Here's how you can advance your career in Servant Leadership with emotional intelligence.

Advancing your career in Servant Leadership with emotional intelligence (EI) involves understanding and managing emotions to build relationships, create a positive work environment, and lead effectively. Key strategies include self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skills, and leading by example. Implementing EI in leadership leads to improved communication, stronger relationships, effective conflict resolution, better decision-making, and personal and professional growth. Integrating emotional intelligence as a Servant Leader can enhance productivity, satisfaction, and career progression for both yourself and those you lead.

To advance your career in Servant Leadership with Emotional Intelligence, focus on self-awareness, empathy, and serving others. Reflect regularly and seek feedback to grow. Listen actively and understand emotions to build empathy. Communicate effectively, resolve conflicts positively, and build trust. Lead by example, stay humble, and empower your team. Keep learning through courses and mentorship. Serve your team first and create a supportive community. Use emotional intelligence in decisions and share a clear, inspiring vision to motivate everyone.

Líderes servidores são mentores dedicados ao desenvolvimento pessoal e profissional de suas equipes. Eles investem tempo e recursos para ajudar os colaboradores a alcançarem seu pleno potencial. Isso pode incluir oportunidades de formação, coaching e aconselhamento, incentivando o crescimento contínuo e a aprendizagem.

Practicing Mindfulness is key for self-awareness. For a leader whose job is to serve the team, mindfulness helps being fully present in interactions and decision-making processes, and utilising techniques to manage stress and maintain focus during the conflicts. Leaders who are self-aware set the tone for an open, honest, and collaborative organisational culture.

A empatia é essencial na liderança servidora. Compreender as emoções e perspectivas dos membros da equipe cria um ambiente de confiança e respeito. Líderes que praticam a empatia conseguem criar conexões mais profundas, promovendo um senso de pertencimento e valorização dentro da organização.

I had a sales team member who could not make headway with a client. We surmised our contact not understand how to work with us effectively. I asked my team member about a time he was on a championship football team and if he ever had to coach other players on the field. Thinking about those situations helped him think about ways to coach his client to better help us help him. Empathetic engagement was possible because I knew details about my team members past experiences and could help him reframe the situation.

Factually seen, empathy can exhaust you. Having to put yourself in everyone's shoes can take a lot of energy. Try to place yourself into 8 different people and check-in on how you feel afterwards. In addition, it is difficult to maintain the boundary between relating to another person and getting lost in their needs and wants. Compassion works much better in my experience. We can easily feel compassion for many people, without draining ourselves. It also allows us to remain more objective and closer to our own truth and intuition. In that sense compassionate leadership is more wholesome and regenerative than empathetic leadership.

Empathy in servant leadership is a crucial component that sets this leadership style apart from more traditional, top-down approaches. It helps understand others and build trust as team members feel understood and valued. Ways to demonstrate empathy involves 1. Active listening without interrupting and paying full attention during the interactions, showing that you value and respect the person speaking. 2. Inquiring with respect about their feelings and and experiences to show your interest in their well being. 3. Respond to the needs and concerns of your team members with understanding and kindness. 4. Provide help and resources to team members facing challenges, both personal and professional.

As leaders we always want to appear strong, undaunted, unshaken and unbeatable. However, sharing your vulnerability with your team builds better relationships. It helps the team to recognise you as a human being who has been through life's struggles and risen above them - either like themselves, or like the person they aspire to be. In both cases, vulnerability makes us more relatable and hence helps build better trust with our people. More the trust, more transparency and feedback mechanisms, more the culture of winning together and hence a stronger winning team!

Being authenticate as a leader is only as hard as you make it. While working with a new start-up team, I wanted to make sure I understood all the roles and tasks facing our team. I got on the phones and made calls, entered info in our CRM and so forth. This provided so many benefits down the road. The team could see I was genuinely interested and was invested in the team as much as they were. It also allowed me to be credible when addressing concerns or issues the team was facing. It had the added benefit of credibility with my senior leadership team.

How well do you know yourself and allow yourself to be? The more comfortable and at ease you are with yourself and accepting and loving yourself unconditionally, the more you can be truly yourself aka authentic in your leadership. When your ego doesn't have to be afraid of criticism and rejection of yourself and others, you can fully show up as the pure beautiful human being that you are. And by that you give others the permission to do just the same and bring all the perfect imperfections that are part of the human experience. By holding such a vulnerable and free space, creativity can reign and play spark innovation and renewal. Imagine the joy and fun people have going to a workplace where leaders hold a space of such safety and trust.

Open questions really help. Otherwise we may jump to conclusions based on our own perceptions of reality. By stepping into our own vulnerability, we allow space for different perspectives. In the past I may have judged people's performance according to standards that were not realistic and gave tainted feedback. Open questions allow us an insight into people's innate capabilities and seeing them for who they are. Perhaps we find that the role the person currently fills does not fit him/her. Then it is up to us as leaders to make a compassionate decision to find a different role where this person can shine and excel. In my experience, the higher up the person is in the hierarchy, the harder leaders find to it to act decisively.

Emotionally intelligent servant leaders provide feedback that is constructive, respectful, and aligned with their commitment to the growth and well-being of their team members. They focus on behaviours, not personalities, they communicate clearly with specific details, they don't keep their feedback in notebook for long rather share them in timely manner, they balance the feedback with appropriate positivity, areas of improvement and offer for support, they create a psychological safety zones where team members can open without fear, and lastly they follow up.

In giving constructive feedback as a Servant Leader using emotional intelligence, focus on providing specific, actionable advice that respects individuals' feelings and emphasizes growth. This approach helps team members feel supported and motivated to improve.

I love relating this story of personal growth with a member of the sales team. He wanted to improve his communication skills especially when writing emails. He was usually pressed for time and often made grammatical mistakes. Most app would auto-correct these. He wanted help with content and being able to communicate succinctly. With agreement, we signed him up for a business writing course at a local college. He did well and found new confidence in his skills. This would have not been possible except for the genuine relationship we had and the desire to grow and improve.