Effective Working Relationships with Low EQ Bosses

I’m sitting at a café having just seen a client the other day, and a lady walks past that I know, that I’ve coached previously in a group. I said,

“How are you?” She goes, “I’m terrible.” I said, “Why are you terrible? What’s going on?” She said, “I just can’t find a way of getting along with my boss.”

And because I’m one of those “coachy dudes”, everyone tells me their problems, right? So I said,

“Oh, that’s terrible. What’s the problem?” She said, “Well, he just doesn’t get me.”

I asked a little bit, few more questions, “coachy dude” again, about the problem. The problem is she’s got a boss who just doesn’t get the EQ stuff, the emotional stuff.

The Problem

Let’s talk about working with the people around you who may have really low EQ and some ways that you can change your communication to improve the relationship.

So here’s the thing with low EQ people. It’s a little bit harsh, isn’t it, but you know what? We’re not all good at everything. For some people, they weren’t naturally born with the skills to be able to read other people’s emotions, to kind of naturally get an intuitive sense of what they want.

So since about the 1930s, we’ve had this really interesting dimension in management leadership, which is really that some people are really good at maintaining and building relationships at work, and some people are really good at getting things done.

Most people aren’t all that. They’re not all about getting stuff done. And most people aren’t all relationships. We’re required to be somewhat in the middle. Now with this girl I ran into at the café, what it sounds like is she has got someone who’s highly task-driven. Probably not on the extreme, but probably more here.

And so the interesting thing about that is if you look at the actual brain, the left and right hemisphere, for most people who are task-driven, they’ve got a lot more of a preference for analytical, logical-based work. And that’s their comfort zone.

Here are three ideas that will help you work with someone who’s literally brain chemistry is built that way:

The 3 Principles

1. They’re not naturally going to read your intent in a conversation.

For some people who they’re comfortable with, who have got those skills, the relationship skills, they’ll kind of pick up that you’re frustrated, pick up you’re angry, pick up you’re sad. That won’t happen.

So what you’ve got to do is actually explain clearly the why and the what, and frame each conversation around not just the relationship but also the task. What has this conversation got to do with the work getting done, with the work getting done? Because that’s this person’s frame of reference.

2. The whole idea of tutor in the text.

When I did my master’s of education 15 years ago now, we did it globally with people in Canada and South Africa and Sweden. It was really cool, but one of the things I learned was how difficult it was to learn when you didn’t have someone sitting in front of you.

They called the idea of the tutor in the text, which is when you don’t have time to build a connection with someone, you’ve got to actually communicate more, to help them understand. And so they call that the tutor in the text because you’ve actually explained the written word.

But what I want you to do is explain the tutor in the text in relation to the relationship element of what you’re talking to them about. So every one of us to get tasks done need to build relationships. But sometimes the boss won’t explain why you need to put effort into that, because they won’t naturally get it.

But we’ve got to make the effort to be the tutor in the text, explain a little bit more behind why that’s important.

3. As much as you can, shorten your sentences.

Very practical thing. If your sentence is too long, you communicate too much and you don’t get to the point, people who are low EQ, high EQ, and more left-brained, will tend to tune out.

Summary

So this may help you at home and it might help you at work as well, working with a low EQ boss. Frame up the conversation. That’s your job. Tell them the what and the why.

Be more of the tutor in the text. Help them understand why the relationship part of what you’re talking to them is important, or help them give them more background to your feelings, your intuition so that they can understand.

And the third is use shorter sentences so you can get to the point more quickly, and it will lower the frustration.

Leave me a Comment or Get in Touch

Now what I want you to think about is how you can apply these three things to someone in your workplace or at home, to help you get along.

Talk to you soon on The Reason & The Road.