Emotional Intelligence for Leaders

 

Good teams become great teams under great leaders. One skill great leaders need is emotional intelligence. Dr. Rodolfo De Acutis, Executive Leader for Nestlé in Research and Development, recently spoke with PMI CCO Joe Cahill on the Center Stage podcast about the subject of leadership and emotional intelligence. Dr. De Acutis, who is responsible for implementing the Project Management Office for Nestlé R&D, shared his perspective on how leaders can harness the power of emotions to drive results.  

Cahill: Can you describe the importance of emotions in the workplace, and help us understand the importance of that?

De Acutis: Often a project manager is facing situations where emotion can come alive. Usually there is a very simple sequence of events - there is a trigger and there is an act. In between the trigger and the act, often there is an emotion.

But in between the emotion and the act, we have a moment of choice... If we pause, step back, reflect, shift perspective, then we will be more in a situation of choosing wisely what will be the act to do.

Cahill: Emotional intelligence sounds critically important to leading, not only at the project level but at the company level.

De Acutis: When you run a project, the interaction with others is extremely high. Having the ability of understanding the mood of the room is extremely important. When you go into a room, is there is an emotion of excitement or is there is an emotion of de-motivation?

That’s when the empathy, that you can flex the style of responding to the emotion appropriately, is extremely important. And to do that, you need to create an environment of trust. 
To build the trust, the team needs to feel that the leader or the project manager is credible, reliable, has got that connection on empathy. 

Cahill: You indicate project leaders must be really comfortable in asking the question “why?” day to day. So let me ask you - why is this important?

De Acutis: I can give you a very simple example. Because we [Nestlé] produce food, and sometimes we need to provide samples, it can happen that we go to our project team and we say can you please just do another 50 samples for the head office? Now the explanation of the why is on giving the samples to the office. That actually doesn’t motivate or encourage a team to really do it. 

Could we explain the why in a more compelling way? What if we say, look, we are meeting with the markets, and if we have these 50 samples that will add more presence in every market and it could become one of our priority projects. 

Very likely the team will feel much more engaged, but this is not necessarily enough. What if then we give also something that is more individual? What if we say, look, I know that you are busy but you don’t have to worry because I will speak with your manager and I will make sure that you can focus on this. And by the way, I am asking you because I know that you delivered for me in the past. 

You see how if we explain the why in a much more compelling way with the rational and emotional and individual aspect, then there is much more of a potential for success.

Listen to the full podcast on Center Stage.