Why Automotive Leaders Need Emotional Intelligence with Daniel Goleman

[Transcript]

[00:00:00] Jan Griffiths: Welcome to the Automotive Leaders Podcast, where we help you prepare for the future by sharing stories, insights, and skills from leading voices in the automotive world with a mission to transform this industry together. I'm your host, Jan Griffiths, that passionate, rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales with over 35 years of experience in our beloved auto industry, and a commitment to empowering fellow leaders to be their best authentic selves. Stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership. Let's dive in.

This episode is brought to you by Lockton. Lockton redefines business insurance and people's solutions with a personal touch. Their global team of 11,000 is driven by independence, not quarters, to tailor success for your business. Discover the Lockton difference, where your goals become their mission. Independence is not just how you think, but how you act.

As we move through this period of massive transformation in the auto industry, there's an element of leadership and culture that demands more attention, and that is emotional intelligence. And before you roll your eyes and start thinking this is just some soft skills bullshit with no impact to the bottom line, then guess again. Because, today, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the world's leading authority on emotional intelligence. Now, why do I say that? Why do I make that claim about my next guest? Well, he is a psychologist and former science journalist for the New York Times. He is the author of 13 books. He has transformed the way the world educates children and relates to family and friends.

In the business world, he has significantly influenced the way we lead and how we view culture, the operating model for how we do business. He's worked with organizations around the globe, examining the way social and emotional competencies impact the bottom line. Yes, let me repeat that for my hard-nosed audience in automotive. Yes, he has examined the way social and emotional competencies impact the bottom line. He is ranked one of the 10 most influential business thinkers by the Wall Street Journal. In 2023, he received the Centennial Medallion from Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for excellence in communicating science. And for his influence on education, business, and society at large. He is indeed Daniel Goldman. Dan, welcome to the show.

[00:03:21] Daniel Goleman: Well, Jan, thank you. It's my pleasure to be here.

[00:03:24] Jan Griffiths: Oh, it's great to have you. Dan, I'm going to start with a story. Many years ago, actually in 1999, I was a director at Maytag; the old Maytag Appliance Company. And most of my career has been in the auto industry, but for a short period of time, I jumped out and I went to work at Maytag. And it was a Senior level corporate job. And I was very concerned about how I was viewed and my leadership style and how I would come across. And I was in my thirties, mid-thirties, I think of that time. And so, I picked up your book on emotional intelligence and I thought, "Oh, this is interesting. I'm going to get into this." And I read your book and way back when I can remember it, I was in my apartment in Des Moines, Iowa. I can remember exactly where I was when I read it. Now, there's not, you can't say that too often, right? About books that you read in your lifetime. But I knew exactly where I was, because I remember the impact it had on me. And I always knew, Dan, that I wasn't the smartest kid in the class, ever. But I've always said that some of those smart kids that were in school with me would never be able to handle some of the negotiations and the conflict that I was dealing with in the auto industry. And then, I read your book and then here was EQ. And it was, you laid out everything. Intuitively, I sort of knew and felt, but you provided a structure that laid it all out. And I felt like you gave me permission to embrace a more authentic leadership style. So, how's that for somebody who can go back to 1999, Dan?

[00:05:15] Daniel Goleman: Pretty good.

[00:05:17] Jan Griffiths: Thank you.

[00:05:17] Daniel Goleman: Well done, Jan.

[00:05:18] Jan Griffiths: So, Dan, why is emotional intelligence so important in leadership and culture?

[00:05:25] Daniel Goleman: You know, there's a huge misunderstanding about how we think and how we feel in that we assume those are two different things, you know, manage, but that's just rational decision-making. Actually, the brain is not designed that way. The brain, the human brain is designed so that we have feelings about everything we think. There's always a feeling. The brain doesn't distinguish between how you feel at home and how you feel at work. You take the same brain systems along with you, and they're feeling throughout the day. And it turns out in our studies of leadership and teams that the feelings that are never stated explicitly or rarely stated explicitly make a huge difference in how people perform. So, if you're a leader, you ignore that at your own risk.

[00:06:21] Jan Griffiths: We were taught to ignore that in the auto industry, quite frankly, because when you talk command and control, that's our thing. You know, we're proud of our command and control model in the auto industry and we're changing, but it's slow down. So, what is it that you have found? I mean, I read your book in 1999, but you have conducted so much research since that date. What have you found?

[00:06:48] Daniel Goleman: Well, let's look at command and control leadership explicitly. In one study where, we looked about at almost 4,000 executives and evaluated their leadership style or styles, and then asked the people who work for them confidentially, how do you feel? What kind of emotional climate does this leader create? They wouldn't necessarily say that to the leader face to face, but they happily said it to us. It turned out that the very worst style in terms of the climate it created was command and control. Very worst. The best was a leader who could articulate a shared meaning or purpose in what we do. Who inspired people, because when you inspire someone, you get the best out of them. They're not just working for the salary or the promotion, they're working for the cause, for the mission. And people will go way beyond these, you know, the job description. If you do that, if you're that kind of leader, you can also be very clear about goals. When you did X, it didn't help us with that mission we all believe in; it'd be better if you did Y. You can give performance feedback on the spot, which is much more effective and which is more meaningful than that, you know, yearly performance review.

[00:08:12] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. For those in our audience, Dan, who might not be familiar with emotional intelligence, they probably heard of it. If you were to summarize it, some of the key components, and I know this is going to be really hard for you because you're so entrenched in it. But if you were to summarize it, for our audience. How would you do that?

[00:08:33] Daniel Goleman: Well, basically, it's being intelligent about emotion. And what that means is there are actually four parts. First, you're aware of your own feelings. You're self-aware. You know what you're feeling, how it's shaping your perception, your thinking, your impulse to act. You know how to use that information to manage your own emotions. So, you keep your distressing or, you know, emotions that are like anger that might upset other people, you keep those under control a bit, but you arouse the positive ones. The reason you love what you're doing, for example. Your passions about your work. And that's very important for a leader because you have to begin by leading yourself. Then, the next two parts, there are four parts. Next two parts, one is empathy. Knowing what other people feel without them telling you in words because they won't tell you in words; they tell you in non-verbals, facial expression, and tone of voice and there are three kinds of empathy. One is cognitive. I get how you think about this that helps you communicate effectively. Emotional empathy is where you feel with the person. You sense what they feel; you feel it, too. And that helps you too, because then you can address that level, whether explicitly or implicitly. And the third is, believe it or not, concern. It's called technically empathic concern. It means you care. You not only know how the person thinks and how they feel, you care about them and you communicate that to them in many different ways. And that means that they trust you. They're loyal to you. You're the kind of boss that people love to work for rather than the kind of boss that people hate to work for. And I would tell you that command and control style is more likely to put you in the hate the boss category than the love boss category. The fourth part of emotional intelligence is using all of that to handle your relationships well, to handle conflict, to create a team that feels very cohesive, that feels they're on the same page. And we have a whole kind of a method called Team EI for helping teams get together and identify where they need to be better at communicating, working together, and relating to other teams. And those other teams might be in your supply chain. They may not necessarily be in your organization, but you might, for example, in some high-performing teams do this. You might appoint someone as the ambassador to that team that you rely on. And high performing teams set norms. All the people on the team agree. From now on, we're going to operate this way together because it's more effective. So, you know, you can force a norm. I'm thinking of a creative consultancy ideal. And one of the branches of that consultancy, if you break the norm of interrupting someone while they're speaking, people pelt you with stuffed toy animals. It's kind of a fun way of supporting the norm. There's another thing: this really was an eye-opener for me. I was talking to the director of a national laboratory. He has three or four thousand PhDs working for him. He said, "We have a norm here that whenever someone suggests a new idea, the next person who speaks has to support the idea, not shoot it down." It's very easy to be a devil's advocate, but you know, a new idea, a creative idea, it needs a little air time. You need to mull it rather than kill it at that lab. The director said, "I don't even know who started this, but everybody does it now." And it's very helpful for getting that creative insight that might put your company ahead of others.

[00:12:41] Jan Griffiths: I love that because we talk a lot in our industry about innovation and as you know, everybody on the planet knows the automotive industry is transforming at an alarming rate as we evolve into the world of electric vehicles. And okay, the road to EV adoption is a bumpy one, but it is happening. What we don't focus on, Dan is the operating system that goes along with that. You know, we cannot transform this industry from the technology standpoint, without also looking at our operating system, our culture, the people, and the leadership. And so often, even still, when I'm talking about empathy and compassion and connecting with people, there are still doubters out there, Dan. What is, maybe you could talk us through some data or some case studies where somebody has actually; you've actually seen the impact with this type of leadership, truly impacts the bottom line.

[00:13:46] Daniel Goleman: I've seen it around the world. I've asked executives of all, you know, all sectors, tell me about, just bring to mind a boss you've worked for that you hated and one you loved? And I just list what made them so great or so awful; basically, the good boss is emotionally intelligent, and the bad boss is the opposite. And then, you know, people who work for you, your direct reports, won't ever tell you that you're a bad boss, right? What they'll do is they'll leave, or they won't give their best. They'll do good enough to keep the job, but they won't go all out. So, basically, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Leadership is the art of getting work done well through other people.

[00:14:32] Jan Griffiths: Yes.

[00:14:33] Daniel Goleman: Think about that. Work done well through other people. Well, you have to motivate them. You have to inspire them. You have to create trust. There was a study done at the Harvard Business School, where they asked people to keep a journal of their experience every day at work, and they analyzed them. They came up with what you could call an optimal state. It's a state where people were high performing, where they're very satisfied with their job. So it correlates to low turnover, very engaged, and engagement is one of the usual metrics in any organization. They're engaged. They feel really good doing what they're doing, and they feel connected to the people around them. That's a high-performing person. And it turns out when you analyze the data, meta-analysis, you know, you take hundreds of studies, and you aggregate them into one. And you find that it's emotional intelligence in leaders that's more likely to create that optimal state in the people who work for them. So, in a way, it's a no-brainer, but, you know, there are cultures, and you're telling me the automotive culture, maybe one of them that resists this. I remember when I wrote the book Emotional Intelligence, people said, "What? You know you can't use the word emotion in a business."

[00:15:52] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. I believe that. That would be automotive. Yeah.

[00:15:57] Daniel Goleman: Yes. But now, it's pretty much everywhere. And some industries have adopted it faster than others. Some industries are better at innovation than others. But innovation is what's going to help your company survive and thrive in the future. If you don't do it, you're dead, basically. So, what is going to foster that innovative spirit is creative spirit in the people who are on the front lines, for example. Who knows where a tweak or a new way of doing something can make a big difference. First of all, you know, this is a study done at Google. It's a feeling of psychological safety. I feel safe enough. I trust you enough that I can take the risk of suggesting something new. It's risky because people might shoot you down. They might think you're crazy for suggesting that. So, you need to feel safe enough to take the risk. If you're a leader who's squelching, you know, that possibility doesn't make people feel safe, who doesn't make people feel they can be risk takers and say, "Oh, here's a thought I had." Then, you're likely to sadly have a more abundant organization.

[00:17:20] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. There's still a lot of fear in the air here, Dan, and it certainly hampers innovation because innovation, by definition, is you try, and you fail, and you try, and you fail, and you iterate. And if there's fear in the air, you're not going to put your best idea forward for fear of being judged or, even worse, being whacked. I mean, that does happen. So, if you keep all those ideas in, you certainly do not have psychological safety. And the only way you can get that is by connecting with people and making sure that people are treated like human beings, not talking to them with corporate speak, not treating them all the same, not giving them all these hard numbers and saying, "I'm going to hold you accountable." Basically, if you don't do it, you're done. You're out of here. You know, that model is dead, right?

[00:18:12] Daniel Goleman: Well, it should be dead.

[00:18:15] Jan Griffiths: No, it's not quite dead enough yet, but I'm on a

mission to kill it, Dan. I'm trying. I'm trying.

[00:18:21] Daniel Goleman: Here's what I know as a psychologist. Threatening people and instilling fear is the worst way to get them to perform well. The reason is they get defensive, and in the brain, they actually contract. They do what they know is safe. They don't do what might be best. the best way to get performance out of people is to say what's positive about them, what's positive about what we're all doing together about our mission, and that is a very different way. And, you know, leaders, I think, should be more careful about how they give performance feedback because very often it's just like, "Oh, you really screwed that up," which kills, you know, motivation. If you say, you know, I know you're good at this, and you're good at that, and you're good at that, you could get better at this, and here's how. It's a much more positive way, and it has a very positive impact on the systems that operate inside us. I'm talking about neurotransmitter systems and brain chemicals that help us be at our best.

[00:19:28] Jan Griffiths: And talking about being at your best, let's talk about your most recent book, Optimal. I've just read it, and you know, my audience knows that when I read a book and I have this many Post-it notes on it, that's a pretty good sign. But Optimal is all about how to sustain personal and organizational excellence every day. And when I first started going into your book, you start right away, you start to talk about flow psychology. And actually, when I read your first book in '99, I was actually reading Mihaly; I can never pronounce that name.

[00:20:10] Daniel Goleman: A Hungarian name, and it's impossible.

[00:20:12] Jan Griffiths: The guy with the unpronounceable name that writes the books on flow psychology.

[00:20:15] Daniel Goleman: Yeah. We actually called him Csik.

[00:20:16] Jan Griffiths: Oh, I love that. Csik, the guy with the unpronounceable name that wrote all the books on flow psychology. Yeah. Again, a lot of the things that he writes about, I totally agree with. But here's the thing: I'll give you an example. When I do my workshops or keynote speaking, or I'm engaged with the client, right? I am totally in a flow state. I mean, I have no conscious time. I got to watch, I got to have, you know, my Apple watch tell me what's happening with the time. I'm totally engaged. I'm doing what I love. I'm in that flow state. I'm challenged, but not too much. I mean, all the elements of flow are right there, but there's no way that you could sustain that every single day. I mean, there's not a chance. So, when you talk about Optimal Performance, Dan, could you explain a little bit about what you mean by that?

[00:21:06] Daniel Goleman: Sure. So, the flow state where people are at their absolute best is not something you can make happen. Maybe you can, but most people can't. It happens to you. The optimal state is just beneath that. It's where you're focused a hundred percent on what you're doing, and by the way, this is a key I'll come back to, where you're engaged, where your performance is fantastic. It's tip-top, where you feel good, where you feel connected. It's that optimal state they found at Harvard in the business school. However, to get in the optimal state, unlike the flow state, you can make it happen. You can make it happen by paying very close attention, for example, to what you're doing. It gets the brain very engaged in whatever's going on. And this is a voluntary skill that anyone can do. So, optimal unlike flow is something that's within our voluntary possibility.

[00:22:05] Jan Griffiths: So how? How do you do it? How do you do it, Dan? How do we get ourselves into this optimal state?

[00:22:14] Daniel Goleman: Well, you know, in our culture, we don't bother training attention. We have a culture and an economy which is built on the constant new. Every season, there's a new fashion. Every year, there's a new model of a car. That is what we depend on to perk up the brain and make us pay attention. It turns out, though, that we're missing a huge opportunity, I think, for our kids and ourselves, which is to sharpen our ability to attend to what's going on in the moment. That is a skill that can be trained and trained and trained. And the more, the better you get at it, the more likely you are to be in an optimal state, no matter what it is you're doing.

[00:23:02] Jan Griffiths: So maybe, when I'm in that moment that I think is flow, maybe it's not. Maybe it is the optimal state. Like you say, it's just below flow.

[00:23:14] Daniel Goleman: Well, let me ask you, Jan, the flow state, by definition, is when you outdo yourself. It sounds like you're really pretty, very good at doing this thing, giving talks, for example. Is there a time you were fantastic? That might be the flow state.

[00:23:32] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. I get it now, Dan. I understand it. Yes, there are times that I'm better than others. I think ever since I left my corporate job and I'm truly mission driven. I'm on a mission to change the culture in the auto industry. And so, the work I do is my business; I do the work that I absolutely love, right? So, I craft my work, my day, my clients it's all around doing work that I absolutely love. But you're right, there are moments when I feel like it's just a little, it's like, well, cherry on the top moment, right? So, that's the difference.

[00:24:08] Daniel Goleman: So, here's the question for the automotive industry. Is there a good business case for innovation?

[00:24:16] Jan Griffiths: Yes, always.

[00:24:19] Daniel Goleman: Historically, too, I think.

[00:24:20] Jan Griffiths: Yes. Yes.

[00:24:21] Daniel Goleman: Okay. So, historically, and particularly now, the innovator is more likely to succeed in terms of sales, market share. Is that right?

[00:24:35] Jan Griffiths: Yes, most definitely.

[00:24:36] Daniel Goleman: Yeah. Okay, so let's reverse-engineer that. What helps a company be innovative? Okay? I think the answer is people. What helps people be innovative? Well, I think one thing that helps is having a leader who values it, and encourages it, and supports it. What kind of leader is that? It's probably not a command and control leader.

[00:25:04] Jan Griffiths: Yes, you're right. And it is a leader that looks at innovation not just in terms of the technical side but more in terms of everything. Everything we do looking at better, faster, more effective ways of designing the product, making the product, how we interact as a company, how we handle finance, how we handle supply chain. It's innovation at every level of the business, isn't it?

[00:25:32] Daniel Goleman: Well put. So, if you want innovation everywhere, I would encourage you to have emotional intelligence everywhere to help leaders develop it. And this is the good news, by the way: emotional intelligence can be developed or improved at any point in life. It's not like, oh, I had that kind of childhood, or my genes are such and such; I'll never have it. It's really a question of what do I need to work on or to improve. What habit is basically shooting me in the foot, and what could replace it? And for that, I think you need coaches. I'd like to recommend the Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence online Program.

[00:26:16] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, of course.

[00:26:17] Daniel Goleman: It helps you understand the basics of emotional intelligence in a kind of in-depth way, and it's something that I think would help any leader to see, oh, right! Light bulb. I could be better at empathy, managing emotions, or motivating people. What are handling conflict? It's different for every person. It's different for every leader. So, if you look at the whole range of emotional intelligence abilities, the competencies of outstanding performers that build on this skill set, you can see where you are or where you want to go and find a way to get there.

[00:26:56] Jan Griffiths: Yeah. And you remind me, Dan, you talked about self-awareness. So often, we don't ask ourselves the question, who are you as a leader? Not who are you as the head of engineering, as a head of finance? No, no, no. Who are you as a leader? What are your values? Who are you as a leader, and what are you going to do to get better as a leader? You don't just say, "Oh, yeah. Hey, I'm a great leader because blah, blah, blah." No, who are you as a leader? Really. Truly. And we don't ask ourselves that question. Why do you think we don't ask ourselves that question?

[00:27:34] Daniel Goleman: Yeah, I would ask the question differently, Jan. I would say, how are you as a leader?

[00:27:39] Jan Griffiths: Oh, yes.

[00:27:40] Daniel Goleman: Who are you is what's your position? How are you is how do you actually operate with people?

[00:27:46] Jan Griffiths: Yes.

[00:27:47] Daniel Goleman: You know, some of our research is sobering, and that we find if you look at how people who know someone well rate a person on emotional intelligence and how that person rates themselves, the people who are worst at it rate themselves fine, but they have the most discrepancies with how other people see them. In other words, they're bad, and they don't know it, which means that, you know, they may be in an exalted position in the organization. How they got there may have to do with politics, not with how they actually lead. And it may be that the people who work for them, their direct reports, are sending out resumes right and left because they can't stand that person. And as I said before, they would never say so.

[00:28:34] Jan Griffiths: Yes. Yeah. And we're not good at admitting mistakes. We don't like to do that in the auto industry because, you know, we're very driven to the metrics and the numbers and the KPIs, and if we make a mistake, we don't really like to admit it. And this idea of showing vulnerability as a leader it's taken a long time for that to catch on because the idea of the strong command and control leader is somebody who visually sits at the head of the table, controls the meeting, and sets the agenda. And this idea of admitting a mistake, people are concerned that they will come across as being a weak leader if they do that, what would you say to them?

[00:29:17] Daniel Goleman: So, what you're describing, Jan, I think you're describing a judgmental culture.

[00:29:20] Jan Griffiths: Yes.

[00:29:21] Daniel Goleman: One that doesn't understand the value of thinking about mistakes and correcting them and doing better next time. If you never admit the mistake, then you're likely to have it again and again. If you say, "Oh, when that happened, that was a screw-up. Let's think about how it won't happen the next time around." But in order to do that, you have to admit there was a mistake in the first place. On the other hand, it's a learning opportunity. My friend Peter Senge at MIT talks about the learning organization, about people learning to get better together. And as you're pointing out, the first step in that is admitting there's something here we need to learn.

[00:30:04] Jan Griffiths: Yes, most definitely. Well, we got a long way to go down in the auto industry. And there's a quote from your book and it says this, "We will require a deep rethinking of systems we've long taken for granted." Your words, Dan. And that to me, there it is right there. I think that is so powerful and so meaningful to the auto industry. But what advice would you give to leaders in the auto industry right now listening to this podcast?

[00:30:38] Daniel Goleman: I would say be more open, listen, ask questions before saying what you think. Gather information. Don't assume you know.

[00:30:50] Jan Griffiths: Yeah, don't assume you know. And I believe that emotional intelligence is such a critical element as we transform this industry because it is not just about the technology; it is about our operating model, it is about our culture, and it is all coming back to leadership. Right, Dan?

[00:31:08] Daniel Goleman: The question, again, is how are you as a leader? How are you? Not who are you or what are you? How?

[00:31:15] Jan Griffiths: Yes, I love that. How are you as a leader? That is a question I would love everybody in our listening audience to take on board. Dan, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much for your time.

[00:31:30] Daniel Goleman: Jan, it's my pleasure. Good luck with your mission. It's wonderful.

[00:31:34] Jan Griffiths: Thank you. And for those of you who want to go deeper in this subject, and I certainly hope you do, we're going to drop three links in the show notes. One will take you to Dan's website, where you can learn more about emotional intelligence. It's an online course. The second is to learn more about Team EI, and the third is to do an assessment of your emotional intelligence skills. We'll drop those links in the show notes. See you next time.

Thank you for listening to the Automotive Leaders Podcast. Click the listen link in the show notes to subscribe for free on your platform of choice, and don't forget to download the 21 Traits of Authentic Leadership PDF by clicking on the link below. And remember, stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership.