The Story of Jim

Jim bumbled his way through his first presentation to the board in his new role as CFO. The CEO, Steve, was very disappointed and surprised by Jim's performance. Jim had forgotten to bring his memory stick to the presentation, but only discovered his oversight as he set up and all the board members were filing into the room. Kicking himself, and obviously thrown off, Jim had to talk about the slides from his handout. His performance reflected this-by his nervousness, disorganization, and lack of poise. Steve, who had supported Jim for the CFO position, exclaimed afterward, "What happened? I was counting on you. Now you are going to have an uphill battle to get back your credibility with this group, if you can."
Dejected and miffed, Jim asked himself the same thing: "What happened?" Half a dozen scenes replayed through his head:

1. On the way to the meeting, Mary, one of his best employees, had told him she was very disappointed in her review and was going to write a rebuttal. He was taken aback at her comments and at the bad timing, as Mary knew he was going to a big meeting. Jim was very short and defensive with her, which was not like him, and he immediately regretted his reaction.
2. He had raced to work this morning, as he had to drop off his daughter, McKensey, at school on the way. She was late getting out of the house because she was looking for one of her shoes.
3. Driving to work, he was thinking about the two people from his department he would have to let go at the end of the day. He still wasn't sure how he was going handle this, and it added to his feeling of being overwhelmed.
4. He had gotten only four and a half hours of sleep the night before, as he was worried about the presentation. In addition, he was anxious about telling his wife about two upcoming business trips he would have to take with the new position. He knew she would be upset as she worried this new position would have him traveling more and she was concerned about the impact on the family.
5. He had left the house in a rush this morning with his mind full of all the tasks ahead of him and "mindlessly" walked right past his memory stick, even though he had placed it by the front door with his notes so he would not forget anything.

All of these emotional events influenced each other, and they impacted Jim's cognitive functioning and his performance. His brain was spent, his emotions were fragile, and his ability to control them and perform at his best was impaired.
Warren Bennis, the founding father of leadership writings and insights, has called for "the field of leadership studies to attend to how we can develop leaders who understand relationships and communication, who can manage themselves and others with wisdom, creativity, and values." He identified resilience as the most important quality of a leader or anyone wanting to lead a healthy and meaningful life.
Jim failed to manage himself or successfully manage others in these interactions. He was like a quarterback who threw two interceptions for touchdowns in the first half of the game and couldn't shake it or recover to perform in the second half. He didn't have the plays or strategies to rebound, recover, stay flexible, and continue to perform at his best. He needed more Emotional Intelligence to prevent this catastrophe in his first big activity in his new role.
All of us have experienced days and moments like this. We need a game plan and strategies to better manage ourselves, and creatively manage others for top performance. This is even more necessary when the stress and rigors of work and life compromise our brain functioning and performance. We need an Emotional Intelligence playbook.