Emotionally-Competent Leadership

Between 2016 and 2020, I attended Calvin University, a small Christian college in Michigan. Calvin’s mission is to help its students “to think deeply, to act justly, and to live wholeheartedly as Christ’s agents of renewal in the world” (Calvin University, n.d.). While I didn’t fully appreciate the influence of that mission while I was attending Calvin, I have since come to let it shape how I approach not only healthcare leadership, but my life in general. The ability to think deeply requires reflection and self-awareness. Acting justly requires one to have empathy and respect for others, to do right by others. Living wholeheartedly requires vulnerability and authenticity. I have come to realize that Calvin’s mission goes hand-in-hand with what it means to be an emotionally competent leader. 

Emotionally competent leadership is about understanding how emotions, both our own and those of others, influence our thoughts, assumptions, and behaviors. It’s about becoming more intentional in choosing how we respond to certain things, rather than letting our emotions rule over us. It’s about intently listening, communicating with courage, establishing healthy boundaries, and developing an environment in which others feel safe to speak openly and honestly. As I continue to develop as a healthcare leader, my goal is to continue to strengthen my level of emotional competency so that I can foster psychological safety within my team and create an environment that's characterized by genuinely strong relationships amongst its people. Before I can do that, however, I must first consider my current strengths and weaknesses, and identify the areas in which I have opportunities for growth. 

Note. Personal results generated using the Emotional Intelligence Self-Assessment by Workplace Strategies for Mental Health

Daniel Goleman mentioned that emotional intelligence is comprised of four domains: “a combination of self-awareness, managing your emotions well, social awareness, empathy (tuning into other people), and putting that all together to have harmonious or effective relationships” (Leadership Lessons | Big Think+, 2024, 1:26). Self-awareness entails understanding yourself. Self-management is how well you can regulate or own emotions and stress. Social awareness is your ability to understand others and why the react they way they do to certain things. Relationship management is your ability to work and communicate with others (Leadership Lessons | Big Think+, 2024). With that, after taking an emotional intelligence assessment, I discovered that I have high levels of self and social awareness, but I have some room for improvement in my self-management and relationship-management skills. I scored 98% in social awareness, 88% in self awareness, and 73% in both self-management and relationship-management. While thinking about how to improve in the self and relationship-management areas of emotional intelligence, an idea that Louise Evans brought up while explaining the Five Chairs  struck me. When describing the last chair, the giraffe chair, Evans (2018) remarked: 

Not only does [the giraffe] have the largest heart, it also has the longest neck. So it has incredible vision. And so when we are in this chair, we are displaying empathy and compassion, and understanding. And in this chair, we put our egos on the back burner and we listen to people. We hold people in our presence and we care for them. And stepping into somebody else’s shoes and understanding them is a great act of generosity. (14:16)

The giraffe chair represents the type of approach that I hope to practice as a healthcare leader. My goal is to be the type of leader who serves and cares for her team on a profound level. While empathy and social awareness are already strengths of mine, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I am effective at managing my own emotions or my relationships with those around me. To be an effective leader, I must learn to regulate my own emotions, refrain from making assumptions, and listen to people with a genuine intention of understanding their experience and/or perspective. By intentionally practicing these things, I will become better equipped to instill psychological safety and create stronger relationships within my healthcare team.

One way by which I can become better at being a “giraffe” is by making a conscious effort to become more aware of my ladder of inference. Flow Coaching Academy (2021) noted that “the ladder of inference helps us understand how we can lead ourselves into making assumptions and, more importantly, how we can come back down and get to the real meaning of what’s going on” (2:13). In fast-paced environments such as the emergency department, it can be easy to take someone’s behavior at any given time and make an automatic assumption about it. When a member of my team snaps at me, for example, it can be easy to assume that they’re just being disrespectful. What I may not be aware of at that very moment, however, is that they’ve got a lot going on in their personal life and that their short temper wasn’t meant to be directed at me. By pausing, taking the time to ask follow up questions, and refraining from making immediate assumptions or inferences, I can avoid unnecessary conflict and protect the relationships within my team. 

Another way by which I can foster psychological safety and strengthen relationships within my healthcare team is by being vulnerable. Brown (2010) found that people who had a strong sense of worthiness “fully embraced vulnerability. They fully believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful” (9:39). Her message on vulnerability challenged a belief that was instilled in me a long time ago, the belief that vulnerability is a sign of weakness. Vulnerability is admitting when you've made a mistake, acknowledging that you don’t always have the answer, and having the courage to ask for help. I think this idea of vulnerability is especially important in healthcare because it has a direct impact on patient safety. When team members feel comfortable asking questions, admitting their mistakes, asking for help, and voicing their concerns, the level of patient safety increases. In order for employees to feel comfortable being vulnerable, however, their leaders must create an environment in which they feel safe to do so. By making an intentional effort to role model authenticity, humility, and openness for my team, I can help to foster this type of environment. While vulnerability is necessary for creating trust, it must also be accompanied by healthy boundaries. 

Vulnerability doesn’t mean I have to share every personal detail or make myself available to people 24/7. Rather, healthy vulnerability requires that I have a clear understanding of what I’m willing to accept and then communicate those limits. Ultimately, having boundaries allows me to remain open and compassionate without sacrificing my own well-being. I think this idea is especially important for me to understand because, as someone who has strong empathetic tendencies, I often find it hard to say no or to feel like I have to be available to attend to the needs of others every second of every day. Going a bit further, I’ve always had a tendency to believe that I am not worthy of good things or of peoples’ respect unless I do something to earn it. Brown (2012) encouraged listeners to “remind yourself you are worthy of respect just as you are. Not when you’re more successful. Not if you're more accommodating. Not after you’ve earned it” (11:45). I don’t need to do anything extra to be worthy of love and respect. By coming to believe that, I can stop stretching myself so thin and realize that setting boundaries doesn’t make me selfish or less-than. As a healthcare leader, I can implement healthier boundaries by being upfront with my capacity to take on more responsibilities, I can stop being available even when I’m not at work, and I can work on saying no when taking on extra work would compromise my well-being. Ultimately, by setting these types of boundaries, I will be less apt to become burnt out, ultimately allowing me to remain more emotionally present for my team. Boundaries are not barriers to effective healthcare leadership; they are what make emotionally competent, servant-like leadership sustainable for people to practice long term. 

Emotional intelligence is important not only in how I lead current members of my team, but also in how I work to find future members of my team. Thygesen (2014) remarked that “when you stress the importance of emotionally intelligent attributes-such as willingness to learn, relationship management, and social awareness-your employees will scour their networks to find the right fit” (para. 17). In other words, my current employees can work wonders in finding potential new members of the team. My responsibility as a leader is to place a heavy emphasis on emotional competency at work so that my current employees will intentionally seek out people that embody the traits of emotionally-competent people when working to refer others to our team. It’s important to note that employee referral alone doesn’t automatically guarantee that someone will be a good fit. In the hiring process, one of the methods I use to determine whether someone would be a good addition to our team is asking them behavior-based questions, as opposed to questions geared more towards clinical expertise. I’ve been a part of quite a few interviews and what I’ve come to understand is that I learn a lot more about whether someone would be good fit for our team when I hear examples of how they’ve resolved past conflicts, how they’ve responded to constructive criticism in the past, and how they’ve worked with their past teammates to achieve a goal. Responses to questions such as these tell me a lot about their level of emotional competence and willingness to grow. Hiring emotionally competent people can strengthen teamwork, contribute to a healthier culture, and ultimately lead to higher quality patient care. Just one bad apple can spoil the rest. As a leader, it’s my responsibility to seek out those potential “bad apples” in the hiring process, catching them before they get the opportunity to have a negative impact on our team. 

As I reflect on my efforts to become a quantum leader, there are three things in particular that I feel are currently “broken” within me and will require a conscious effort to improve: setting boundaries without feeling guilty, refraining from making assumptions, and being vulnerable with the people around me. To strengthen my ability to set healthy boundaries, I must remind myself that protecting my own well-being does not make me selfish. Setting clear limits will help me to remain an empathetic, supportive leader without becoming emotionally or mentally drained. To refrain from making assumptions about someone’s behavior, I can make an intentional effort to pause and recognize that there is likely a deeper reason for their behavior. I can listen intently to them and put myself in their shoes. Lastly, I can practice vulnerability by asking for help, admitting that I don’t always know the answer, and remaining open to constructive criticism. While I don’t expect to ever be a perfect leader, I can work to become a little more authentic and emotionally competent each and every day. By increasing my own level of emotional competence, I can help to foster stronger relationships and psychological safety within my team. Ultimately, becoming more emotionally competent will aid me in becoming the type of leader I’m striving to be-one who thinks deeply, acts justly, and leads wholeheartedly. 

References

Brown, B. (2010, June). The power of vulnerability [Video] TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability 

Brown, B. (2012, March). Listening to shame [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame 

Calvin University. (n.d.) Calvin University. Retrieved September 10, 2026, from https://calvin.edu/about/who-we-are 

Evans, L. [The 5 Chairs by Loise Evans]. (2018, May 1). TEDx Louise Evans presenting the 5 chairs [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHduBeFdyns 

Flow Coaching Academy. (2021, September 7). The ladder of inference [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wb1mOod3q8 

Leadership Lessons | Big Think+. (2024, August 15). Emotional Intelligence: The #1 ability for leaders / Daniel Goleman [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qmLoJ7-A80&t=214s  

Thygesen, K. (2014, April 21). Why emotional intelligence is more important to hiring than you think. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/3029306/why-emotional-intelligence-is-more-important-to-hiring-than-you-think 

Workplace Strategies for Mental Health. (2021, January 29). Emotional intelligence self-assessment. https://www.workplacestrategiesformentalhealth.com/resources/emotional-intelligence-assessment