The Growth Mindset

Chapter 7Emotional Intelligence

“If you are tuned out of your own emotions, you will be poor at reading them in other people.”

—Daniel Goleman

Who are you? No, don't give me your job title. If I take away your job title, your house, and your car, who are you? What is important to you? Do you know yourself? Are you aware of how you make others feel when you walk into a room? When things don't go your way, are you aware of how you react and how it affects others? Emotional intelligence (EI) is recognizing, understanding, and managing our own emotions.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

—Socrates

Most of us are familiar with the concept of self‐awareness and emotional intelligence. It's been around a long time; in fact, the term first appeared in a 1964 paper by Michael Beldoch and gained popularity in the 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence, written by the author, psychologist, and science journalist Daniel Goleman. Unfortunately, being familiar with emotional intelligence does not always translate into possessing it. Becoming self‐aware and staying self‐aware requires tools that many leaders do not possess. It is a tragedy because great leadership begins with knowing yourself.

Leaders with a growth mindset cultivate self‐awareness and have high emotional intelligence. They have empathy that allows them to make a deeper emotional connection with the client. They are not robotic. They have a process but they are flexible because they know it's first about winning the ...