EBW Leadership

E-book

EBW Leadership It is not rocket science to realise whoever is at the top of the team or organisation makes a big difference to their group or company.

If it is true that poor or dysfunctional leadership permeates down through the organisation, then it is also true that effective, inspirational leadership also filters down through the company or organisation.

What makes great leadership? Leadership research has looked at any number of variables, including leadership style.

In other words, what do leaders do with others? What are the emotions and behaviour that they show?

For instance, should leaders be more autocratic or democratic or perhaps more task-oriented versus people-oriented?

This e-book provides some of the more recent research white papers from the EBW Knowledge library that provide insight into how leaders need to manage themselves to have a positive impact on the people they lead?

The EBW Leadership E-Book includes:

1) Overview - Why is Business EQ important for leadership. 2) Good leaders – how they make bad decisions 3) How your leadership style affects your team performance 4) Should leaders apologise 5) Why transformational leadership does not always work

The EBW Emotional Intelligence System for Business is a unique global assessment and development tool for Executive Coaches, HR experts and Psychologists. Based on over 15 years of worldwide use and research, it enables you to get leaders and teams to understand why they behave the way they do and use a highly effective coaching framework that improves their occupational performance. With a practitioner network based on 6 continents, all of whom are licensed to use the EBW System we guarantee the EBW Emotional Intelligence approach empowers leaders and teams to transform themselves and their organisations.

Why is Business Emotional Intelligence important when developing leadership?

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Emotions & Behaviours at Work

A study of more than 1,400 leaders and managers found 41 per cent felt inappropriate use of communication or listening was the biggest mistake leaders made when working with others.

Conversely, the most critical skill a leader could possess was communicating and listening (cited by 43 per cent), followed by: effective management skills, Emotional Intelligence and empathy, values and integrity, vision and empowerment.

Of the top five things leaders and managers failed to do when working with others, the one that came up the most was not providing appropriate feedback (cited by a whopping 82 per cent). Failing to listen or involve others in the process was nearly as big a failing, cited by 81 per cent.

More than three quarters raised failing to use a leadership style that was appropriate to that person, task or situation, and a similar percentage (76 per cent) felt leaders failed to set clear goals and objectives. Nearly six out of 10 complained that leaders failed to train and develop their people.

The EBW Emotional Intelligence System for Business Understand the Impact - Know the Full Potential

Leaders don’t listen, manage or have a clear vision

The EBW SystemUsing Emotional Intelligence

Developing leadership potential & organisational success!

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Some people have been conditioned to believe that emotions are not welcome in the workplace and that work decisions should be based upon cold, logical reason. Leadership research tells us that the lack of interpersonal skills and the inability to adapt are the two principal derailment factors in careers.

With leaders in organisations spending up to 80% of their time talking, understanding others, changing the nature of how people engage and work with each other in an organisation can be the single most powerful way a leader can bring about performance breakthroughs.

Today there is a growing body of science in the emerging field of Emotional Intelligence at work, indicating that the proper understanding and use of emotions, is critical in helping leaders and teams become more effective and better communicators.

Now, more than ever, Business Emotional Intelligence is becoming the “new yardstick” by which leaders are being evaluated.

How does the EBW System develop leadership potential?

The EBW System assesses a leaders’ Business Emotional Intelligence and provides insights into their leadership style. It enables forward-looking organisations to access the power of emotions to create better leaders, more productive teams and team members.

Using a range of EBW assessments and reports, leaders and teams can see instantly which emotions and behaviours are inhibitors and activators to effective leadership and team performance. Barriers to progress are easily identifiable.

With the EBW System, leaders learn what leadership style suits different situations and when and how to use their Business EQ to inspire, motivate, delegate, support and drive their organisation to greater success.

Good leaders - how they make bad decisions Emotionally Intelligent Decision Making!

It is accepted wisdom that expertise leads to informed, reliable decision-making. People look upon effective leaders in the working environment as authoritative figures who possess the knowledge and skills to either provide or select the best solutions to immediate problems.

But what happens when someone with proven expertise and consummate leadership skills makes a bad decision? Why does this occur when those individuals should be able to make the best available choices?

Valerie Reyna and her colleagues at Cornell University believe that the answer is surprising: They suggest that good leaders make bad decisions occasionally, not through an absence of expertise, but because of it.

Their conclusions were drawn from research which involved assessing the decision-making processes of intelligence officers compared to undergraduates and college educated adults. Participants numbered: 63 undergraduates, 54 college educated adults and 36 intelligence officers - 77% of whom were classed as special agents, 7% were officers, and 16% were admin staff members.

Participants were asked to answer a number of questions based on some hypothetical situations. These situations were presented as life-or-death scenarios where participants had to choose between definitive and probabilistic statements, where they could either guarantee a lower number of lives saved, or choose a course of action that had an attached 'chance' of saving more lives. e.g. would you rather take a course of action which guaranteed 100 lives saved, or take another which had a 1/3 probability of no casualties but a 2/3 probability of 300 lives being lost. Questions were also framed differently to either focus on lives saved, or lives lost.

Reyna and her colleagues found that the framing of available choices affected the decision-maker. Whether an option was presented as a choice to save lives or reduce loss of life significantly affects the outcome.

OK, not too unexpected you might think, but what was interesting was that those participants classed as having the expertise to make such decisions were more easily swayed by the differences between the 'loss of life' and 'lives saved' options. This resulted in intelligence officers processing similar options as unequal, being overly confident and more willing to choose options which had a bigger risk for loss of life attached to them, gambling that the best possible outcome would occur.

The researchers suggest that these findings can be explained by the 'developmental reversal' effect, which shows that children are far less likely to be swayed by different framing, regardless of whether positive or negative. They are in effect, more likely to evaluate the options equally than adults. Reyna and colleagues suggest that those with expertise are further along the developmental trajectory than others.

In essence, this research suggests that experts or leaders who perceive themselves as knowledgeable authority figures (experts) are more likely to allow the context or framing of a problem to affect their decision making and choose rash or riskier paths for potentially greater gains.

Does This Happen Often? These findings suggest that those with expertise might make snap decisions which carry greater risks. We can see a number of high profile examples of poor leadership decisions which clearly indicate that these decision-making processes take place at all levels within the business world:

1. Jurgen Schrempp: The CEO of Daimler-Benz made the decision to pursue a merger between Chrysler and Daimler even though those around him explained the high level of risk involved. Yet because the rewards were potentially vast he continued on this path which nearly led the entire company to ruin.

2. Steve Russell: Took the UK health care store Boots into a new strategy which hoped to separate it from other brands by venturing into direct health care such as dentistry. Despite the obvious risks of taking an established brand into a different industry, he took the gamble, which resulted in him losing his job as chief executive.

3. Mike Lazaridis: Who helped make design choices for RIM's Blackberry line of mobile phones which, rather than building on its niche, took the approach to emulate and attempt to compete with Samsung and Apple touch phones. The risks were huge and resulted in RIM losing millions of customers who wanted an alternative, not a carbon copy.

The EBW View So, what does this mean for leadership decisions and why bad decisons are made? The most important lesson here is that anyone is capable of making the wrong decision. Making a good decision is not only about evaluating the situation/context and the available options, but also understanding your emotional and behavioural drives towards the considered choices.

Research shows that 16% of leaders have a strong emotional drive to be the decision maker, but may not always leave enough time for decisions or want to listen to others when making a decision. They may feel uncomfortable if they are not allowed to take responsibility for their decisions or if they are forced to leave a decision unmade because of others’ views or the situation. What makes them feel comfortable (less stressed) is driving a decision to its final outcome quickly.

Whereas, some leaders have a different emotional drive and feel more comfortable taking time to make a decision or like to make considered decisions. They may be happy but unclear about decisions that are made (wishing to keep things quite woolly). They are likely to feel quite uncomfortable (at times stressed) if they have to make quick decisions or decisions where they feel they do not have enough

information. They may at times, put off making a decision altogether, preferring not to make a decision rather than make a decision where they do not feel they have enough information.

Making the right decision is about understanding how your emotional drive to make a decision can act as an inhibitor or activator to the way you make decisions. Understanding how your decision making processes are affected by your emotions when you are outside your comfort zone (stressed, overworked etc.) or you are very passionate (positive emotions) about your work, is the first step to understanding how to ensure you do not make a bad decision.

When working with others, understanding not only what your emotional drives are when making decisions, but also what drives others' decision making is the key to better leadership, making better business decisions and working with others successfully.

Reference Valerie F. Reyna, Christina F. Chick, Jonathan C. Corbin, & Andrew N. Hsia (2013). Developmental Reversals in Risky Decision-Making: Intelligence Agents Show Larger Decision Biases than College Students. Psychological Science (In Press).,

The EBW Emotional Intelligence System Developing Leadership Potential & High Performing Teams

How leadership style affects team performance

Which kind of leadership is more effective: one where a clear direction is given to the team, or where the members are allowed to make the decisions themselves?

According to a recent study by Natalia Lorinkova and her colleagues, it’s not a question of which kind is better, but when.

Their results show that while being directive in approach produces results, eventually a team which is empowered is more effective when it comes to improving performance.

The researchers formed 60 teams consisting of five members who were asked to complete a computer strategy task over 10 team sessions. Half of the teams were led by directive leaders who gave clear directions and feedback with no room for confusion over the tasks that needed to be completed. The other 30 teams had empowering leaders, who encouraged their members to take ownership of the tasks and work amongst themselves.

All the leaders were participants themselves who had scored the highest in directive and empowering leadership measures accomplished beforehand. They also received leadership training and other resources before the study started, to help them maintain their leadership approach with their teams.

Results of the study showed that teams with directive leaders were higher in performance during the first to the fifth sessions. In sessions 6-10, however, it was the empowered teams that improved more. This suggests that empowerment of team members takes time, but when it eventually takes effect, it has a big impact on performance with members learning how to work with each other better. The analysis confirmed several reasons behind this: the empowered groups learned to co-ordinate better, felt psychologically more in control, and after the study ended, were more accurate at characterising their colleagues' capabilities and focus in a separate task.

The EBW View While the tasks set out by the researchers don’t necessarily transfer to a typical workplace activity, the results are interesting and have a lot of potential. The implication, in particular, of the role of leadership style vis-à-vis the developmental stage of a team needs to be studied further. This research points to the importance of leaders understanding the dynamic processes within a team - where members stand in relation to one another and the team as a whole.

Understanding & managing the dynamic of a team is a delicate art. There are 3 simple steps that leaders can do to make it easier:

1) Define Roles and Responsibilities Teams that lack focus or direction can quickly develop poor dynamics, as people struggle to understand their role in the group. Create a team charter – defining the group's mission and objective, and everyones' responsibilities as soon as you form the team. Make sure that everyone has a copy of the document, and remind people of it regularly. Be prepared to change roles and responsibilities as the team develops.

2) Break Down Barriers Use team-building exercises to understand what motivates individuals in the team and develop a team's Emotional Intelligence (see here for more info). Use exercises that ease new colleagues into the team gently, and also help the team understand the underlying nature of emotions that impact on a team's behaviour and performance.

3) Learn to recognise and address the tension of a team Listen for:

• Emotionally loaded statements (i.e., "I dislike working with that group.") • Generalizations (i.e., "People won't buy into that idea.") • A lack of interest (i.e., "Is this really a top priority?") • Inherent conflict (i.e., "We don't problem-solve well.")

Provide feedback that shows your team members the impact of what they are saying and encourage them to reflect on how they can change their behaviour.

Using BEI (Business Emotional Intelligence) and adapting one’s leadership style depending on the interest, skills, and abilities of one’s team members is crucial to achieve high performance. Leaders who have developed their BEI and learned to adapt to a changing environment definitely have an edge in the workplace..

Reference Lorinkova, N.M., Pearsall, M.J., & Sims Jr., H.P. (2013). Examining the differential longitudinal performance of directive versus empowering leadership in teams. Academy of Management Journal, 56 (2), 573-596.rooks, A.W., Dai, H., & Schweitzer, M.E. (2013). I’m sorry about the rain! Superfluous apologies demonstrate empathic concern and increase trust. Social Psychological and Personality Science.ast,

The EBW Emotional Intelligence System Developing Leadership Potential & High Performing Teams

Why leaders with high EQ apologise Most leaders do not apologise!

As a leader, do you apologise to your team when you make a mistake?

If you’re reluctant to do so, don’t worry; you’re not alone.

Past studies have shown that most leaders see apologising as something detrimental to their reputation. They don’t like admitting and apologising for their mistakes as they think it will make them look incompetent or weak.

A new study conducted by researchers from the Harvard Business School and the Wharton School in University of Pennsylvania, however, has shown that apologising—even for situations that are not within your control—can actually make you appear more likeable and trustworthy to others.

Alison Brooks and her team conducted a total of four studies examining the effect of a superfluous apology on trust. The first one was a laboratory experiment involving 178 students who thought they were playing a game with a partner in another room. The partners who apologised for a computer override were rated more trustworthy than those who didn’t, despite the fact that the override was beyond their partner's control.

In a second experiment, 177 participants watched a video of a stranger asking a flight-delayed passenger at the airport to borrow the latter’s mobile phone. They were asked to imagine that they were the passenger. The participants who saw the video where the stranger apologised for the flight delay were more likely to share the phone with him, as opposed to those whose video just showed the stranger giving a neutral greeting.

The third study had more than 300 participants who were asked to imagine meeting someone who was selling a second-hand iPod. Participants who were told that the seller apologised for the rain were more likely to rate the seller as more trustworthy and empathic, than those sellers who just greeted them neutrally.

The final study had a male actor asking 65 strangers at a train station if he can borrow their mobile phone. For half of the participants, the actor apologised for the rain first, while he just greeted the other participants neutrally. Results showed a significant difference: 47 percent handed over their phones to the actor when he apologised, but only 9 percent did when there was no apology.

The EBW View The research supports the view that leaders with Emotional Intelligence who are self-aware and have the sensitivity needed to recognise when to apologise will have the respect of their team members and will build trust quickly. Building trust in the workplace results in employees who are happier, and importantly, are more productive.

“By issuing a superfluous apology,” Brooks and her team write, “the apologiser communicates that he has taken the victim’s perspective, acknowledges adversity, and expresses regret.” They add that apologising shows concern, thereby increasing a person’s trust towards the one who apologised.

How do you apologise in the workplace? Here are some tips:

1. Take responsibility for the mistake you’ve made and apologise to those who have been affected by it, even if they’re your underlings.

2. Express regret and explain what you plan to do to move forward. 3. Encourage your team to observe changes and give you feedback on your progress. This shows

your sincerity to change for the better. 4. Always keep in mind to be authentic. Commit only to things you can honestly do. If you have a

naturally extroverted personality, for example, it’s not realistic to say you will become an introvert.

Leaders who have the courage and self-confidence to admit mistakes (even if they are not theirs) and apologise for them, will win the respect of their team members. It may not be easy to do and recognising when it is appropriate is key. That is why successful leaders develop their Emotional Intelligence, to enhance their self-awareness and the sensitivity needed to understand others' emotional needs and to use that knowledge to drive their success..

Reference Brooks, A.W., Dai, H., & Schweitzer, M.E. (2013). I’m sorry about the rain! Superfluous apologies demonstrate empathic concern and increase trust. Social Psychological and Personality Science.ast,

The EBW Emotional Intelligence System Developing Leadership Potential & High Performing Teams

Why transformational leadership does not always work?

Companies spend and invest a lot of time and money in recruiting and developing their leaders. You only have to look on Linkedin to see how many companies/coaches/trainers are focused on training people to become better leaders.

The emphasis is often on developing transformational leaders. Leaders who are able to inspire their team members to go beyond what’s required of their jobs, prioritise the group rather than the individual needs, show more motivation at work, and maintain an intellectually stimulating work environment.

A recent study, however, has shown that transformational leaders are not effective all the time. In some cases, transformational leadership simply does not have the impact that is expected.

Recent research by Phillip Gilmore and his colleagues from George Mason University (Virginia), argues that transformational leaders are effective because they know what their team members feel and are able to influence those feelings.

They suggest that transformational leadership has an “intense emotional component” and those who have it generally exhibit helping behaviours, are authentic and show a personalised concern towards others, have a genuine selflessness, encouraging others to think positively, and give an assurance of safety to people who think outside the box.

Transformational leaders motivate employees into a positive state which enable them to go beyond what they usually accomplish.

Gilmore’s research examined the impact of transformational leadership on employees who are already motivated and positive. Specifically, would their performance still be improved by the transformational leadership style of their leaders?

Gilmore's researchers surveyed over 200 pairs of employees and leaders in a pharmaceutical company in China. The leaders were asked to rate their employees' creativity and helping behaviours, while the employees were asked to rate their own positive affect (tendency to see the world positively) and their leader’s leadership style.

Results showed that transformational leadership did not significantly predict creativity or helping behaviours in employees who already were motivated and positive. Gilmore concluded that employees who are already motivated and positive do not appear to need what the transformational leaders offer.

As a consequence, he suggests that transformational leaders turn to those employees who are low on energy, sluggish, and melancholic, because for them, the leadership style really makes a difference. However, this may not always be easy because research also found transformational leaders to tend to be extraverted and thus, higher on positive affect by nature. Therefore, they may prefer to turn their attention to those who they are similar to (those who are already high on positive affect and energy), instead of those who need their attention.

The EBW View Historically, leadership experts have pushed the benefits of transformational leaders and for good reason. Transformational leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr., played crucial roles in transforming peoples' identity and aspirations.

However, what this research suggests is that leaders need to tailor their transformational actions accordingly, rather than use a one-size-fits-all, group-directed, transformational style.

Leaders need to understand and assess their followers and the situational context in which they work. They need to develop their BEI (Business Emotional Intelligence) as the nature of the workgroup/team may well determine how effective any leader can or could be at motivating and directing their charges.

To find out how to develop your leaders' and managers' Business Emotional Intelligence; so they really understand others and are able to control negative emotions & behaviours contact an EBW Facilitator.

Reference Gilmore, P., Hui, X., Wei, F., Tetrick, L., & Zaccaro, S. (2013). Positive affectivity neutralizes transformational leadership’s influence on creative performance and organisational citizenship behaviors. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34, 1061-1075.,

The EBW Emotional Intelligence System Developing Leadership Potential & High Performing Teams