THE SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADER

The human resources department of a large corporation arranged a daylong workshop by a famous expert in the company’s area of specialty. A larger-than-expected crowd showed up, and at the last minute the event was switched to a larger room, one that could hold everyone but was poorly equipped. As a result, the people in the back had trouble seeing or hearing the speaker. At the morning break, a woman sitting in the back marched up to the head of human resources shaking with rage and complaining that she could neither glimpse the screen on which the speaker’s image was being projected, nor make out his words.

“I knew that all I could do was listen, empathize, acknowledge her problem, and tell her I’d do my best to fix things,” the head of human resources told me. “At the break she saw me go to the audiovisual people and at least try to get the screen higher. I couldn’t do much at all about the bad acoustics.

“I saw that woman again at the end of the day. She told me she couldn’t really hear or see all that much better, but now she was relaxed about it. She really appreciated my hearing her out and trying to help.”

When people in an organization feel angry and distressed, a leader, like that HR head, can at least listen with empathy, show concern, and make a goodwill effort to change things for the better.

Whether or not that effort solves the problem, it does some good emotionally. By attending to someone’s feelings, the leader helps metabolize them, so the person can move on rather then continuing to seethe.

The leader need not necessarily agree with the person’s position or reaction. But simply acknowledging their point of view, then apologizing if necessary or otherwise seeking a remedy, defuses some of the toxicity, rendering destructive emotions less harmful. In a survey of employees at seven hundred companies, the majority said that a caring boss was more important to them than how much they earned.⁶⁴ This finding has business implications beyond just making people feel good. The same survey found that employees’ liking for their boss was a prime driver of both productivity and the length of time they stayed at that job. Given the choice, people don’t want to work for a toxic boss at nearly any wage – except to get enough “screw you” money to quit with security.

Socially intelligent leadership starts with being fully present and getting in synch. Once a leader is engaged, then the full panoply of social intelligence can came into play, from sensing how people feel and why, to interacting smoothly enough to move people into a positive state. There is no magic recipe for what to do in every situation, no five-steps-to-social-intelligence-at-work. But whatever we do as we interact, the single measure of its success will be where in the inverted U each person ends up.

Businesses are on the front lines of applying social intelligence. As people work longer and longer hours, businesses loom as their substitute family, village, and social network – yet most of us can be tossed out at the will of management. That inherent ambivalence means that in more and more organizations, hope and fear run rampant.

Excellence in people management cannot ignore these subterranean affective currents: they have real human consequences, and they matter for people’s abilities to perform at their best. And because emotions are so contagious, every boss at every level needs to remember he or she can make matters either worse or better.