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Emotional Intelligence: A Critical Ingredient for Emerging Nonprofit Leaders
Three areas to enhance your self-awareness as a leader
Leaders in the nonprofit sector encounter many challenges while navigating their leadership roles and making a meaningful impact on the world around them. These challenges stem from the unique nature of nonprofit work and the complex social issues they address, including poverty, inequality, climate change, and human rights violations. Nonprofit leaders are under tremendous pressure to solve complex societal problems with limited resources and must be resourceful, using innovative thinking and effective decision-making to balance competing demands.
While technical leadership and management skills are essential for leaders in any organization, soft skills like emotional intelligence (EQ) can significantly improve the effectiveness of an emerging leader. EQ refers to recognizing, understanding, and managing one’s emotions and effectively navigating organizational relationships and social dynamics. EQ encompasses numerous attributes and qualities, including self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and strong interpersonal skills.[1] While seemingly basic abilities that any leader should possess, emotional intelligence is less common than you might think. According to a survey of 155,000 leaders by the…
