Emotional Bipolar II

Last week I introduced the concept of being emotionally bipolar. This is the idea of being very strong and courageous in some situations with certain people, and being weak and fearful in others. The key in both is the emotional safety that you feel. My argument was that since you already have demonstrated strength and courage, and therefore have these attributes, then by simply altering your emotional temperature or of that of the situation, you can in fact proactively create more emotionally safe environments that then allow you to perform at higher levels more consistently.

Emotionally Bipolar

I had a wonderful conversation with a good friend last week discussing a condition I have labeled as Emotional Bipolar. This applies to people who are exceptionally emotionally intelligent in one dimension of life, and inexplicably, totally inept in another dimension. An example is someone who is incredibly warm, loving, empathetic, and caring at home but an absolute monster (no empathy, no compassion, no self awareness, no self regulation) to work for or with at work, or vice versa.

Female EQ

I have blogged about Male EQ before and it’s time to turn the focus on women. Last week I saw an interview with facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on her book Lean In. I know many of my readers will disagree with me on my take on her central premise. Therefore, my qualifier to this week’s blog is that as a minority myself, I am all for equality in all dimensions of life and have been a fierce advocate against all forms of discrimination in our society. That said, I think Sheryl has it wrong.

Employee Satisfaction

I read a very interesting study last week on employee satisfaction surveys. These are surveys that organizations use to assess the overall satisfaction and engagement of employees. The data is often used to make important decisions by leadership regarding leadership behavior and values, employee work place rewards and perks, and sometimes used by external organizations as a metric for a “best place to work” for.