Amygdala
Hijack 
Emotional Intelligence: Leadership’s “X” Factor
The case of the frozen
police officer – a true story
Two young police officers are called to a domestic incident
by a neighbor who is worried about the screams coming from next door.
This is the sort of situation the police hate. What will
they find when they get there? Will
it be a violent crime? Or will
they simply be abused by everyone in the house?
As the two police officers arrive, a frightened six year old
boy runs out into the garden. Rushing into the living room, they find a sobbing
woman being threatened by a man with a kitchen knife. The younger of the two police officers
is really scared; he’s never faced an armed man before. He turns to his colleague to see what
they should do. But his colleague has frozen.
He’s the victim of an Amygdala Hijack. The frozen police officer
is in the grip of a sudden surge of adrenalin that has stopped him dead in his
tracks. But this is no help to his young colleague and, after the adrenaline
stops flowing, he will regret not having done something.
It’s a
neurological thing
|
A quick biology lesson |
|
The amygdala is an almond shaped cluster of interconnected
structures perched above the brain stem near the bottom of the limbic ring. |
End of
lesson
All you really need to know is that the amygdala is the
brain’s specialist for emotional matters. Think of it as an emotional storm
trooper, able to hijack the brain, causing it to flood the body with stress hormones
geared to ‘fight’ or ‘flight’.
So
what happened next?
Fortunately, there’s a lot more to
a brain than the amygdala, otherwise we’d all be quivering wrecks of emotion. In this case, the colleague of the
frozen police officer realized that what he was seeing in the knifeman was
fear. The police officer reports saying
quietly, without thinking about it:
Are you OK, sir?’ It’s almost funny, really – a silly question. But suddenly the anger drained out of
the knifeman and he started crying. No weapons. No shouts of: Just the question: “PUT
THE KNIFE DOWN NOW” “Are
YOU OK, sir?” It is good policing and an example
of how the brain’s prefrontal lobes act as a manager for the emotions and help
us decide how to use the range of emotional tricks up our sleeves. It is when to praise, when to persuade,
when to laugh uproariously at your client’s unfunny joke for this police officer,
when to show empathy. These emotional skills and our
ability to use them are what we call Emotional Intelligence (EI). What is
Emotional Intelligence? In the words of EI guru Dr. Daniel
Goleman, Emotional Intelligence is: ‘the capacity for recognizing our own
feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions
well in ourselves and in our relationships.’ In this case, the police officer acknowledged his feelings and
inexperience, but wasn’t overwhelmed by them. Indeed, he took the lead when he realized that his colleague
had ‘frozen’. He was demonstrating
some of the elements that are so important in Emotional Intelligence: emotional
self awareness, empathy, and influence. Self-Awareness Knowing your
emotions and their effects Self-Management Knowing how to
manage your emotions, how to keep disruptive impulses in check; Being
flexible and comfortable with new ideas Social
Awareness An ability to
listen, to be persuasive, to collaborate, to nurture relationships Relationship
Management An ability to
influence others, handle conflict, develop, lead and work with others EQ versus IQ These days we can take a good
level of technical knowledge and intellectual ability in a given job for
granted. These are qualities related to our IQ. Our Emotional Quotient (EQ)
measures personal qualities such as empathy, adaptability and persuasiveness. These qualities are becoming more and
more important in a world fragmented by technology and changing work
structures. How important? EQ is estimated to be twice as
important as IQ in determining future career success. And it can
count for even more. Would you rather be clever or
successful? Did that annoying classroom genius
go on to even greater success in later life? Probably not… A study of Harvard graduates showed that their
entrance results (in other words their IQ) had a negative or zero correlation
with their future career success. Okay, so they were all bright to start with,
but what set them apart was their Emotional Intelligence. It’s a growing phenomenon. The
emotional abilities of today’s children are dropping even as their IQ is rising.
So Emotional Intelligence is
becoming more and more important as a way of recognizing tomorrow’s leaders. A low level of Emotional Intelligence
can actually hold you back; think of the boss who loses their temper. Out of control emotions can render the smartest
people stupid. The smart thing to
do is work on your EQ. The latest in
a long line of great thinking It’s
not a fad, it’s not a trend. EI is
the result of a long history of analyzing social intelligence (otherwise known
as ‘what makes people tick’). Since
the beginning of the last century, great minds have been looking at how we
interact and how we can measure skills that we now define as Emotional
Intelligence. From E. L.
Thorndike, who identified the concept of social intelligence in 1920 to the
pioneering work of Daniel Goleman of Harvard University in the 1990s, EI
research has come a long way. We
now have the ability not just to evaluate, but also to develop behaviors
associated with Emotional & Social Intelligence; the behaviors that have a
direct impact on our effectiveness in the workplace and as leaders. Another Emotional Intelligence guru is
Dr Richard Boyatzis. His research showed that in a survey of 2000 supervisors
and managers of 16 abilities that distinguished stars, all but two were
emotional. In fact, the more
people advanced in their career the more important their emotional and social
skills became in distinguishing superior performance. Richard developed a theory of learning
and change performance that is designed to predict effectiveness. This theory has been widely tested
around the world, both academically and in the workplace. Further
evidence of the impact of emotional intelligence on performance was provided by
Robert E. Kelley of Carnegie Mellon University. As reported in his book How to be a Star at Work
(1998 Times Books/Random House) and referenced by Daniel Goleman in several of
his writings on emotional intelligence, Dr. Kelley conducted research with a number
of companies that defined nine work practices that differentiate high performers
from all others. Robert Kelley’s
findings are consistent with the emotional intelligence behaviors identified by
Goleman, Boyatzis, and their associates, in addition to reinforcing the fact
that EQ is a much more accurate predictor of high performance than IQ. It’s
a growing phenomenon. The
emotional abilities of today‘s children are dropping even as their IQ is
rising. What do Winston Churchill, Richard Branson, James Cash Penney, and
Ronald Reagan have in common? They
were not exactly exceptional in school, not that it held them back. There is a
lot more to business effectiveness and leadership than brains alone. That’s why
recognizing the value of Emotional Intelligence is helping businesses the world
over become more productive and happier places to work. We’ve
all come across someone who’s ‘lost it’ in a meeting, or gone blank at a presentation,
or who creates a bad atmosphere in a team. Out of control emotions can have a massive impact on how
others perceive you, but the question is how much does this behavior cost the
business and how much might raising EI levels do for your business? Learning to
understand yourself and how others see you by developing your EI is the key to
improving your chances of success. Out
of control emotions can have a massive impact on how others perceive you. There
are numerous studies and statistics to show we’re not making this up, but here
are a few highlights. Studies have shown: Software Engineers with high levels of EI can develop effective software three
times faster than others. Sales Consultants with high levels of EI generate twice the revenue of their
colleagues. Experienced Partners in a multinational consulting firm who were assessed to have
high levels of EI delivered $1.2 million more profit from their accounts than
other partners – a 139% difference A National Furniture Retailer found that sales people hired based on EI had half the
drop out rate during their first year. Managers of an
oil refinery who participated in EI coaching over two years showed a 20%
increase in performance compared to those who did not participate
More
Evidence There’s
a clear link between depression and illness, or optimism and recovery. Healthy relationships between medical
staff and their patients lead to healthy people. For
example, at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York elderly orthopedic
patients, who were given therapy for depression in addition to normal care,
left the hospital an average of two days earlier, saving $1,000 per patient. Other
studies into the doctor/patient relationship have shown that empathy in the
doctor reduces the chances of a hospital being sued for negligence. A study of nurses and nurse managers
found that there were significantly better outcomes – staff turnover;
professional practice behaviors; staff, patient and doctor satisfaction; as
well as clinical indicators – where the nurse managers created a good group
work climate using emotional competencies. In another
demonstration of the value of Emotional Intelligence, a test group of insurance
salespeople were provided coaching on the emotional intelligence competencies,
while a control group was provided high quality product and sales
training. After seven months the
company converted all of the salespeople to EI coaching because of the
significant difference in sales results achieved by the test group. Can EI be learned? EI can
be learned only if a person wants to learn. The fact is that there is a lot people can do to improve or
understand their Emotional intelligence. It’s not easy and it takes time and commitment to break old
habits and establish new ones. But
it can be done. People who improve their EI have things in common: We’ve learned from the masters – now it’s your turn With the help of Emotional Intelligence gurus like Dr Goleman and
Dr Boyatzis, Hay Group had developed a 360 degree feedback survey and
development tools that can help people understand and improve their Emotional
and Social Intelligence. With a wealth of experience to draw on, Heartland Management
Consultancy constantly creates innovative ways to help clients improve
performance and achieve their strategic intent. We do not believe in ‘one size fits all’ solutions to
consulting and development, so help you create something that is right for your
organization. For more details on diagnostic feedback tools, executive
development, gaining strategic focus, or Emotional Intelligence, please contact
us.