Colombo Leadership Academy workshop

The Colombo Leadership Academy (CLA) recently presented a series of Business Strategy workshops with emotional intelligence guru Archana Law, to provide better understanding and proactive growth in the business and human resources field.

Co-founder of CLA and Leadership Development and Transformation Specialist, Riaz Hassen said, "It is a parable that only smart, highly qualified and hardworking people can be successful at running a business enterprise.

Emotional Intelligence reflects one's ability to deal with daily challenges and it also includes internal skills necessary to manage and control oneself in various challenging situations."

"While intelligence is important to success, it is not the only attribute to be successful in a highly competitive business landscape. Recent research suggests that emotional intelligence, measured by emotional quotient, is a better predictor of 'success' than the more traditional measures of cognitive intelligence," he said.

"Embracing Emotional Intelligence in your leadership culture is not about being soft, emotional and nice. Comparatively, it is about being effective and propelling shared vision and using communication to work more effectively," Hassen said.

The Director of a leading financial organisation said, "A major factor that was focused on was a manager's ability to acquire and apply the knowledge and skills to use emotional intelligence effectively in the workplace and create an inspired team."

"Traditionally we believed leaders must have a large following, but the learning provided the insight that good leaders must produce great leaders, that was a big take away for me personally," he said.

Emotional Intelligence has been recognised as a vital management tool. It hasn't however, been explored widely in the Sri Lankan context.