This article was written by Natalie Preston, a Business Transformation Project Manager, and edited by Nick Saunders, a Project Officer in Business Transformation.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the capacity to be aware of, control, and express our emotions. People with high levels of emotional intelligence know what they feel, what their emotions mean, and how these can affect others. It’s also the ability to handle interpersonal relations with empathy. In practice, this means being perceptive and skilled in understanding other people’s emotions, reactions and motivations.

The highest-performing leaders will have a high emotional quotient (the extent to which they can understand the emotions of others) alongside traditional leadership skills. Working in the public sector today entails working in a political, uncertain and volatile environment. Budgets are decreasing but the numbers of customers, and their needs, are increasing. That means emotional intelligence (and in particular empathy) is important for all public servants.

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Ultimately, emotional intelligence is about creating a positive working environment — this is essential for the success of any project. Patrick Mayfield’s research into people and change finds that most project managers spend between 8-12% of their time on people-focused activities. The top 10% of project managers spend 60-80% of their time on these activities. Emotional intelligence is therefore central to the success of every project.

Emotional intelligence helps project managers understand their team and its environment

Emotional intelligence is essential for project managers because it helps them understand the environment they are working in and the people they are working with. Projects are often delivered by temporary, cross-functional teams of dispersed professionals. They may not have worked together before, depending on the project.

Project managers in the public sector will often need to work with colleagues from different departments, and with diverse internal and external stakeholders. These colleagues may be experts in their profession, but may not be project managers by trade, and they may have other commitments alongside the project.

A project manager therefore needs to be aware of their own emotions, but also those of their project team. They’ll need to understand their different motivations, what causes them stress, how they work and how they digest information. Emotional intelligence is central to this, as well as to understanding how the project team will deal with failure and success, issues and risks. It will ensure a project team that can work effectively together to achieve its outcomes.

Projects generally deliver some kind of change, and that has an impact on particular groups. These could include citizens or residents, the organisation’s workforce, or others.

Emotional intelligence is essential when engaging stakeholders. Project managers need to ‘read the room’ in important meetings. They must build a rapport and get buy-in from challenging groups. They’ll need to understand how project communications and activities will ‘land’ with different stakeholders.

The Project Management Institute estimates that one out of five projects fails due to ineffective communication. However, emotional intelligence gives project managers the ability to know their audience and understand what matters to them. This is directly related to the success or failure of a project, especially those delivering challenging change initiatives in the public sector.

Four ways to become an emotionally-intelligent project manager

Here are four tips for project managers to help prioritise emotional intelligence, no matter what the project is.

1. Start with yourself

Ultimately, to grow more emotionally aware we must first understand our own emotions, and how to manage them in stressful situations. We’ll need to be clear on what motivates us. Authenticity is a key component to developing emotional intelligence, leading an effective project team, and building meaningful relations with stakeholders.

2. Understand your team, not just your external stakeholders

Project managers will often be attentive to identifying and engaging with those who are affected by a project. However, understanding the project team actually delivering the project is just as important — from team dynamics, to personalities, to how they deal with conflict and stress. Knowing your team, communicating with them and understanding their emotions is essential to building your emotional intelligence. It will also support your project’s success. This work becomes even more important for teams that work across different locations (including remotely), and for diverse teams.

3. Reflect and continually improve

Emotional intelligence is a skill that project managers should strive to continually improve, alongside other leadership qualities. Project managers in the public sector work in complex environments with a lot of ambiguity. The circumstances surrounding a project may change often, its scope may alter, the diversity of stakeholders may broaden and ultimately projects end. Every project is different, and no project can be delivered by a project manager in isolation. It’s helpful for project managers to think about what they’re learning throughout a project and at its end. In particular, you should reflect on how a project team worked, what you observed in pivotal moments with stakeholders, and your performance, and that of your team.

4. Don’t think of emotional intelligence in isolation

Emotional intelligence can be useful in almost any area of project management. For example, in managing scope changes or a project risk, stakeholders may feel pressured into signing off an approach to avoid delays. An emotionally-intelligent project manager will follow up with individuals after resolving issues like these — because they will foresee this could cause bigger problems later on.

The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to transform the ways we work. The initiatives we work on will change, and our project teams and stakeholders will continue to become more diverse and dispersed.

But there is one thing that is certain — a project manager’s emotional intelligence will be central to their success in the public sector. Therefore, striving to continue to develop and practice emotional intelligence should be a key priority for all project managers in their personal and professional development. We’ll discuss this further in the final instalment of the Project Management Skills 101 boot camp. — Natalie Preston

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