As you may or may not know, in the private sector many people do not make these transitions very successfully. Part of the reason is because they don’t have the contextual intelligence. Te other part is that they haven’t built up the networks necessary to actu- ally deliver and get work done, because it is usually the informal network that you really have to rely on, particularly if you want to do things like innovate.


Army AL&T: Can you define contextual intelligence and emo- tional intelligence?


Hill: Emotional intelligence is usually defined as how self- aware and how socially aware you are. Some people


are


empathic and are good at interpersonal relationships. But that does not guarantee that they are socially aware, able to read organizational and political dynamics and figure out how to impact or transform the system. Te more self-aware you are, and the more socially aware you are, the more likely it is that you can manage yourself effectively. Managing yourself is the core imperative of leadership. Leadership is always about trying to use yourself as an instrument to get things done, and that means being able to match your intent with your impact.


Contextual intelligence relates to your capacity to learn what is important about a context or a circumstance, [understanding] what you need to pay attention to and adapting your behavior accordingly. Two people doing the same job in different con- texts—say, Afghanistan as compared with Germany—will face different challenges and may even need different skills. Each needs to be able to figure out what matters in their particular context and then to adjust their action plans accordingly.


Army AL&T: On the day-to-day level, are there specific ques- tions that a manager or a leader should ask him or herself to establish emotional and contextual intelligence?


Hill: You might think you are empathic, but that might not be how your colleagues perceive you. Tis is why a lot of orga- nizations have 360-degree feedback. One of the things we have the executives do, and the MBAs, is get 360-degree feed- back on their emotional intelligence. Tey get peers, bosses and direct reports to assess them on a variety of interpersonal and organizational skills, from managing conflict, to exercis- ing influence, to inspiring others. Tere is a whole series of questions about how they manage conflict, how they manage influence, how aware they are of their strengths, their weak- nesses, their emotions. Most of us think we are doing fine, even on very fundamental things, such as integrity—but it is


difficult to figure out whether you are actually matching your intent with your impact without that 360-degree feedback.


In “Being the Boss,” we talked about the importance of trust. Tere are two dimensions of trust, your character and your com- petence. People want to know that you are well-intended and that you want to do the right thing. Tat’s what character is about. Competence is about whether you know the right thing to do. Now you may know what the right thing to do is and you may, in fact, be well-intended. But what matters? Te truth matters.


Perception matters, too: Are you behaving in ways that pro- vide evidence for people that you are, in fact, trustworthy? One of the things that we frequently find with our executives and MBAs is that people who have been very successful and are in some ways very ambitious are not particularly self-aware or empathic. And they are rather surprised to learn that. One


THE MORE BRAINS, THE BETTER


The genius hitting upon a brilliant breakthrough alone in her lab is the exception. Most innovations come from the friction and competition of a group—but it has to be supportive competition. Research shows that fostering a feeling of “psychological safety” is one of the most important things good leaders do to encourage innovation. (Image by ARTQU/iStock)


ASC.ARMY.MIL


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CRITICAL THINKING


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