“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya AngelouComplex projects imply uncertainty, ambiguity, and under these conditions, the mastering of emotion becomes the condition sine qua non for successful management. Emotional Intelligence abilities such as self-awareness, adaptability, empathy, and positive outlook are meaningful to the modern work world and increasingly required in complex environments.
Self-awareness to effective decision-making
Human beings are continually experiencing emotions, yet we are unaware of them. The information these emotions give us influences most of the decisions we make. Self-awareness serves Project Managers to be in tune with themselves, which brings them the clarity that spurs effective decision-making.
Empathy and adaptability to better engage stakeholders and teams
Complexity in projects means dealing with Stakeholders with different personalities and cultures. As “you cannot fake caring and trust,” empathy helps you understand why people do what they do regardless of cultural or belief systems differences. When we stop labeling people we can’t relate with as “difficult,” then we start building caring and trust with everyone.
Positivity for Greater Performance
The mood of Project Managers makes the difference whether a positive work climate that arouses cooperation in teams or a negative one in which suspicion and withholding information are the norms.
To sum up, we invite Project Managers to fill in their tool bag with Emotional Intelligence competencies because lacking them in complex environments can lead to disastrous situations.