Leadership: Social Intelligence

 

Leaders who are successful are often highly skilled in high social intelligence. 

This is the ability to embrace change, utilize all of their resources/team available to them while maintaining self-awareness and self-mastery in the process. 

So if you think of your most successful leader, they most likely had the ability to translate a vision into reality. This takes mastery of holding a vision, communicating that, knowing what moving pieces had to happen in the background and who needs to do it. Normally, this isn’t just one person driving the ship but rather a whole crew of people working together under the leadership of a captain (leader). 

Warren Bennis, a pioneer in leadership research says, “leadership is the capacity to translate vision into a reality.”

Leaders pioneer the research, create a vision for people and companies they lead and also effectively communicate their priorities. 

Leadership has nothing to do with a title. We all know people who wear a title but have leadership ability that is not up to the expectation of the need. 

Leadership can be at any level of an organization amongst those they collaborate to meet a common goal. 

So let’s look at you. What qualities can you work on to be a great leader. 

Let’s say you have a new idea. In sharing it with others to see what you think, let’s consider the steps a leader would take. 

You can start small with an idea in your life. It can be things like having a beautiful garden. 

• Vision - Grab an idea you are passionate about (like the beautiful garden) and map out what it would look like ideally. 

• Communication - Make your communication plan so you can share it with a few others to see what they think. 

• Collaborate - Figure out who in your world can do what and if they are bought into the idea too. 

• Resources - With your team, maximize your resources. 

• Oversee - check in on the progress of the plan. 

• Celebrate - make sure to celebrate all of the people involved and their contribution to the whole. 

I am excited to hear what small project you cast your vision about and how you work through the steps of great leadership. During this process, there is no question you will use your social intelligence. 

You are not in this alone. Leverage your social, communication, collaboration and vision casting skills. 

Have fun with this. 

Best, 

Manal