Emotional Creatures

‘’When dealing with people, you are not dealing with creatures of Logic but creatures of emotion’’ – Dale Carnegie

‘’People will always forget what you did for them, but they will never forget how you made them feel’’ – Dion Gomez

The clear objective as a leader of men should then be to ‘move’ the hearts of people. I.e. tap into the emotional creature within them as opposed to using arguments of logic to stir people into action.

This is a fundamental management or leadership lesson it seems as history tells us just how important this fact is. The late President Premadasa for all the criticism leveled at him moved the hearts of the masses by giving them housing through the Gam Udawa housing scheme. Not once during the past 5 year period have I seen a common man worship President Chandrika in a similar manner, in my mind she was a good leader, strong, powerful and had the charisma to lead a nation regardless of her faults. But what stands out is the way so many people adore her predecessor.

Parallels can be drawn with the current president. He communicates well with the emotions of the masses whilst his rival seems to lack this ability and thus the support of the people.

Most of us will never run for President or probably not even become the CEO of our company. But it’s a fact of life that you need to be able to tug at heart and emotions of people to win their support. Some of the most successful cooperate leaders are blessed with this ability.

For all those guys out there that really don’t bother about women and flattering them, this is a huge mistake. So I’ve learnt, it’s a good practice ground for one thing to be able or bothered to gauge the emotions of the opposite species or anyone for that matter. Taking your mom out for dinner, speaking to the security guard for 1 minute and basically going beyond the expectations of people by showing you care can have a significant impact in terms of the support you get and this is Characteristic of good leaders. Developing emotional intelligence thus is absolute key to success in the corporate world but more importantly in your personal life and relationships.

When I quizzed Mr. Dion Gomez, CEO MAS Intimates sometime back on how you could keep people happy during tough times where you cannot afford to give increments, beautiful infrastructure, benefits etc. his reply was simple.

‘’It does not cost you money to put your arm around a factory worker and ask how they are doing today, this makes all the difference and they will wholeheartedly support you during tough times’’