The Number One Indicator of Leadership Success in Business
Jan 23, 2025
I am fully convinced that I could predict how successful someone is as a leader just by watching them respond to a single frustrating setback, because this reveals their ability to regulate and cope with emotion. Of course, many traits and abilities are necessary to make a good leader, but no matter how much leadership experience you have, you cannot be a successful leader without being emotionally intelligent.
Think about it, have you ever worked for someone that was impressively skilled at their job, but couldn’t control their temper? They were brilliant at strategizing and innovating, but when it came to stress they just couldn’t cope with it and would take it out on whatever unlucky soul happened to be close by? Would you describe them as a successful leader? Did they motivate and inspire you to chase their cause with them? Probably not.
What Makes a Leader
There was a specific moment when I realized what it was that made my friend Andrew such an effective leader. He is the kind of guy that can hold his employees to a high standard while also building a friendly rapport and supportive company culture, and he is so successful at this because he is highly emotionally intelligent.
There was an upcoming conference in Las Vegas. We planned to use a 20 foot wall in our display. It was massive and we had to ship it in pieces. When it was time for the conference, we got it all packed up and shipped in down to Vegas. It was all prepped and ready to go, the only thing we didn’t factor in was the cost to rebuild it at the venue. To move it the short 150 feet to our assigned spot it was upwards of $6,000. We hadn’t factored that into our budget. At first we tried to do it on our own, but because of the poor quality of the wall and time constraints, our 20 foot wall plan was thrown out. We'd spent all this time building it, trucked it down from Utah, and had this massive plan with all these big giveaways that we were going to do.
It could have been an incredibly difficult situation. We could have given in to the frustration and taken it out on each other. But Andrew responded differently. He said, “All right, what’s our plan B?” There was no anger, no yelling, no blaming. He kept his cool and immediately started looking for solutions.
One of the main indicators of a good leader is their emotional intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence
As explained by psychologist Daniel Goleman, “Emotional intelligence is defined as our capacity to be aware of, to control, and to express emotions.” He also describes it as our capacity to manage ourselves. I think of emotional intelligence as the ability to identify the authentic from the counterfeit.
When someone is aware of their own emotions and able to label them as authentic or counterfeit (healthy or not), they are much better equipped to cope with the stressors of leadership in productive ways.
In 2023, the Center for Creative Leadership posted an article defining emotional intelligence as being closely linked to leadership effectiveness. The article says,
“For most of us, it’s easy to name the individuals who have brought out the best in us — and maybe easier still to name people who have brought out the worst. These memories are significant because of the way these managers made us feel.
…Whether we’re at home or at work, our emotions are woven into our every interaction. They influence how we react to challenges and opportunities. They determine whether or not we collaborate to resolve conflict.”
A leader’s capacity to deal with conflict in a healthy way sets the tone for everyone working underneath them. It affects the culture of the entire workplace.
Where to Start: Self-Awareness
In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman breaks emotional intelligence down into 4 components: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
Each of these areas is crucial to emotional intelligence, but for now, let’s focus on self-awareness.
Self-awareness is the foundation of emotional health. It is extremely difficult to improve in any of the other areas without being self-aware. If you’re looking to improve your leadership this year, self-awareness is the place to start.
Stephen Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, describes self-awareness as “our capacity to stand apart from ourselves and examine our thinking, our motives, our history, our scripts, our actions, and our habits and tendencies.”
This skill is what allows us to see ourselves as we are, to understand our true strengths and weaknesses, and clearly see what parts of ourselves need attention. Self-awareness is deep than just identifying emotions. It’s understanding what is triggering those emotions.
How to Get Started
"Self awareness gives us ultimate human freedom"
~ Stephen Covey
The best way to begin building your self-awareness is to equip yourself with the terms and language needed to reflect upon your emotions. It is next to impossible to describe experiences that you can’t name. Lucky for you, that is the mission of Counterfeit Emotions: to give you the language and knowledge you need to be aware of your emotions and what triggers them and then address them.
Check out the rest of our blog and our 5-day masterclasses to start building your self-awareness.
If you feel confident in your ability to name and describe your emotions, the next thing to do is practice. Find some way to implement frequent reflection into your life. This can be through journaling, regular conversations with a friend, or therapy sessions.
Consistently spend time reflecting on your emotions and exploring the triggering events behind them. Get curious about the why behind your feelings and dig deep! Here are some questions to get you started:
- When did I start feeling this?
- What happened that may have triggered it?
- What past experiences may have shaped the way I responded to this trigger?
Set yourself up for success by becoming a better leader this year. Invest time into building your emotional intelligence.
