How Emotionally Intelligent Leaders Create Better Teams

Here are five methods to try with your team:

Establish team agreements around collaboration.
Small acts like showing appreciation and acknowledgement of differences in opinion build team EQ. Explicitly stating and agreeing on these small acts will ensure that everyone on the team recognizes and practices them. Bring your team together to identify what this looks like for you.

Have top-down meetings.
When people multitask during meetings, they miss important information and the person speaking feels disrespected. Discourage multitasking by having laptop-free team meetings whenever possible. Then, ensure that people have enough time outside of meetings to attend to their individual work.

Create a team ritual.
When team members are able to connect on some level other than work, they are more effective in working together, especially in times of higher stress. Encourage and support your team to identify some sort of daily or weekly joint activity that will allow them to connect on a personal level.

Be open about people's strengths and weaknesses.
As a leader, encourage your team members to be open. Understanding and accepting differences early on will help the rest of the team understand how each person can contribute in the best way possible.

Create a culture of giving and receiving feedback.
Often, miscommunication between team members arises from a lack of communication in the first place. Create a comfortable way for team members to give and receive feedback to and from you as well as to and from their teammates.

EQ is commonly identified as an important skill for leaders. Perhaps the most emotionally intelligent thing they can do is build the emotional intelligence of their teams.