Emotional Intelligence

Why emotional intelligence is important for a Scrum Master?
The technical skills that helped secure your first Scrum Master job might not guarantee your next promotion. If you aspire to be in a leadership role, there’s an emotional element you need to consider. It’s what helps you successfully coach teams, manage stress, deliver feedback, and collaborate with others.

It’s called emotional intelligence and accounts for nearly 90 percent of what sets high performers apart from peers with similar technical skills and knowledge.

What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, as well as recognize and influence the emotions of those around you. The term was first coined in 1990 by researchers John Mayer and Peter Salovey but was later popularized by psychologist Daniel Goleman.

More than a decade ago, Goleman highlighted the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership, telling the Harvard Business Review, “The most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way: They all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but...they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions.”

Over the years, emotional intelligence—also known as EQ—has evolved into a must-have skill. Research by EQ provider TalentSmart shows that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance. And hiring managers have taken notice: 71 percent of employers surveyed by CareerBuilder said they value EQ over IQ, reporting that employees with high emotional intelligence are more likely to stay calm under pressure, resolve conflict effectively, and respond to co-workers with empathy.

The four components of emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is typically broken down into four core competencies:
1. Self-awareness   
2. Self-management   
3. Social awareness   
4. Relationship management

In order to improve your emotional intelligence, it’s important to understand what each element entails. Here is a closer look at the four categories:

1. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is at the core of everything. It describes your ability to not only understand your strengths and weaknesses but to recognize your emotions and the effect they have on you and your team’s performance.

2. Self-Management
Self-management refers to the ability to manage your emotions, particularly in stressful situations, and maintain a positive outlook despite setbacks. Leaders who lack self-management tend to react and have a harder time keeping their impulses in check.

3. Social Awareness
While it’s important to understand and manage your own emotions, you also need to know how to read a room. Social awareness describes your ability to recognize others’ emotions and the dynamics in play within your organization.

4. Relationship Management
Relationship management refers to your ability to influence, coach, and mentor others, and resolve conflict effectively.

Why Emotional Intelligence Matters
Leaders set the tone of their organization. If they lack emotional intelligence, it could have more far-reaching consequences, resulting in lower employee engagement and a higher turnover rate.

While you might excel at your job technically, if you can’t effectively communicate with your team or collaborate with others, those technical skills will get overlooked. By mastering emotional intelligence, you can continue to advance your career and organization.

The Link Between the Scrum Master and Emotional Intelligence
Since one of the main roles of the Scrum Master is to manage the team’s impediments, having your emotional intelligence in check will make you able to deal with these issues flexibly. You’ll be able to observe and understand the situation without escalating the conflict. This “Zen” way of acting can be contagious and can positively influence the team to think better in the face of a situation.

An emotionally intelligent Scrum Master can bring other benefits to the team, such as:   
1. Assist in recognizing and impartially resolving conflicts.   
2. Raise team morale, helping to explore each members’ potential.   
3. See opportunities that others don’t recognize.   
4. Be resilient and adapt better to changes.   
5. Deal with the client more efficiently and with improved negotiation skills.   
6. Emotionally prepare the team to become self-managing and able to deal with problems on its own.

When taking on the role of Scrum Master, like any other leadership role, emotional intelligence is a key to dealing with the human element of business.