I’ve written in other blog posts about how our biases shape our worldview and responses. This area has been beautifully explained in Danny Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” and many other equally relevant behavioural psychology and behavioural economics works. We use our experience and our mental shortcuts to make quick determinations so that we don’t have to waste valuable resources on a problem we already know the answer to.

Often this works well. For example, typically, we take the most efficient route from home to work without thinking about it every day. We know that traffic will be heavier on certain streets, and we avoid them at certain times of the day. We don’t sit into the car every morning and make a conscious decision to follow our usual route – we’re often halfway to work before we think about driving.

In the medical arena, when a patient presents with an inflamed, irritated, or debilitated knee, a knee surgeon will focus on that joint. They will order x-rays and perhaps MRIs and determine whether more direct surgical intervention is required. The patient may or may not get relief over time from the symptoms, but the surgeon will have treated the immediate crisis. This commentary is not a criticism of the medical profession but an observation – patients are often treated as a presentation of symptoms and not a holistic system. But people are not symptoms, and symptoms are not the root cause of an issue. In the case of knee pain, the problem might be due to poor footwear, an opposite side hip dysplasia, or a gait issue caused by lower back misalignment. Over time, biomechanically incorrect use of the knee joint will cause wear and tear, which leads to the symptoms. Again, what presents is the symptom, not the root cause.

In other areas of work and life, the same is often true. For example, in the technology arena, production outages of a system are often attributed to human error. An operator makes a change, and the system breaks. The operator may have failed to check inputs or follow documentation adequately. The prescription is often “more training” or “four-eyes checking” to address the issue. My contention, however, is that in this case, the problem may not be the operator – human error is a symptom. Instead, the problem may be with the complexity of the system design, that the operator has been working 12-hour shifts, or that there is insufficient automation to assist them.

We are often presented with symptoms rather than root causes in our personal lives. If my teenage daughters suddenly start behaving in a more challenging way than expected, it can be easy for me to dismiss it as them “just being rude”. My reaction to that diagnosis is unlikely to be favourable. I need to continuously bear in mind that a teenage brain is an incredibly complex system attached to other highly complex systems that are in an enormous state of flux all the time.

It is hard to look for and find the real root cause of an issue. It takes real effort, diverse inputs and critical thinking. It requires us to look past the surface and ask next order questions. Instead of just asking the typical “why” question, it can also be helpful to ask, “what might I be assuming that is preventing me from seeing what is going on?”. Or “who can I bring in to help me understand this problem?”. We have to take the time to make an accurate diagnosis of important problems. The next time you are presented with something genuinely impactful, it may be helpful to ask yourself, “am I looking at the problem or just a symptom?”. That question alone may help us make better decisions.

Throughout my career I’ve observed teams taking on the characteristics of their manager. Teams that are led by optimistic, collaborative and forward thinking individuals display the same attributes. Leaders who show fixed mindset characteristics, arrogance, lack of collaborative behaviours or other less-positive approaches can expect that their team members behave the same way.

The behaviours that we display as managers and our approach to failure or adversity will directly impact our teams’ behaviours. More, the emotional states we reflect to the world every day will influence how our teams feel. This is known as emotional contagion, which has been defined as the transfer of emotional states from one person to another (e.g. Barsade, Coutefaris, Pillemer (2018) – Emotional Contagion in Organizational Life). This can be seen with both positive and negative emotions – for example, the joy that spreads across a concert audience or the fear and anger that can quickly transform a crowd into a mob.

The larger the team, organisation, or group we are responsible for, the greater our emotional state’s impact on that cohort of people. I came across the retirement announcement of a senior executive at one of the world’s largest financial services institutions on LinkedIn yesterday. The statement he made was a simple one, thanking people for supporting him in his 20-year career with the firm. The feedback was incredible – I saw so many comments that went beyond the “congrats, x” default. The ones that really struck me were the ones that were along the lines of “you don’t know me personally, but I was lucky enough to work in your organisation, and you set the tone for what a leader should be.” Our impact, in every interaction, can be substantial.

In order to understand our impact, we first need to be self-aware enough to understand our current emotional state or mood. “How do I feel today?”, “Why do I feel this way?”, “How do I behave based on how I feel?” are all questions that help us understand how our actions are linked to our emotions. By practicing self-awareness we can better identify how we are impacting those around us.

While it is not always possible to feel positive, we must understand why we feel the way we do. We can acknowledge the feeling and then move to the next stage of deciding what to do. If we’re showing up to work regularly in a low mood, this can permeate our management interactions like a toxic fog. If we’re afraid for our position and focus on that, our staff will feel anxious and jittery. We need to balance the authenticity we all want to bring to work with understanding how to provide positive environments for our teams to work in.

So what’s the point of all of this? Emotional intelligence is an underdeveloped skill in managers and leaders and is recognised as a critical one for current and future leaders. The emotional states we display will be directly or indirectly absorbed and mimicked by our teams. Develop emotional intelligence (EQ/EI) to serve your teams, organisations and customers better. This is both the point and the ask of you as a manager.