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation. Think about the couple of team examples I just shared.

If the rude and gossipy team members had improved self-regulation, is it possible they would be better colleagues? And while I had a good relationship with the team leader, if the leader’s communication skills were improved, would they be able to facilitate bringing the team together?

Same goes for the other team. If the team leader with an agenda was more self-aware, would they realize that they were hurting the team and adjust their behavior. And if the team members had better communication skills, could they share their concerns directly with the team leader? 

Our interactions as leaders can have a profound impact on others. It also has a direct bearing on team results. And that’s the purpose of today’s article. Emotional intelligence drives team engagement. Engaged teams get stuff done, which allows the organization to accomplish their goals. 

Team Leaders Have Extra Responsibilities

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned that team leaders and participants are both responsible for engagement … and that’s true.

But team leaders are entrusted with extra responsibility. Because they have the ability to encourage or discourage, to build trust or to break it. DDI’s research has found these four behaviors effective at driving higher levels of engagement:

Here’s just one example of how this might look in the workplace. When managers spend time listening and responding with empathy during one-on-one meetings, this helps to build and maintain trust with employees. Then, when managers encourage employees to challenge the old way of doing things, they feel comfortable doing so. And that opens the door to share these new ideas with others, giving credit to the employee for coming up with the idea. 

And for the employee, this can create visibility in the organization, which could lead to working on a special project, being selected to participate in a training program, or even contribute to eventually getting a promotion.  

As I’ve said before, my prediction is that this year is going to be all about teams. Simply putting people in a room isn’t building a team. And naming someone a team leader doesn’t guarantee team results. If organizations want to get things done – and we all know they do – then they need to set teams up for success. That involves giving team members, and especially your leaders, the tools they need to engage, which starts with emotional intelligence. 

P.S. If you’re looking for a way to get started with emotional intelligence and leadership development, our friends at DDI can help. Get started by exploring the Ultimate Guide to Leadership Development for insightful recommendations to help you create and launch powerful leadership development experiences.

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