Emotional Intelligence: How Leaders Manage Their Emotions

Have you ever worked with (or for) a moody person? Yikes… it’s not fun. I worked in a warehouse during my college years and had a boss who would throw things – coffee cups, pens, boxes, and even stacks of paper. I had to learn to stay on my toes in order to dodge his outbursts. When you work with unstable leaders, you become unstable. When you work with an emotionally strong and stable leader, you become strong and stable.

Emotionally intelligent leaders learn to grow their emotional capacity in order to handle adversity, failure, criticism, and change. They’ve created some resilient tactics to keep them emotionally stable – they know their emotions are contagious.

I have an old Og Mandino book where he shares what he does when feeling certain emotions. He said:

  • If I feel depresses, I sing.
  • If I feel sad, I will laugh.
  • If I feel ill, I will double my labor.
  • If I feel inferior, I will wear a new garment.
  • If I feel uncertain, I will raise my voice.
  • If I feel poverty, I will think of wealth to come
  • If I feel incompetent, I will remember past success.
  • If I feel insignificant, I will remember my goals.
  • Today, I will master my emotions.

Here are my five reminders to you:
1. Don’t feel sorry for yourself, reject pity parties.
2. Take a power-walk and breathe deeply.
3. Don’t allow others to set your emotions.
4. Focus your time and energy on what you can control
5. Stay humble with life’s highs and lows.

Here to managing your emotions!
– Steve

As a master storyteller, Steve has unparalleled ability to communicate dynamic business and leadership truths through stories, anecdotes and humor. Harness the power of the “number one” predictor of professional success, impact, leadership, high performance and sustainable relationships in business and life. Steve’s highest rated keynote presentation.

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“The purpose of Leadership Quest is to help professionals develop their personal leadership, vision and emotional intelligence. Everyday I strive to help leaders and teams achieve their desired goals in sales productivity, leadership, time maximization, and life-balance. ”

About the Author

Steve Gutzler is the President of Leadership Quest, a Seattle-based leadership development company. Steve is a dynamic, highly-sought-after speaker who has delivered more than 2,500 presentations to a list of clients including Microsoft, Starbucks, the Seattle Seahawks, Pandora Radio, Boeing, Cisco, Starwood Corporation, the Ritz Carlton group, and the U.S. Social Security Administration. He recently was voted #1 by the readership of Huffington Post as the Most Inspirational Leader on Social Media.

A published author on leadership and emotional intelligence, Steve resides near Seattle with his wife Julie where they enjoy time with their three adult children and six grandchildren.