Prepare Your Leadership: Training Emotional Competencies at Work

Hello, Cadre crew. How's it going? Happy Monday. Hopefully you didn't get any snow like we did up here in Duluth. We got probably about an inch, but it is supposed to be 60 this afternoon, so that should melt away. Crazy weather in Minnesota this time of year. So as you can tell from the title, we'll be talking about emotional competencies and training. Emotional competencies. And we'll kind of define that and go through that later on. I'll give it about one more minute for folks to join us today.

Halfway through your Monday. About for me, it's 12 o' clock. Assuming it's probably halfway for most folks. Hello, Jules. Happy Monday. Okay, we can get started with our three things of three. So first, just what are. What are three things that you're feeling currently right now? Could be emotions, sensations. Just ground yourself, take a pause, reflect what is thoughts racing through your head. What is going on for you right now? Build that a little bit of awareness and just pause and reflect what is, what is.

What are you carrying throughout the day? What are three things and then what are three intentions that you have for the rest of the day? This could be using an emotion that you have maybe more productively. Maybe if you're happy then, you know, using that effectively, that's easy. But maybe if you're feeling down or stressed, maybe try to channel that into that focus that you need. Maybe it's a big project, so maybe you're stressed about a big project and using that stress productively. Jules. Content, calm and wishing I was outside.

Ominous. Yes. I mean, I wish I was outside now too. It's getting warmer here. I mentioned before you hopped on, Jules. We got about a inch of snow in Duluth here today, but it will be 60 and sunny out this afternoon. So I'll go out then when it's nicer. Okay, so three intentions. How are you gonna accomplish this then? How? Maybe it's. You have a meeting and you want to come across a certain way. How are you going to come across that way? What are three actionable behaviors that you can do to. To meet your intentions?

And then what are. What are your. What are three things you're grateful for? So what are three things for me from the weekend, maybe from the morning, maybe coming up this week? What are three things that we can be grateful for and broaden some positive emotions on this Monday afternoon, please. Blue skies and sun and lake of the woods. I don't know. More north than me and you're not getting anything. That's crazy. It's the lake It's a dumb lake. Love it and hate it at the same time. Okay, now we'll jump into some research that I wanted to bring to you.

This is research article titled Training Emotional Competencies at the Workplace A Systematic review and meta analysis. So meta analysis is just a culmination of everything, all the research that's been done up to this date. They put everything together, they analyze everything and can tell you what is everybody saying. So these are fun to look at. So the purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of workplace interventions and trainings with emotional competencies. So this includes emotional intelligence, mindfulness, empathy, emotion regulation, anything that has to do with emotions, they're looking at what is, what is making these work well, what outcomes do these have?

What are the good things, what are the downsides of these trainings in the workplace and interventions? So they looked at a total of. What was the total number? 77 studies across. So 3233 total participants in these 77 studies from all over the world, mostly America and the uk. And just looking at studies that focused on emotional intelligence, empathy, emotion regulation, mindfulness, all these emotional constructs in the workplace. So here are kind of seven takeaways that I have from this research on emotional intelligence.

Emotional competency interventions is their number one big finding was that emotional skills can be trained at work and not just in like therapy or school settings. So, you know, you don't need to send employees to a psychologist office or, you know, a university classroom, which has been done in the past. But structured workplace interventions, even really short brief ones, can significantly improve things like emotional intelligence, empathy and emotion regulation in employees. Another finding that they had was that the what matters more than the how.

All these things, emotional intelligence, empathy and emotion regulation. Honestly, it's kind of just psychologists putting their spin on a lot of the same topics. So it doesn't matter what you're looking at, it's just how focused and how much you go put into it is what really matters. Because a lot of these trainings incorporate the same practices, techniques, theories. So it matters more on how you do it, how much intent you have with it and focus you have with it more than what you know exactly you're doing, whether it's emotional intelligence, mindfulness, emotion regulation.

So it matters really how much you put into it. Another finding they had was all job roles, benefit managers, teachers, healthcare workers and beyond. So initially when emotions were put in the workplace, it was nurses need emotions, teachers need emotion regulation training because, you know, nurses, that bedside manner teachers needed to deal with the classrooms but they're really finding out, um, and it's not too new of news, but all professions need emotion competency training, whether it's motion intelligence, motion regulation, empathy.

Empathy is one of the biggest factors for effective leadership. Empathy and humility. So you can look a lot at. If you want to read more about that, look into Bob Hogan. Robert Hogan talks a lot about empathy and humility in leadership. So it spans from all the way from nurses to CEOs. Emotional competencies, intelligence, regulation, what you call it is important. Effects stick around, but they won't last forever with reinforcement. So what this research found was that the effects, they usually don't take an effect.

You don't see, you know, this training really you don't see improvement for about five weeks, but it does last for about three months. And after about three months you kind of need to, to re up it, you know, revisit it maybe with the team, have like a mini workshop again to continue this practice, continue the building the skills, or else it might disappear a little bit. So it usually improvement shows after five weeks, but then they start to dissipate after three months if there's no continual training with it.

Another finding that they had was that self awareness and group learning were very important factors. So with this emotional intelligence, all these emotional trainings, really self awareness was the most important factor in the training. So learning about yourself, and I've, I tell every baseball team I work with, every group that I talk to, is that I think self awareness, self awareness and controlling your attention are probably the two biggest skills that you can build as a human being. It spans across every job, every role, whether it's family, friends.

These two skills are really probably the two most important skills that you can build as a human being. And they can be built. So self awareness and then group learning. So not just having a lecture where people are listening, but sitting in a group talking about it with other people, practicing these skills with others was an important factor with building these emotional competencies. Emotional intelligence skills. They advocate for, you know, building these skills just as much as technical skills.

So we go to, we do workshops for like leadership development, we do workshops on how to use copilot. They should have more common workshops and reoccurring workshops with emotional competencies, blending learning styles. Again, this is just like the group learning, but then instead of just listening, but also listen and practice and do role playing exercises is important. And that was the major findings that they had from this big meta analysis about emotional competency training in the workplace.

So this is just emotional Regulation, emotional intelligence, mindfulness, anything that has to do with emotions, they've looked at in the workplace. And I thought my, my. I liked how it was. It didn't matter what, but just how, how intent you had, how much intent you had behind the practicing and not really what you were doing. Because there's so much, so much thrown at us, whether it's on, you know, on our phones or books. There's so many different spins on emotional competencies. Like psychologists, they do research, but then they want to sell their research, so they brand it their own way.

But, you know, it's kind of like turning. I don't know my colors too well, but it's like turning blue and green, putting it together and calling it purple. Well, blue and green already have their own thing and being taught, but now there's a purple. And now it's, you know, so much to learn. So it doesn't matter really what you. What you focus on. A lot of these practices have the same skills, techniques and theories behind them. So it's just being very intent on what on one of them and getting really good at that skill.

So that is all I have for my Cadre live today. I hope you have a great rest of your week. I hope it stays warm. As I talked about before I got. It was like an inch of snow here in Duluth this morning, but 60 degrees this afternoon. So it's. There's a lot of mixed feelings, I think, with Mother Nature right now in Duluth. So every. Hope you have a great rest of your week, and I'll see you next Monday. Thanks for joining. Bye.