Are you a socially intelligent leader?
A social intelligent leader knows when he/she is wrong and apologises.
“Human nature is the most important thing to understand if you want to be a leader.” – Theodore Roosevelt
In 1936, Dale Carnegie, who was a travelling salesman and who had then become a public speaker, wrote a book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, which has to date sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.
His advice on how to do that is as follows:
To win friends…
Don’t criticise, condemn or complain.
Encourage others to talk about themselves.
To influence people…
Show respect for other’s opinions.
When you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
For now, let me focus on how to influence people.
Essentially, what he’s saying is that social intelligence (quotient) = social knowledge, meaning if you know the rules of social behaviour, you can be socially intelligent and then you can be socially effective.
In reality, though, this doesn’t seem to be the case. I call this the Standard Model of Social Intelligence.
The problem with this Standard Model of Social Intelligence is that it doesn’t take into account how difficult it is to execute these social rules. Yes, we always want to do the right things, but it is not always easy to do so.
Why do we find it so hard to show respect for other’s opinions? Why is it so difficult to admit when we are wrong, let alone quickly and emphatically?
We seem to be failing to do this all the time. Why is this?
Surely, it’s not just knowing the rules, it’s an actual ability to execute those rules, to do that which we know is the right thing to do.
So social intelligence > social knowledge, meaning social intelligence is more than just knowing social rules, it’s actually having the ability to execute them.
