On this side of recession, the outlook for most leaders is exceedingly dark and dreary. But like all business cycles, this too shall pass. The question is: who will be ready to mobilize when dawn finally arrives? And who will spend months or years agonizing over whether or not it’s safe to come out and play again?

As FDR wisely recognized when he took office in 1933, emotional recovery must precede economic recovery. The same truth applies to executives hoping to strike ahead of the pack when the economy bounces back.

Unmanaged Emotions Cloud Judgment
When the economy does turn around, it won’t be announced by newspaper headlines or be preceded by the sound of trumpets blasting. It will be-and is-a slow and murky transition. Whether in basketball or business, the best rebounders are those who correctly judge when the time is right to jump.

Consider this recent discovery by TalentSmart® researchers:
--Seventy percent of the most skilled business decision makers also score in the top 15% in emotional intelligence (EQ)—a person’s ability to identify and understand their own emotions, and those of others.
--Zero percent of leaders with low emotional intelligence are skilled decision makers.

Some excitable leaders with a poor understanding of their emotions will fail to recognize that their judgment is being tainted by feelings of impatience, and they will jump back in headfirst far too soon. Others who were too emotionally shaken by the downturn will let fear cripple their ability to move forward when the time is right. Both kinds of low EQ leaders will justify their actions using all sorts of rationalization, fooling themselves into believing that their judgment is based on logic.

So what does someone with a low or high EQ look like?

People with Low EQ…
Sound off even when it won’t help.
Brush people off when bothered
Deny that emotions impact their thinking
Get defensive when challenged
Focus only on tasks and ignore the person
Are oblivious to unspoken tension

People with High EQ…
Only speak out when doing so helps the situation
Keep lines of communication open even when frustrated
Recognize when other people are affecting their emotional state
Are open to feedback
Show others they care about them
Accurately pick up on the mood of a room

Positive Emotions Spur Productivity
Emotional intelligence is widely regarded as the secret ingredient for taking an organization from good to great, since it accounts for as much as 58% of performance in all types of jobs. Your EQ is critical to bounding back, as it is a productivity super-charger.

--Coca Cola, for example, realized a 30% increase in productivity for division leaders trained to recognize and mange their emotions over those who weren’t trained.
--At Fortune Brands 87% of executives who participated in a program to increase their EQ skills experienced performance improvements that led to promotions, whereas zero percent of their untrained counterparts experience similar improvements.
--After T-Mobile developed EQ skills in their customer service reps, they tripled service department productivity.

Employees with poor EQ skills can’t effectively cope with emotional volatility, which drastically affects their work. Not only does low EQ exacerbate performance issues during downtimes, it also leads to a low productivity hangover when good times return. All of the knowledge and technical skill in the world can’t address a productivity issue rooted in poor emotional coping mechanisms.

Emotional Recovery Starts Now
While it is almost certainly true that counterproductive emotions in today’s workplace result directly from economic stressors, it is decidedly untrue that managing those emotions requires waiting until financial hardship subsides. Here are a few tips to help you lead the way toward emotional recovery right now:

1. Become Aware of Your Emotions: Ineffective emotional responses like outbursts of anger or regrettable decisions, usually happen beneath our awareness. To keep your feelings from flying under the radar, ask someone you trust to observe you and give you feedback. Ask them to pay attention to your behaviors such as:
-Fidgeting
-Avoiding eye contact
-Raising your voice
-Interrupting people
-Brushing people off in difficult situations

The beauty of self-awareness is that just thinking about it will help you to improve it.

2. Set a Positive Tone: If you are noticeably tense, so too will be your people. Try to exude confidence, but make sure it’s real. If you’re faking confidence, your people will know it. They will either sense your insincerity, or think you’ve lost touch with reality. Instead, take a couple of minutes at the start of each day to think of a few things that are going right, and jot them down on a piece of scratch paper or set an electronic reminder on your email calendar. Then glance at those things a couple of times throughout the day to keep you from catastrophizing and spreading anxiety. 

3. Show that You Care: The tendency for many leaders in times like these is to “bear down on the tasks at hand,” because that kind of perseverance and resilience has been a key to their success. However, you can’t let a narrow focus on tasks end up alienating the people you count on. These are tough times for a lot of your people, and by simply acknowledging that you understand what they are going through, you will help tremendously to calm them.

Dr. Travis Bradberry is an award-winning author whose bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, has a single purpose of increasing your EQ. He is the president of TalentSmart®, a global think tank and consultancy dedicated to the scientific study of individual excellence and company performance that serves more than 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies.

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