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Empathy,
Understanding the
Leader’s Mind, Active
Listening, and Emotional
Intelligence
 Today
 Topic 1 Mental Models
 Topic 2 Emotional Intelligence
 Topic 3 Active listening
 Excercise

 Review Contract Review.

 Objectives
 Recognize how mental models guide your behaviour and
relationships.
 Engage in independent thinking by staying mentally alert, thinking
critically, and being mindful rather than mindless.
 Break out of categorized thinking patterns and open your mind to
new ideas and multiple perspectives.
 Begin to apply systems thinking and personal mastery to your
activities at school or work.
 Exercise emotional intelligence, including being self-aware,
managing your emotions, motivating yourself, displaying
empathy, and managing relationships.
 Developing people skills.
 Understanding the Importance of empathy and active listening in
connecting with others
 Assess the distinction between hearing and listening.
 Image Credit: http://share.nanjing-school.com/

Emotional Intelligence
Understanding the Leader’s Mind
Topic 1 Mental models
What are Mental Models?
 As a leader, you must
become aware of your
Theories held mental models and how
about specific they affect your thinking
systems in the and behaviour.
world and  Mental models can be
their expected helpful but if blindly
behaviour followed, the can limit us.
 Learn to regard your
assumptions as
temporary ideas and
strive to expand your
mindset.
 Successful Leaders Always
Challenge Their Mental Models
 Personal values, attitudes, beliefs, biases, and
prejudices can all affect one’s mental models.
 A person can be a prisoner of his/her mental
models.
 Assumptions play an important role in shaping a
leader’s mental model but one can examine
assumptions and shift mental models when needed.

Watc
h
A Leader Challenges a Mental Model video
 4 Pillars of a Leader’s Mind
These 4 disciplines provide a foundation that can
help leaders examine their mental models and
overcome blind spots that may limit their
leadership effectiveness and organizational
success.

1. Independent thinking (critical thinking)

2. Open-mindedness
3. Systems thinking
4. Personal Mastery
 The Leader’s Mind
1.Independent thinking
 Questioning assumptions and interpreting data and
events according to one’s own beliefs, ideas, and
thinking, rather than pre-established rules set by
others (non-conformity).
 Independent thinking requires a skill called
Mindfulness: The process of continuously re-
evaluating previously learned ways of doing things
in the context of new information and changing
circumstances. It is the opposite of mindlessness,
which means blindly accepting rules and labels
created by others.

9
 Independent Thinking &
Mindfulness
 When leaders have mindfulness, they think
critically and:
 question all assumptions
 seek divergent opinions
 try to give balanced consideration to all
options
 continue to learn – “learning leader”

Watch the video

 The Leader’s Mind
2. Open-Mindedness:
Leaders must be open, put
aside preconceptions…they must
adopt a “beginner’s mind” –
open and innocent like a child…
less likely to reject anything
We admire leaders who
awaken our curiosity, challenge
us to break out of outmoded
mental models, and encourage
openness to new, inspiring ideas.
Look at Pike’s Syndrome…
(read the notes below the slide)
Watc
No Mental Boxes Here... h Image credit: Hugh Holland

video
 The Leader’s Mind
3. Systems Thinking
The ability to see the
synergy of the whole rather
than just the separate
elements of a system.
It is the relationship among
the parts that form a whole
system – not the parts
themselves

Systems thinking is a
mental discipline and
framework for seeing
patterns and
interrelationships.
Watch the video Image credit: Skateboarding Hall of Fame, Simi Valley

!
 The Leader’s Mind
4. Personal Mastery
The discipline of personal growth and personal learning:

Personal Vision: have a strong personal vision.

Facing Reality: have a commitment to the truth; removing

unwanted mental models, acknowledge mistakes, be open to the
process not just the goal.

Holding Creative Tension: using the tension found in the gap

between the vision and reality.
 Move toward the dream! Don’t diminish the dream to relieve the
tension!

People with a high level of personal mastery live in continual

“learning mode.”
 Developing the Leader’s
Mind
 All of these elements of the leader’s mind
are interrelated.
 Independent thinking and open-mindedness
improve systems thinking and enable personal
mastery, helping leaders shift and expand their
mental models.
 Since they are all interdependent, leaders who
work to improve even one element of their
mental approach can move toward mastering
their minds and becoming more effective.
 Emotional Intelligence
Now that we understand key elements of a
successful leader’s mind we can explore Emotional
Intelligence.
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Emotional Intelligence -
EQ
“Emotional intelligence is
your ability to recognize and
understand emotions in
yourself and others, and your
ability to use this awareness
to manage your behaviour
and relationships.”
Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves
Emotional intelligence 2.0

16
 EQ, IQ and Personality
 There is no known
connection between IQ,
personality and emotional
intelligence; you can’t
predict emotional
intelligence based on how
smart someone is.
 Intelligence is your ability to
learn, and it’s the same at
age 15 as it is at age 50.
Personality is also
hardwired.
 In contrast, emotional
intelligence, is a flexible set
of skills that can be acquired
and improved with practice.
Emotional
intelligence is
the foundation
for many key
critical skills—
it impacts
most
everything
you say and
do.
 EQ in the Workplace?
 EI theory tells us that success is keenly influenced by
personal qualities such as perseverance, self-control and
the ability to get along with others.
 Workers with high EQ work better in teams, adjust to
change well, are more adaptable.
 It has been shown that IQ is less important than EQ in
determining success in the workplace.
 If a person lacks emotional development, he/she/they is
less likely to succeed.
 In today’s organizations, competence is important but it
must come with emotional intelligence.
 Is EQ important in the
workplace?
 Research by the respected Center for Creative
Leadership (CCL - serves more than 20,000 individuals and
2,000 organizations, including more than 80 of the Fortune 100
companies)
found that the primary causes of
executive derailment involve deficiencies in
emotional competence.
 Research found that the three main reasons for
failure are:
 difficulty in handling change,
 inability to work well in a team,
 poor interpersonal relations.
 21

EQ and Earning Power

The workplace rewards emotional intelligence: credit TalentSmart

Our Emotions…
 Anger: fury, outrage, resentment,
exasperation, indignation, animosity,
irritability, hostility, violence

 Sadness: grief, sorrow, gloom, melancholy,

self-pity, loneliness, dejection, despair,
depression

 Fear: anxiety, apprehension, nervousness,

concern, wariness, dread, fright, terror, panic

 Enjoyment: happiness, joy, relief,

contentment, delight, amusement, pride, thrill,
gratification, satisfaction, euphoria

 Love: acceptance, respect, friendliness, trust,

kindness, affinity, devotion, adoration,
infatuation

 Surprise: shock, astonishment, amazement,

wonder

 Disgust: contempt, disdain, scorn,

abhorrence, aversion, distaste, revulsion

 Shame: guilt, embarrassment, chagrin,

remorse, humiliation, regret, mortification,
contrition
Are there good and bad
emotions?
 Feel Your Emotions
 Emotions are neutral - they are neither good or bad
 Do not resist your feelings nor simply react to them.
 Trying to control or deny emotions can backfire and
make us miserable.
 Acting out without thinking can also cause problems.
 Experience the emotion and use your rational brain to
help you determine how to behave in response to it.

 Psychological well-being is not determined by the

presence of an emotion but rather the ability to
experience a rich diversity of all emotions. Whether
or not an emotion is “good” or “bad” seems to have
very little to do with the emotion itself, but rather
how mindfully we manage and respond to it.
Dimensions of Emotional
Intelligence
Emotional
intelligence
can and
should be
learned and
developed!
 Rational vs. Emotional
Brain
 The pathway for emotional
intelligence starts in the
brain, at the spinal cord,
travel through the limbic
system, the place where
emotions are generated. So,
we have an emotional
reaction to events before
our rational mind is able to
engage.
 Emotional intelligence
requires effective
communication between the
rational and emotional
centers of the brain.
 28

Increasing EQ:
 Take responsibility for your life and mistakes –
encourages respect from others – relationship
management-be assertive – be proactive
 Be Mindful – manage stress - know yourself – try
yoga and meditation – self-awareness
 Use Empathy: being able to put yourself in other
people’s shoes and understand their perspective –
reduce negative emotions
 Positive Relationship Management: the ability to
connect with others, build positive and productive
relationships – bounce back from adversity
 Emotionally Intelligent Leader…

 help followers grow and develop

 appreciate and enhance followers’ self-worth
 help meet followers’ needs and achieve their
personal goals

 Emotional contagion – positive or negative

emotions are contagious just like a virus. If the
leader exhibits one or the other, the followers are
most likely to follow the same way.
 Think about times you have been really negative
with your team or friends. What is the likely
result?
Emotional Intelligence Test
To find out more about your
own EQ, take the test:
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/ar
ticle/ei-quiz.htm
 Learn How To Connect With People

Kat is a great cook, but her "people" skills hold her

back. Without them, she’ll have a hard time
getting promoted. What can she do about it?
 People Skills
 Many people will only go so far in their careers
They have excellent technical abilities but they
may have a hard time getting along with team
members, because their people skills are less
developed.
 Employees with poor people skills often find
themselves in the middle of repeated conflict. In
addition to being exhausting and stressful, it can
destroy the possibility for advancement.
 But people skills, just like technical skills, can be
developed!
Improving People Skills
 Developing an empathic
approach is an important
effort you can make
toward improving your
people skills.
 When you understand
others, people are more
apt to want to
understand you – and
this is how you can start
to build cooperation,
collaboration, and
teamwork.
 Empathy
 Empathy is part of social awareness - being able
to recognize emotions in others, and being able
to "put yourself in another person's shoes" –
understanding the other person's perspective
and reality.
 There are many ways to develop empathy and
we are going to focus on ACTIVE LISTENING
What is the difference
between hearing and
listening?

Watch the video

 Listening

Listening
Activity
 “Listening: the process of receiving,
constructing meaning from, and responding
to spoken and/or non-verbal messages. ”
– International Listening Association
 Why We Listen
How well we listen significantly impacts on your
effectiveness at work, and on the quality of your
relationships with others. We listen:
 to obtain information.
 to solve problems.
 for enjoyment.
 to learn.
 to share in another’s experience.
 to build rapport and relationships.
 Specific Listening Types

Critical Therapeutic
Listening or
Information
al Listening Empathetic
Listening to Listening
Evaluate and
Analyse Listening to
Listening to
Understand
Learn
Feeling and
Emotion

Listening types are defined by the goal of the listening. There

can be more than one goal involved.
 Verbal Signs of Active
Listening
 Reflection - paraphrasing what Reflection example:
is said reflects the speaker's
experiences and emotional
response to those experiences. Speaker:

 Clarification - ask relevant “I just don't understand my chef.

questions or making statements One minute she says one thing
and the next minute she says
shows you are interested and
the opposite.”
ensure that you have understood
the message of the speaker Listener:
 Summarizing - follows “You feel confused about what
clarification - is a review of what she expects from you?”
has taken place during the whole
conversation, the aim being to
confirm understanding of the See notes below for clarification
message, not judge, to interpret examples
or debate.
 Effective Listening
 An effective listener will listen not only to what is
being said, but also to what is left unsaid or only
partially said.
 Effective listening involves observing body
language and noticing inconsistencies between
verbal and non-verbal messages.
 Example: What might it really mean if someone
says they agree with your decision but is clenching
their fists at their side?

 Listening is not simply using your ears, but also

your eyes.
 Listening

 Listen with your ears – what is being said, and what

tone is being used?
 Listen with your eyes – what is the person doing
with his or her body while speaking?
 Listen with your instincts – do you sense that the
person is not communicating something important?
 Listen with your heart – what do you think the other
person feels?
Not so active listening... Watch
the
Active Listening… video
s

• What is Active
Listening?
• How do we
demonstrate it?
• Why is it important?
 To improve listening and understanding we must
avoid:

 becoming distracted by whatever else may be

going on around you,
 becoming distracted by forming counter
arguments that you'll make when the other person
stops speaking.
 becoming bored and losing focus

It takes discipline.
 Purpose of Listening
 As a listener, your role is to understand what is
being said.

Discuss.
Non-Verbal Signs of Active
Listening
 Face the speaker
 Make eye contact - at least 50% of the time
 Smile - affirming to the speaker
 Posture - lean forward slightly; shows interest
 Mirroring - reflect the speakers expressions or energy
 This includes nodding or frowning - follow speaker cues

 Avoid fidgeting, looking at a clock or watch, doodling,

etc.
 Cornell Method: an aid to
active listening
Set up your page following
example at right.
 Write notes.
 The large box to the right is
for writing notes.

 Recall and clarify.

 After presentation/discussion,
pull out main ideas, key
points, dates, and people,
questions and write these in
the left column.

 Summarize.
 Write a summary of the main
ideas in the bottom section to
ensure comprehension.
 Barriers to Effective
Listening
 Excessive talking
 Trying to listen to more than one conversation at a time, this
includes having the television or radio on while attempting to
listen to somebody talk; being on the phone to one person and
talking to another person in the same.
 Being easily distracted - being preoccupied with other matters
 Being hungry, thirsty, tired, etc.

 Selective Listening - only getting part of the message

 Advising
 Jumping in before fully understanding

 Having a closed mind

 Prejudices and biases, unhelpful assumptions
 You are not interested in the topic/issue being discussed
 K.I.S.S.
 Talking too much does Tips to overcome this habit:
not encourage effective  Think before you speak - don't
communication. speak if you have nothing
important to say.
 People tend to avoid  Practice self-control. Allow the
interacting with a other person to speak.
someone who talks
 Avoid interrupting when the
excessively without other person is speaking.
without listening.
 Be aware of indulging in useless
 Speakers who talk too talk for the sake of talking.
much can bore the  Practice brevity.
listener  Pay attention to cues from
 Excessive talking can listeners while speaking. Be
aware of how they are reacting.
also be seen as
aggressive.
 Keys to Poor Listener Effective Listener
Effective
Listening
.
Ex 9.4
Listen actively Keys
Is passive,to Effective
laid back Listening
Asks questions;
what is said
paraphrases

Finds areas of Tunes out “boring” subjects Looks for opportunities, new
interest Resists difficult material in learning and exercising the
favour of light, recreational mind
material

Resists Easily gives in to distractions Fights distractions; knows how

distractions to concentrate

Capitalizes on Tends to daydream with slow Challenges, anticipates,

thought being speakers summarizes; listens between
faster than lines to tone of voice
speech
Judges content, Tunes out if delivery is poor Judges content; skips over
not delivery delivery errors
Don’t be reactive Has preconceptions; argues Listens to ensure
comprehension before
responding
Be responsive Is minimally involved Nods; shows interest, positive
feedback
Photo credit: theodysseyonline.com
The Last Lecture
Randy Pausch
October 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008

53
 Next Class

 Mini Communication review presentations

completed
 Verbal and Non-Verbal Communications
 Filler words and how to avoid them
 Apply skills to achieve effective communication
 Leadership vs Management
 Effective leaders
 Leadership styles, traits and theories