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This week’s episode of The Better Human Project features Hassan Kamel, a developer of leaders and organizations.
Our conversation focused on understanding people, our behavioral tendencies, and how emotional intelligence can help us be better leaders of ourselves and ultimately lead to better teams and organizations.
Here are 4 takeaways from Hassan:
Counterbalance, Don’t “Tone It Down”
This refreshing take flies in the face of the average “take it down a notch” advice from a leadership guru.
Rather than “doing less” of a strength, the EQ-i 2.0 approach is to counterbalance it with a complimentary behavior - something that represent the opposite end of the behavioral spectrum.
Here is a chart that displays all 15 EQ tendencies along with 3 complimentary behaviors that we can leverage to counterbalance our strengths.
The 3 Levels of Empathy
Empathy, not to be confused with sympathy ( = same path), refers to our ability to understand what others are feeling/experiencing.
There are three levels of empathy:
Cognitive Empathy = to understand their feelings
Emotional Empathy = to share their feelings (emotional connection)
Compassionate Empathy = Not only do we understand, even feel the other person’s feelings, but we’re moved to help or otherwise get involved. One of the most common manifestations of this would be to cook a meal for someone who is grieving so they don’t have to worry about cooking.
Hassan covers this in great detail on the podcast. I suggest listening to the full interview —> I’ve included links below to popular podcast platforms. The empathy conversation starts just before the 29:00 mark.
Drivers and Drainers
We all have tasks and duties that either drain us or energize us.
Awareness of how things impact our energy is the first step.
Step 2 = Do more of the former, and less of the latter.
If/when possible, delegate or outsource the things that drain our energy. (Realize that this might not always be possible, but the goal is to work towards being able to do less and less of the things that drain us.)
Being Tool Agnostic
The law of the instrument, otherwise known as Maslow’s hammer is a cognitive bias that involves an over-reliance on a familiar tool.
“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” — Maslow/Kaplan/Baruch/Buddha/Twain/Unknown
Anytime the topic of tools in the toolbox arises, I like to use the analogy of a master carpenter. This master not only possesses all the tools, but more importantly, knows how and when to use tool to drive the ideal results.
Sure, we can build a perfectly house with nothing but a hammer and nails. But imagine the house we could build if we knew how and when to use every single tool in that carpenter’s toolbox!
Hassan’s suggestion to be tool agnostic is reminder that our true commitment is to the result, not the tool used to deliver the result.
The full episode:
Blog on my website (includes more images from EQi-2.0)
Pursue Progress,
Munsey