The Not-So Emotionally Intelligent Team Lessons

I have had the pleasure to be apart of many teams growing up. One thing I have begun to recognize the importance of through my involvement on these teams is the need for emotional intelligence. Without emotional intelligence, you can have the smartest group of people, who will get nowhere and accomplish very little. The ability to understand your emotions and the emotions of others around you and then react and respond appropriately to these emotions is crucial to individual and team success.

When I was in high school, I served on the FFA officer team and unfortunately, through this experience I had my first run in with what the lack of emotional intelligence can do to a team. It destroys teams. Needless to say, being in high school probably didn’t help our emotional maturity. Many of the people on the team often did not act like the young adults they were becoming, but instead resorted to the childish ways to avoiding emotions and problems. Often time, meetings would be silent and all the work fell back on one or two individuals. We had no team identity and even though we had set forth common goals at the beginning of the year, many seemed to forget these.

Part of the reason for this division and the complete lack of emotional intelligence, I believe was due in part that there was an inter competition for the presidency of the next year. Everyone in the chapter knew that there were going to be at least 5 well-deserving candidates for the position and instead of focusing on the current team they were on these individuals turned to selfish ways to get ahead. Competition and high emotions for the upcoming year controlled the way they acted. People were going behind peoples backs, starting rumors, and being just plain mean to one another in an attempt to cut the others out of the running. The team did not communicate well and the only motivation for many of the team members was to form cliques and degrade others.

Needless to say the year turned into a long and painful emotional roller coaster ride. Not much was accomplished due to the division of the officer team and the lack of emotional intelligence. I learned a lot from the experience about the importance of emotional intelligence and how the lack of it can lead to the downfall of a team.