When I was a first time manager I had no training. This comes as no surprise to folks in the games industry since hardly any leaders are educated on critical skills before being made responsible for other team members.
What I also had none of was self awareness. I didn’t have any grasp on just how much of a smart a** I was. Looking back, I realize I was smug, brash, and sarcastic to pretty much everyone. Especially to other leaders whom I deemed to be deficient. This…ahem…included the head of the company. Can’t say I blame him for including me in the layoffs. (years later I emailed him an apology for being a jerk)
Depending on whose book you read, there are four broad categories of skills that fall under the heading of emotional intelligence:
• Self awareness
• Self management
• Social awareness
• Relationship management
My contention is that self awareness is the most important to cultivate. True, we want the people we work with to be skilled in, say, self management. Ideally our team mates are not inclined to flip tables over in anger. But if you don’t even realize you’re being table flippy, that’s a problem you should attend to first.