Introduction

Few in her organization were surprised when Sierra received her big promotion into a position of leadership. She was an intelligent, hardworking high achiever. She was good with people, and in her recent stint as acting supervisor, she had been able to consistently motivate her team to go above and beyond expectations.

When she formally stepped into her new position, though, Sierra found herself, for the first time in her career, feeling poorly equipped for the challenges ahead. Much to her surprise, she discovered that the old skills that had raised her to this position didn't fully prepare her for her new leadership role. Her extensive knowledge and adeptness with the technical side of her work provided her with few strategies to improve her communication, motivation, or support for her team.

As her former sense of being "part of the team" dissipated, she began to see that the "team" wasn't a single, organized unit with a single perspective. It was a group of individuals, each of whom had their own needs and priorities.

Bill was extremely social and enthusiastic. He thrived on conversation and generating ideas at a blazing pace. Robert was the opposite. When he did speak up, his ideas were always precise and articulate, but he often spent the whole meeting in silence, anxious to get back to some solitude and independent work time.

Mary fell somewhere between the two. Like Bill, she was always happy to support her fellow team members and was quick to point out when others had done great work. However, like Robert, she was quiet in meetings. Too often, she was simply unwilling to give her opinion on the topic at hand.

Each of these team members had years of experience and had proven time and again their value in their respective positions. They all had advanced degrees and were considered experts in their specialized areas. Each of them spoke English as well as other languages. Yet, it seemed to Sierra that whenever they were in the room together, none of them were able to understand what the others were saying.

Everyone had their own set ways of tackling their responsibilities, and each way was different from how Sierra approached her work. She was strong-willed, self-assured, and hyperfocused on getting things done quickly. She believed that success depends on building momentum. Yet, these same factors that had inspired her success didn't seem to matter to anyone on her team.

Sierra needed this group of individuals to come together as a team, but she struggled to find the right language to make that happen. She couldn't expect Bill, Robert, and Mary to work together, share ideas, or cut through the rising level of frustration until she could help them explain why they felt uncomfortable with how the team currently communicated.

She knew there was a problem in how her team related to one another, but she couldn't quite say what it was or how to solve it.

Do any of these issues sound familiar?

Sierra's story isn't uncommon. Moving into a position of leadership is often a shock. Many of us, when we get that big promotion to a supervisory or management position, don't know what to expect next. Before being promoted into a leadership position, many of us focused on being the best individual contributor we could be. Now we're required to not only manage ourselves but also to understand how others think and feel. We have to be able to encourage everyone to make the most meaningful contributions. Our new job is as much about creating a space for people to work comfortably and efficiently as it is about the technical know-how that got us the job in the first place.

Whether you are just starting your leadership journey or you've been a leader for years, your future success will largely be determined by how well you work with people and how well you inspire them to work with you.

The People Problem

Leading effectively can be difficult for the experienced manager as well as the newcomer. Often, those who have spent decades in leadership positions still struggle to communicate effectively and inspire others across their organization.

Consider James Patrick, who runs his own IT firm. Over the years, his leadership choices led to a serious delegation problem.

James struggled with the people side of his job. Communication wasn't his strength. He felt most comfortable tackling the technical side of his work. Because of this personality preference, his team leaders would bring him technical problems to solve that really should have stayed off his desk.

Instead of sending those problems back to his team, James decided that assisting with these issues would allow him to show his commitment and support without stepping out of his communication comfort zone.

In the end, no one was served well by this arrangement. Senior members of James's team were passing off their responsibilities to such an extent that James lacked the time to attend to more strategic issues. Those in supporting roles were confused about whether to make their own decisions or to ask James for direction on their tasks.

In short, James's office was dealing with some major dysfunction.

No one created this dysfunction on purpose, but with his willingness to take on the technical tasks for his own comfort, James was largely to blame. Managers who reported to James thought he preferred to remain directly involved in every problem. James thought he was making a positive contribution to the work environment. While there were clear problems with this arrangement, no one quite knew how to address them or even how to start a conversation about them.

In both Sierra's and James's situations, the problem wasn't lack of technical knowledge or experience. The problem was people: how to talk to them, how to encourage them, how to organize them, and how to empower them.

The people problem is present in every workplace, and it is a hard one to solve alone. This is true no matter how you came into your position of leadership or how long you've been in it.

Maybe you're the senior executive who would be more productive if you delegated more. Maybe you're the newly promoted supervisor who has to influence the technical specialists to work together more productively. Maybe you're a team leader who wants to better manage all the differing points of view on your team.

No matter your industry, your position, or your experience, your struggles come down to the same people problems:

• How do I make decisions that positively influence everyone?
• How do I ensure that people understand what I am trying to communicate?
• How do I steer conflict and disagreement in a positive direction?
• How do I encourage everyone on the team to speak up and share ideas?

In a nutshell: How do I get this group of vastly different individuals to work as a team and succeed?

Finding the Framework to Make It Work

There are many complexities woven into our work relationships. The solutions to both the simple and the difficult issues, however, often come from a novel place: our emotions.

The modern work environment is in desperate need of emotional intelligence, which, as Psychology Today1 puts it, is "the ability to identify and manage one's own emotions, as well as the emotions of others." Workers in America today spend as much as 85 percent of their working hours interacting with their peers.2 They go to meetings together, flesh out strategies over the phone, and send updates over email. Their work is the work of compromise, camaraderie, and communication.

And yet, the skills that would enhance their ability to communicate and work together are often glossed over by their organization and their leaders. Instead, businesses implement new systems and hardware in the pursuit of increased productivity. But by neglecting to work on communication and team skills, they continue to suboptimize their results.

Developing emotional intelligence in the workplace outweighs most other skill development options. In one study by TalentSmart, it was found to account for 58 percent of job success.3 It is urgently needed in almost every position in every industry. And it doesn't get the attention it deserves. Daniel Goleman, one of the pioneers in the field of emotional intelligence, analyzed the competency models used by major organizations and categorized those competencies into technical skills, IQ, and emotional intelligence. He found that emotional intelligence was shown to be twice as important a driver of outstanding performance as either of the other categories.4 This held true across a broad range of job positions and became even more important for success as leaders moved into higher levels of responsibility inside the organization.

If you can learn to harness your emotional intelligence enough to understand how and why you behave as you do-and how and why others behave as they do-you can adjust your actions and reactions to create the space for...