Exceptional employees don’t possess God-given personality traits; they rely on simple, everyday EQ skills that anyone can incorporate into their repertoire.
—Travis Bradberry
How would you define employee excellence? What role do you play to ensure “excellence” comes alive and is leveraged? Travis Bradberry, author of 10 Ways To Spot A Truly Exceptional Employee feels emotional intelligence (EQ) is the key.
Emotional intelligence is the genuine ability to feel emotions, understand what you’re feeling and why, understand how others are feeling, and respond appropriately. And, the best part is that we can increase our EQ through self-development.
Having a high EQ builds relationships and fosters communication and consists of the following 4 areas:
Self Awareness (critical when engaging in communication)
Self Management (key for managing emotions in difficult situations)
Social Awareness (leverages awareness of others to perform at their peak)
Relationship Management (manages relationships to increase job performance and integrates EQ professionally and personally)
Bradberry says the following about exceptional employees:
1. They neutralize toxic people. Exceptional employees control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check and confront the toxic person rationally.
2. They’re marketable. Exceptional employees are well liked and have integrity and can be trusted to represent the brand well.
3. They’re accountable. They own their work, their decisions, and all of their results—good or bad.
4. They recognize when things are broken and fix them. They see problems as issues to be fixed immediately and don’t walk past the problem.
5. They’re never satisfied. Exceptional employees have unparalleled convictions that things can always be better.
6. They’re in control of their egos. They’re willing to admit when they’re wrong and are willing to do things someone else’s way to improve results (or the situation).
7. They’re judiciously courageous. Exceptional employees are willing to speak up when others are not, and they balance this with common sense and timing.
8. They focus. They can differentiate between real problems and background noise; therefore, they stay focused on what matters.
9. They can tolerate conflict. While exceptional employees don’t seek conflict, they don’t run away from it either. They maintain their composure in pursuit of the greater goal.
10. They’re willing to delay gratification. Exceptional employees work outside the boundaries of job descriptions and are not dependent on recognition to do so.
Does your development planning include growing emotional intelligence levels? If you want to increase employee excellence, you may want want to consider it!
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