Are you an "emotionally fit" business?
Today I feel very lucky.
It is the first day of my new business venture (Emotionally-i-Fit), which I am combining with my role as Global Head of Learning & Development at Morgan McKinley. My vision is to develop emotionally fit leaders that inspire, empower, motivate and engage the talent they have. The impact will be emotionally fit businesses that grow and excel in performance.
I joined Morgan McKinley in July 2013 and during the interview process felt a real alignment with my own values and the values of the organisation – Morgan McKinley value talent and without this I wouldn’t be feeling as lucky as I do today.
Whilst I probably would say this (particularly as I work within our People Function) – Morgan McKinley is an emotionally fit business.
The term emotional fitness is a state of being that allows leaders to connect with themselves and others in a positive and inspiring way. Emotionally fit people have greater self-awareness, are excellent communicators and can adapt their behaviour to a variety of situations and individuals. As a result, they are more likely to have the edge they need to lead, manage and perform in today's competitive and complex world. They are also adept at dealing with stress, conflict and change. In turn this impacts their business and therefore they are more emotionally fit.
So what exactly do emotionally fit businesses do? Ask yourself the following questions?
- Do you align your business strategy to your people strategy?
- Do you focus on growth of the individual?
- Do you develop senior leaders to engage at an emotional level (as well as intellectual level)?
- Are you transforming and adapting to the world around you?
- Are you curious – do you want to understand more about your market? Are you leaders in your industry? Do you empower your people towards innovation?
- Are you future focused – do you use what you learn to develop strategies that will engage people at an emotional level?
- Does your business aim to derive a sense of meaning from work whilst at the same time reward fairly for expenditure of energy, effort and time?
- Do your Exec teams focus on their own development with the belief that they also need to grow?
- Do you discuss talent at a board level?
- Do your Senior Leaders actively mentor/coach future talent?
If you perhaps feel that you could improve or transform in many of these areas I would suggest that there is space to become more emotionally fit as a business.
My belief is that the starting point for this is getting leaders to understand their own levels of emotional fitness to ensure that they are leading in the key areas that have the greatest impact. Once they are better able to understand the power that they have around engagement (both negatively and positively) they are better equipped to build an emotionally fit business.
To find out more information about how you do this contact Amanda Wildman at www.emotionally-i-fit.com.