I had a coach­ing ses­sion last week with a client who owns a great com­pany here in the North­west. Like many busi­ness lead­ers, his nat­ural behav­ioral style is on the dom­i­nant side, which means he is a take-charge kind of guy. For those of you famil­iar with the DISC behav­ioral lan­guage, he is a High D.

I know this type very, very well.

Stud­ies have shown that there is a cor­re­lat­ing emo­tion for each behav­ioral style which emerges when that per­son is frus­trated or chal­lenged. For a High D, the emo­tion is anger.

In this ses­sion, my client shared that he feels some very real phys­i­cal changes when he is being chal­lenged or threat­ened. What he expe­ri­enced has every­thing to do with Emo­tional Intel­li­gence, or EQ.

The phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions he described are tun­nel vision and tin­gling in the hands. Many peo­ple also feel short­ness of breath, painful ten­sion in the neck or back, and the inabil­ity to sit still.

We expe­ri­ence these phys­i­cal dynam­ics in the heat of inter­per­sonal bat­tle because when we encounter stress­ful sit­u­a­tions, cer­tain hor­mones flood our sys­tem and impact which part of our brain does the think­ing. Stud­ies have shown that our pri­mal think­ing takes over; we stop think­ing ratio­nally and begin look­ing to fight or flee. In these sit­u­a­tions, we think in the same way we would if we were sec­onds away from being hit by a train. We go into sur­vival mode.

When this hap­pens, chances are we’re about to make a bad sit­u­a­tion even worse.

My client — who has no train­ing on the topic of EQ — is smart enough to know that he needs to take a break when he is in a con­flict and feels the phys­i­cal changes that take place prior to being emo­tion­ally hijacked. He rec­og­nizes that those feel­ings of tun­nel vision and tin­gling hands are going to lead to more prob­lems if he doesn’t “pull the rip cord” and get out of that sit­u­a­tion for a moment or two. That’s higher EQ.

EQ is a fas­ci­nat­ing topic, and stud­ies have shown that it has more to do with our abil­ity to suc­cess­fully lead oth­ers than does our IQ.

At the Expe­ri­ence this Sep­tem­ber, my fel­low coach and brother Greg Harkavy and I will be lead­ing a great break­out ses­sion together on EQ. I look for­ward to div­ing deeper into this crit­i­cally impor­tant skill in the weeks ahead.

When you feel the warn­ing signs of low EQ, step back. Take a walk, breathe deep, and regain your com­po­sure. You – and those around you — will be glad you did.

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Tags: Conflict, DISC, Emotional Intelligence, Relationships, The Experience

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