emotional wisdom

Quoted from: Bennis and Nanus, 1985, pp 61 - 63

Positive self-regard is related to maturity, but we'd prefer the phrase ""emotional wisdom"" to ""maturity."" Maturity sounds too much like the point where one outgrows childish behavior. But our leaders seemed to retain many of the positive characteristics of the child: enthusiasm for people, spontaneity, imagination and an unlimited capacity to learn new behavior. Emotional wisdom, as we've come to understand it, reflects itself in the way people relate to others. In the case of our ninety leaders, they used five key skills:

1. The ability to accept people as they are, not as you would like them to be. In a way, this can be seen as the height of wisdom-to ""enter the skin"" of someone else, to understand what other people are like on their terms, rather than judging them.
2. The capacity to approach relationships and problems in terms of the present rather than the past. Certainly it is true that we can learn from past mistakes. But using the present as a takeoff point for trying to make fewer mistakes seemed to be more productive for our leaders- and certainly was more psychologically sound than rehashing things that are over.
3. The ability to treat those who are close to you with the same courteous attention that you extend to strangers and casual acquaintances. The need for this skill is often most obvious- and lacking-in our relationships with our own families. But it is equally important at work. We tend to take for granted those to whom we are closest. Often we get so accustomed to seeing them and hearing from them that we lose our ability to listen to what they are really saying or to appreciate the quality- good or bad-of what they are doing. Personal feelings of friendship or hostility or simple indifference interfere.
There are two aspects to this problem of overfamiliarity. The first is that of not hearing what is being said: selective deafness leads to misunderstandings, misconceptions, mistakes. The second is the matter of feedback we fail to provide to indicate our attentiveness.
4. The ability to trust others, even if the risk seems great. A withholding of trust is often necessary for self-protection. But the price is too high if it means always being on guard, constantly suspicious of others. Even an overdose of trust that at times involves the risk of being deceived or disappointed is wiser, in the long run, than taking it for granted that most people are incompetent or insincere.

The ability to do without constant approval and recognition from others. Particularly in a work situation, the need for constant approval can be harmful and counterproductive. It should not really matter how many people like leaders. The important thing is the quality of work that results from collaborating with them. The emotionally wise leader realizes that this quality will suffer when undue emphasis is placed on being a ""good guy."" More important, it is a large part of the leader's job to take risks. And risks by their very nature cannot be pleasing to everyone.