What Does it Mean to Develop Integrated Emotional Intelligence™?
You probably already know your emotional intelligence has a lot to do with how well you handle interpersonal relationships, which of course has a big impact on your ability to lead well.
Emotional intelligence is the capacity to recognize and regulate your emotions - and perceive the emotions of others.
It takes a great deal of self-awareness and daily practice, but the results are undeniably positive for enhancing leadership capacity and personal satisfaction. Emotional intelligence is the key to leveraging cognitive intelligence, business acumen, and professional skills.
Daniel Goleman, Ph.D. is a well-known researcher and author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ has concluded, emotional intelligence is what makes people successful. It is the force that drives a person to excellence.
Individuals who demonstrate a high degree of emotional intelligence possess these characteristics:
Self-awareness
Empathy
Balance/Non-reactive
Active Listeners
Transparency/Honesty
Grateful
So, what then, is Integrated Emotional Intelligence?
At The WELLegacy Institute™, we use a framework that includes Integrated Whole-Self Discernment™ to build on the foundation of emotional intelligence. What makes Integrated Emotional Intelligence™ different is, it integrates all three centers of human intelligence and facilitates greater harmony and coherence on teams - and in our lives.
What are our three centers to intelligence?
Neuroscience confirms humans are wired to make decisions, from our head, heart, and gut. The "voices" you hear when processing decisions - consider those your advisors. Integrating what the head, heart, and gut, are thinking, feeling, and sensing is what makes Integrated Emotional Intelligence™ so different from standard emotional intelligence.
Leaders can master how to listen to their own intelligence in a discerning way - which leads to greater clarity and better decision-making, improved relationships, less conflict, and more engagement among team members.
When leaders do not learn to integrate their head, heart, and gut into their way of thinking and being, they experience frustration, and tend to be reactive and less effective. Overall well-being of self and team declines.
That’s why, through the establishment of The WELLegacy Institute™ and our custom online course for leaders, we’ve dedicated ourselves to nurturing the development of Integrated Emotional Intelligence™ in leaders.
Curious how the wisdom of our head, heart, and gut can be harnessed?
Here’s a quick look at what the head, heart, and gut do best and how leaders can benefit from their wisdom:
The Head-Brain’s Best Work
The head-brain specializes in reasoning and strategic thinking and is best at collecting and analyzing objective information, making lists, and developing rational arguments for or against ideas.
But the head-brain can easily make incorrect judgments if it is not aligned with or if it ignores signals from our other two brains.
Our Head-Brain is best at:
Consciousness
Perspective
Curiosity
Learning
Clarity
Flow State
Analytical and Creative Thought
The Head-Brain’s highest expression is creativity.
Influence on decisions: The head-brain brings logic and reason to decision making.
The Gut-Brain’s Best Work
Known as the enteric nervous system, our gut-brain is in the tissue that lines the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, and colon. Our gut-brain operates on intuition. If you’ve ever had a “gut feeling” about something – that’s the gut-brain at work.
The gut-brain is best at expressing:
Hunger/Satiety
Action
Will power
Well-being
Intuition
Motivation
The Gut-Brain’s highest expression is courage.
Influence on decisions: The gut-brain brings intuition to decision making.
The Heart-Brain’s Best Work
The heart-brain is a complex system of neurons and neurotransmitters, along with different proteins and support cells. Dr. J. Andrew Armour first introduced the concept that the heart’s sophisticated neural network is enough to qualify it as a ‘brain.’
Indeed, the heart sends more messages to the brain than the brain does to the heart – and these messages affect our motivation, mood, and attention.
The heart-brain is best at:
Peace
Forgiveness
Joy
Trust
Connection
Gratitude
Love
Generosity
Empathy
Relationships
The Heart-Brain’s highest expression is compassion.
Influence on decisions: The heart-brain instinctively makes choices that are empowering, life-affirming, and true to who you really are and what you really want (pretty impressive, huh?).
How Can Leaders Access More of Their Innate Wisdom?
Introducing the leader of the 21st century: An Integrated Whole-Self Leader™.
An Integrated Whole-Self Leader™ has the ability to go within to access their own generative wisdom and actions, evoking creativity, compassion, courage, and connectivity in themselves and others.
In our flagship course of the same name, we equip leaders to live and lead authentically to facilitate inclusive, resilient, coherent teams and organizations. We help them develop the skills to harness Integrated Emotional Intelligence™ and unlock more of their leadership capacity. And our online, live instructor-led courses are customized to meet your organization's specific needs. Learn more here.
We specialize in helping teams and organizations understand and implement practices that cultivate the power of interdependence.
The Wellsiliency™ Institute has developed a series of interdependent courses to comprehensively address the knowledge and skills leaders and teams need to build strengths-based values-driven performance cultures where all experience belonging.
Is cultivating a deliberate culture that leaves a lasting legacy of positive impact in the lives of others important to your organization?
Our institute has designed five program pillars to help leaders be well and lead well through a skill progression from Whole-self Intelligence™ integration to boost resilience and confidence, strengths-based wellbeing, strengths-based team building, strengths-based leadership, and psychological safety to unleash collaboration.
We don't believe in providing superficial programs; instead, we strive to become your collaborative partner by equipping your leaders with the skills they need to create meaningful, enduring outcomes. Our ultimate goal is to help you build a legacy of leadership excellence that will make a real difference in your organization's success.
Contact us to request our 4 page FACT SHEET to learn how our comprehensive 5 PILLAR PROGRAM helps leaders create interdependent teams and organizations.
Let’s partner to create a more harmonious and sustainable future, where cooperation and mutual support lead to thriving.