The board has approved the new leadership programme. The chief executive tells the room it marks a new era of openness and that he wants people to challenge him. Around the room, heads nod.
What is being said is something else to what is being felt.
The people nodding remember the last few colleagues who challenged senior leadership, and where those colleagues are now. They will attend every session, complete every exercise, and say nothing that matters. The programme will cost a great deal, and a year from now the board will conclude that leadership development doesn't have the desired impact.
Most people in that room could not tell you emotion was being spoken at all. A few would sense the tension and mistake sensing it for understanding it. That is the gap between emotional awareness and emotional intelligence. Awareness notices the room went quiet. Intelligence knows why, and what it will cost.
The hardest part to see is that the chief executive is speaking too. His invitation to be challenged is sincere, but he has failed to see the lack of trust that sits between him, his board and SLT. He cannot hear that, any more than the equity partner who won't delegate can hear his own need for perfection, or the sales leader who softens feedback until it says nothing constructive can hear that the person he is protecting is himself.
This is a skill, not a trait, and seniority has no bearing on it.
Technology fills the strategy documents, but every strategy is still delivered by people in rooms like this one, all run by emotion. Developing enough emotional intelligence to change what happens in them takes six to twelve months, with real work between sessions, and there is no shortcut.
It has to start with the people at the very top because the most expensive emotion in any room will be the one its owner cannot hear or see and therefore understand.
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The Rider and the Elephant
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