Emotional intelligence is no longer a ‘nice to have’ in the workplace, but a ‘must have’ to be effective in the modern workplace.

Today’s post is by Asha Tarry.

Emotional intelligence skills are those important soft skills that are now reaching the desk of more and more leaders. It used to be targeted as a set of skills that belonged to customer-driven and service industries. However, we are learning there are people who are inept at having those important, emotional, human skills which connect people and build strong teams.  That is why emotional intelligence is now being considered an important asset for employees.

We need to reevaluate how we review resumes. It matters that employees have a good grip on soft skills. For example, being an effective communicator, and being able to adapt to the different styles in which people work, should become required skills. Most people want to avoid certain emotions at work, but that is where they spend most of their time. That is why emotional intelligence should not be limited to helping just customer-driven industries or education workers.

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The top-down hierarchical structure of organizations is limited and outdated.  Here are four tips for leaders to adjust their strategic planning process to support a networked model.

Today’s post is by Chris Yates, author of Share (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

During my work from home life, kids have been teaching me how to win Battle Royale in Fortnite.  For my 10-year old son, it’s all about taking the high ground to snipe at your opponents.  My 12-year old daughter, on the other hand, builds networks and alliances. She is already conditioned by societal gender stereotyping to win not through force or the relentless focus on the high ground.  She seldom loses, and is perhaps better prepared by that same stereotyping to win in a future world.   

In most organizations, there is a basic assumption that the hierarchy of titles represents the hierarchy of information.  Bosses know best because they’ve taken the high ground. Most management books, gurus, and models created to date have been based on the same premise of a vertical organization with a hierarchy of power.  Recently, management theory has been about creating a more effective pyramid, by turning it upside down and calling it servant leadership.  Nevertheless, it’s still a pyramid. 

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A critical part of effective leadership and success means the understanding of including all stakeholders and total collaboration in your leadership model.

Today’s post is by Antonio Garrido, author of The 21st Century Ride Along (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Ask a bunch of top executives who they believe is the best coach in the world, and they will likely reel off the names of ‘the usual suspects’ – you know, the ones that pay millions a year to their SEO-agency in order to occupy that cherished top spot on any of the most common coach-related web-searches.

…And, they’d all be wrong.

The very best coach that you (or anyone else, for that matter) ever knew was your mom – or whichever family member spent the most time bringing you up when you were a tiny tot: the one who was with you when you learned to walk, talk, read, and write. Heck, it took an age to get you to tie a shoelace, brush your teeth, ride a bike, and master the use of a fork, and you’re a real smarty-pants, right? Let’s not forget, forks can be tricky, of course.

Here’s the thing, the reason that your mom was the best coach you ever knew is because of her willingness to see you grow and develop and thrive. It was more important to her to see you do well than her own level of discomfort in getting you there: she cared more about your progress than the limits of her own patience and well-being, and that’s the mark of any great coach. If you are not prepared to invest heavily in the growth and development of your team, you’re not being a good coach (parent).

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Sometimes the best leaders are the ones at the back of the pack, helping to drive everything forward and sometimes they are out front, and other times it benefits to be both, just like AirBnb.

Today’s post is by Joseph Michelli, author of The AirBnb Way (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Around 2007, Simon Cooper was the CEO of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, where I was working with their senior leadership team. Simon and I were exploring how Ritz-Carlton could adapt to meet the needs of changing luxury travelers without losing the company’s legacy customer base. Simon offered an example of the challenges faced by the luxury hotel company in 2008, “I had a guest complain to me that he saw one of our bartenders serve a young guest a bottle of beer without a glass. When I looked into it, I informed the complaining guest that the service was a result of the young guest having asked for his beer to be served that way a day before. That is the challenge … to customize the experience to the guest, ensuring that traditional and new-generation guests are each treated respectfully in accord with their wishes.”

In that same year, two men in San Francisco (Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia) were facing a very different accommodation challenge. They were trying to make rent for their apartment after a third roommate moved out. Since Brian and Joe had recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and given that a design conference was coming to San Francisco, the roommates decided to create a make-shift website targeted to conference attendees. They planned to place three air mattresses in the spare room and offer breakfast (in the form of uncooked pop tarts) for $80 per night, per guest, for the duration of the conference. A little over a decade later, that air mattress bed and breakfast arrangement has turned into Airbnb (a company that lists more than seven million properties on its well-evolved digital marketplace – 14,000 listings are tiny homes, 2,500 are tree houses, and 5,000 are castles).

In my book, The Airbnb Way, I detail the business strategy that fueled Airbnb’s meteoric rise. For the purposes of this article, I’ll focus on the three elements of leadership, which set the foundation for Airbnb’s impact on the hospitality sector. Those three components are:

Identification of a Disruptive Gap and Innovation to Fill It

Open Mindsets of Founders and Leaders

Clarity of a Branded Experience

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