HD is recognized for converting the science of emotional intelligence into pragmatic, results-oriented programs for leadership development, coaching, teambuilding, and culture change. These efforts have resulted in: improved leadership effectiveness, more productive organizational climate, enhanced teamwork, more trusting relationships, increased ability to overcome adversity and adapt to change, and greater personal motivation and commitment to excellence.

Our services are based on state-of-the-art emotional intelligence research, validated assessment tools, and best practices.  They include:

• Emotional Intelligence Assessment

• Emotional Intelligence Coaching

• Emotional Intelligence Training

HD's emotional intelligence services can help your organization:

• Identify and develop better internal leaders

• Maximize productivity, stimulating creativity and cooperation

• Create more effective teams

• Reduce turnover

• Improve the employee selection process

• Impact the bottom line

• Improve organizational culture and morale

• Increase the success of change efforts.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

While IQ and technical skills are necessary for success, emotional intelligence is what truly differentiates extraordinary leaders, individuals, teams and organizations from mediocre ones. Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to an assortment of emotional, personal, and interpersonal abilities and skills that influence one’s overall capability to effectively cope with environmental pressures and demands. Emotional intelligence plays an important role in intelligent behavior and is vital for successful performance in the workplace and personally. Emotional intelligence is what motivates us to pursue our unique potential and purpose.  It activates our innermost values and aspirations, transforming them from things we think about to how we live. It is concerned with understanding self and others, relating to people, adapting, and coping with the environment. 

EI is distinct from but complimentary to academic intelligence, the purely cognitive capacity measured by IQ.  Unlike IQ that does not significantly change over one’s life time, emotional intelligence can be taught and learned.  It requires commitment to develop one’s competencies and skills through repeated application, practice, and feedback. EI has basic components such as:

• Self-awareness.  Self-awareness is the heart of emotional intelligence. It is the foundation on which most of the other elements of emotional intelligence are built, the necessary first step toward exploring and coming to understand yourself, and toward change.  It is the ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions, and drives as well as their impact on others. Emotional self-awareness is also about knowing what motivates you, what brings you fulfillment, and what lifts your heart and fills you with energy and aliveness.
• Self-regulation.  Self-regulation or impulse control is-the ability to regulate your emotions and behavior so that you act appropriately in various situations. It involves resisting or delaying an impulse, drive, and temptation to act, responding versus reacting.
• Interpersonal skills. Interpersonal effectiveness involves being empathetic (i.e., being aware of, understanding, and appreciating the feelings of others); being a constructive, cooperative, and contributing member of your social group; and, establishing and maintaining mutually satisfying relationships.

• Adaptability.  Adaptability is the capacity to cope with environmental demands by effectively and realistically sizing up and flexibly dealing with problematic situations.  It is the ability to adjust your emotions, thoughts, and behavior to changing situations and conditions.

• Stress Tolerance.  Stress tolerance is the ability to withstand adverse events, stressful situations, and strong emotions without falling apart but by actively coping with stress.

• General Mood and Motivation.  Two factors that facilitate emotionally intelligent behavior are optimism and happiness. Optimism is the ability to look at the brighter side of life and to maintain a positive attitude even in the face of adversity.  Happiness is the ability to feel satisfied with one’s life, to enjoy oneself and others, and to have fun and express a positive mood.

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Why Is Emotional Intelligence Important?

Compelling research shows that  IQ and technical skill combined are no longer sufficient to succeed in today’s customer–focused, team-centered, and ever-changing organizational  climate.  Leaders and their organizations also need emotional  intelligence to optimize performance and maintain a competitive edge:

• Emotional intelligence influences your ability to efficiently cope with daily demands and to be successful in various areas of life.  By increasing your emotional intelligence, you become more efficient, productive, and successful. You also can create greater emotionally and physical well-being.  Further, the emotionally intelligent individual pursues goals with vision, perseverance, and energy. Research has indicated that the following EI competencies predict success at work: self-awareness, emotional resilience, decisiveness, interpersonal sensitivity, influencing skills, conscientiousness, integrity, and personal motivation.

• Research has documented that emotional intelligence is twice as critical in leadership performance as IQ and technical skill.  Successful leaders have a high emotional IQ. Emotional intelligence competencies have a positive impact on creating and sustaining a positive organizational culture.  Emotional competence also prevents executive derailment.

• Emotionally intelligent leaders are not only more successful but also create a culture that is characterized by greater morale, increased employee satisfaction and productivity, improved return on investment in change efforts, and greater success in achieving desired performance goals.

• Top performers are more productive. . . and it is mostly emotional competence that makes them that way.  A leading research firm found that for all jobs, emotional intelligence accounts for 66% of successful job performance compared to IQ and technical skills, and 85% for leaders.

• Emotional intelligence is the single most important element in a group’s performance.  The group’s emotional quotient is reflected in how effectively they collaborate.  A low group emotional quotient results in a group working dumber by not allowing people to share talents, allowing destructive discontent, domineering, and infighting, degrading performance, and stymieing progress.

• Neurological research has shown that our physiological processes are affected by what we think, feel and how we react.  It also shows that the inability to manage ourselves efficiently leads to premature aging, diminished mental clarity, and blocked access to our innate intelligence.

• Job stress has become “the 20^th century disease” and is considered a global epidemic.  Seventy five percent of all doctor visits in the US today are for stress-related disorders.  Emotional stresses include irritation, feeling unloved, frustration, frequent hurt feelings, fear of losing control, anxiety, fears and phobias, moodiness and depression. Emotionally intelligent people know how to relate to and handle stress effectively and show great resiliency in the face of setbacks.

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Emotional Intelligence Assessments

HD offers clients access to leading, validated instruments to assess the emotional intelligence of individuals and organizations.  We offer the following researched and validated emotional intelligence assessments.

The BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i).  The EQ-i is the premier scientific measure of emotional intelligence. The EQ-i measures a person’s ability to deal with daily environmental demands and pressures and helps predict one’s success in life, including professional and person growth pursuits.  The EQ-i can be used to assist in the employee recruitment and selection processes, leadership and management development as well as staff development initiatives. The EQ-i can also be used to develop a profile of your top performers and determine what skills are the most valuable to your company or particular job function.  The EQ-i is offered as an on-line assessment.

Multi-Rater EQ-i Assessment.  The EQ-i is offered in self-assessment or multi-rater formats. The multi-rater format is ideal for use in a corporate environment, where the nature of human interactions relating to leadership, team and organization development is a key component. Assessment information is used as a means for targeting specific emotional competency strengths and developmental areas and as a baseline for measuring individual progress as well as related training and organization development initiatives.

The Benchmarking Organizational Emotional Intelligence (BOEI). The BOEI survey is designed to measure the emotional intelligence level of your organization as a whole and its parts.  The BOEI focuses on the reality that organizations grow by developing the people within, making it a powerful and potentially integral component of your company’s strategic plans.

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Emotional Intelligence Coaching

While leadership always has been required from corporate executives, new leadership skills –emotional intelligence skills--are needed to meet the increased demands of the political and global environment of the 21^st century.  They include the inability to:  adapt to change and deal with set backs, be open to and respond to feedback, develop and maintain critical relationship networks, act with personal integrity and accountability, engage in effective problem solving, demonstrate empathy, inspire people, and manage one’s impulses to mention a few.  The absence of these skills is the leading cause of executive derailment.

Developing emotional intelligence is not just relevant and critical to those in leadership and management roles.  Emotional intelligence is also needed in a wide spectrum of professions that demand personal and interpersonal effectiveness as well as skill in working in a dynamic, changing organizational environment. Research has shown that individuals with a high level of emotional intelligence are more successful and live a more satisfying and fulfilled life. 

Becoming emotionally intelligent is possible for everyone—but it requires commitment and perseverance. A conceptual understanding of what it takes to be emotionally intelligent is not enough to transform yourself—your way of thinking and behaving—into an emotionally intelligent person. There is a world of difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. Enhancing your emotional intelligence requires transforming deeply ingrained and habitual behavioral patterns into actions that move you forward. Your commitment to change must be fueled by a compelling vision you have for yourself. HD’ coaching is tailored to meet your specific emotional intelligence developmental needs.  

Click here to view our emotional intelligence coaching process.

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Emotional Intelligence Training

While we offer off-the shelf training on emotional intelligence, we tailor all our programs to the unique needs of our target audience to maximize learning and on–the job application.  Our highly interactive and experiential-based courses are designed to give participants insight regarding their level of emotional competence, to provide them with a clear direction for their growth and development, and develop their skill in the full range of emotional intelligence competencies. Our training programs are highly rated and our corporate trainers are considered to be exceptional. We are currently offering the following training programs.

Introduction to Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace.  This one-day course provides an introduction to emotional intelligence. Participants complete a leading, validated assessment instrument to gain an understanding of their level of emotional intelligence and develop their understanding of foundational emotional competencies and their relevance personally and professionally.

Self-Mastery: The Emotional Dimension of Leadership Program I.  Studies on emotional intelligence indicate that people who are intellectually the brightest are often not the most successful whether in business or in their personal lives.  Self-awareness is the cornerstone of emotional and social competencies.  The knowledge leaders posses about themselves is central to improving not only their leadership and people skills but also their sense of well being in uncertain and changing times. This three-day intensive training program is aimed at developing self-awareness and social competencies. Through 360-degree emotional assessment instruments, one-on-one coaching, and direct feedback in a small, supportive group setting, participants will gain a deeper understanding of who they are, how they are perceived, and how they react to the world as well as identify emotional competency strengths and developmental needs.

Self-Mastery:  The Emotional Dimension of Leadership Program II.  This highly experiential three-day course focuses on helping participants:  1) understand their own emotional style and how it impacts their communications and relationships; 2) identify strategies to manage their emotions so that they are empowered to deal their specific circumstances and relationships with greater effectiveness; and 3) learn how to identify and understand the emotional make up of other people and how to constructively interact with others according to their emotional reactions.

Self-Regulation: Mastering Your Emotional Hot Buttons.  The ability to regulate your emotions and behavior so that you act appropriately in various situations is a critical emotional competency.  Emotional management is the ability to resist or delay an impulse, drive or temptation to act.  It entails the capacity for accepting your aggressive impulses, satying composed and controlling aggression, hostility, and irresponsible behavior.  Problems in impulse control are manifested by low frustration tolerance, impulsiveness, anger control problems, abusiveness, loss of self-control, and explosive and unpredictable behavior. These impulse control problems can become costly personally and professionally.  In short, impulse control is the capacity to look before you leap—to manage wisely and coolly a wide range of volatile emotional states and urges. In this one-day intensive workshop, participants learn to identify the true source of their emotional triggers and habitual response patterns and learn and practice impulse management strategies and techniques.

Managing Difficult Human Interactions. The ability to confront attitudinal problems underlying performance issues is an art.  It requires a highly emotionally competent individual with refined communication skills and intuition.  This two-day intensive and experiential program develops participants’ capacity to effectively confront the attitudinal issues underlying many conflict situations and to achieve accountability for performance in the workplace.  Participants are videotaped handling such situations and coached on the skills necessary to confront difficult issues with skill and confidence.

Developing Optimism. Optimistic people are often labeled as Pollyannaish—being blindly and foolishly optimistic.  It would be a grave mistake to dismiss optimism altogether.  An optimistic look appears to be conducive to achievement. Optimists do better personally and professionally. According to optimism researcher Martin Seligman, success requires persistence; the ability to not give up in the face of failure and that an optimistic explanatory style is the key to persistence. 

Explanatory style refers to how people explain what happens to them.  Pessimists tend to believe that bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do, and are their own fault; they see bad events, as permanent, pervasive, and personal.  Optimists in contrast, tend to believe that a bad event is just a temporary set back; that is, causes are unique, and that it is due to circumstances, bad luck or other people.  Pessimism stands in the way of achievement and a happy and productive life.

In this one-day workshop, participants learn to identify their self-defeating explanatory styles and behavioral response patterns as well as learn techniques for developing optimism.   Participants report improved interpersonal relationships and personnel well-being. 

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