Self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence and leadership. The ESEI model maps twelve competencies across four areas: self-awareness, self-management (achievement, outlook, emotional control, adaptability), social awareness (empathy, organizational awareness), and relationship management (coaching, conflict resolution, influence, inspiration, teamwork). Strong self-awareness lets leaders recognize their emotions and strengths, then use self-management and social awareness to influence and motivate others without letting feelings get in the way.
Chapters
Self-awareness is the foundation for a larger arena of competence known as emotional intelligence, or EQ, which has become ever more important to success in leadership roles. Self-awareness is about developing your capacity to sense how you are coming across, to have undistorted visibility into your own strengths and weaknesses, and to be able to gauge the emotions you are personally experiencing. If you are going to mobilize others to get things done, You cannot let your own emotions get in the way, but actually there's no denying your emotions, and you also need to know which strengths to turn to, how to address your weaknesses, and how to calibrate the impact you have on others so they respond constructively to your leadership.
The ESEI model includes four major facets of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management. As the diagram indicates, the arrows emanate from self-awareness. Self-awareness is at the heart of the model, and it is our ability to understand our emotions, our drives, our strengths, and our weaknesses. Self-awareness enables us to sustain our emotionally and socially intelligent behavior over time despite setbacks. Relationship management is where emotional and social intelligence becomes most visible to others. The competencies in this cluster impact others' motivation and performance, but they depend on strength in social awareness, especially empathy and organizational awareness, and self-management, including motivation and emotional self-control. These competencies provide the direction, energy, restraint, and skill to enhance our interactions with others. There are 12 specific competencies that are encompassed within the 4 major facets of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness includes 1 competency, which is focused on our ability to recognize our own emotions, know our own strengths and weaknesses, and understand how our emotions impact others. Self-management encompasses 4 competencies that are sometimes referred to as the fire and brakes. The first two, achievement orientation and positive outlook, are the fire. They drive our motivation and provide momentum. The last two, emotional self-control and adaptability, are the brakes. They hold back destructive or counterproductive responses to change or pressure. In the social awareness quadrant, there are two competencies: empathy, which is our ability to sense others' feelings and perspectives, and organizational awareness, which focuses on our ability to understand the power dynamics within the organization. Finally, relationship management includes 5 core competencies that are most visible to others: coach and mentor, conflict management, influence, inspirational leadership, and teamwork. Relationship management is how we take awareness of ourself and others and channel it into how we interact with others. It is important to remember that social awareness and self-management are key levers in relationship management. To be effective with others, you need to have a handle on your own emotions and be able to channel them in an effective way.
