Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers Book Summary

Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers Book Summary Preview

Key Insights

Projects need leaders that can manage a team of people that may not be used to working together. Emotional intelligence is essential in working with people effectively.

Before you’re able to manage the others, you have to be able to manage yourself. That means having the self-awareness and emotional intelligence to lead yourself where you need to go. Emotional intelligence is your capability to understand and manage your emotions.

From a team perspective, relationships are critical to getting the work done effectively. Project management has moved away from the hierarchical structure of the team leader announcing what will be done. You can encourage the development of team members and move into a more agile workflow. 

What you’ll learn

• What emotional intelligence is
• How to lead yourself
• How to foster an agile project team
• How to manage relationships in the project environment

Who this is for

• Project managers
• Team leaders
• Project team members

Emotional intelligence is the capacity to manage your own emotions.

The first step in emotional intelligence is understanding your own emotions. You have to be able to perceive and name what you’re feeling. 

A starting place is the acronym SASHET. This stands for sad, angry, scared, happy, excited, and tender. While these emotions don’t include every possible feeling you could have, they cover the big categories.

Each of the emotions in SASHET has other emotions that fall under them. There are variations of feeling sad, with some deeper and darker than others. But the idea of feeling sad and understanding that it is affecting you is the beginning of emotional intelligence.

Once you understand your emotions, you can begin to manage them. You know that a certain emotion may take away your focus. But if you manage that emotion, you’re able to keep it from taking over. The management is critical to emotional intelligence because you don’t allow the emotions to detract from the goals. 

You can improve your emotional self-awareness.

Leading yourself with emotional intelligence first requires self-awareness. This is not a trait you’re born with that is genetically determined. You can work to become better at emotional self-awareness.

Start with a journal. Keep track of what you’re feeling and how often you feel it. Have someone with whom you can safely share those feelings. Also, use that person to get some feedback about the expressions you have during each of those emotional states. When you have negative feelings, try to identify what caused them.

You also have to think about the emotional habits you’ve learned that may feel normal for you. Maybe you don’t register emotional changes, but you experience physical symptoms. For example, you think you’ve handled a dispute or frustration calmly. But if you pay attention to your body, you’ll have a flush and a rapid heartbeat that indicates anger.

Once you recognize your emotions, what triggers them, and how they manifest, you have to start becoming aware of what you do with them. Some people respond to emotions like fear with jokes or respond to anger with passive-aggressive commentary.

Use an honest self-assessment to ask yourself what you’re doing and why. If you need...

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