Focusing on Yourself
Emotional intelligence begins with self-awareness. Leaders who heed their inner voices can draw on more resources to make better decisions and connect with their authentic selves. But what does that entail?
Self-Awareness. Hearing your inner voice is a matter of paying careful attention to internal physiological signals. These subtle cues are monitored by the insula, which is tucked behind the frontal lobes of the brain. Attention given to any part of the body amps up the insula’s sensitivity to that part. Tune in to your heartbeat, and the insula activates more neurons in that circuitry.
Zeroing in on sensory impressions of ourselves in the moment is one major element of self-awareness. But another is critical to leadership: combining our experiences across time into a coherent view of our authentic selves.
To be authentic is to be the same person to others as you are to yourself. In part that entails paying attention to what others think of you, particularly people whose opinions you esteem and who will be candid in their feedback. A variety of focus that is useful here is open awareness, in which we broadly notice what’s going on around us without getting caught up in, or swept away by, any particular thing. In this mode we don’t judge, censor or tune out; we simply perceive.
Self-Control. “Cognitive control” is the scientific term for putting one’s attention where one wants it and keeping it there in the face of temptation to wander. This focus is one aspect of the brain’s executive function, which is located in the prefrontal cortex. A colloquial term for it is “willpower.”
Cognitive control enables executives to pursue a goal despite distractions and setbacks. The same neural circuitry that allows such a single-minded pursuit of goals also manages unruly emotions. Good cognitive control can be seen in people who stay calm in a crisis, tame their own agitation and recover from a debacle or defeat.

Focusing on Others
Executives who can effectively focus on others are easy to recognize. They are the ones who find common ground, whose opinions carry the most weight and with whom other people want to work. They emerge as natural leaders regardless of organizational or social rank.
The Empathy Triad. We commonly talk about empathy as a single attribute, but there are three distinct kinds: cognitive empathy, emotional empathy and empathetic concern.
Cognitive empathy enables leaders to explain themselves in meaningful ways, a skill that is essential to getting the best performance from their direct reports. Exercising cognitive empathy requires leaders to think about feelings rather than feel them directly.
Emotional empathy is important for mentoring employees, managing clients and reading group dynamics. It springs from ancient parts of the brain beneath the cortex - the amygdala, the hypothalamus, the hippocampus and the orbitofrontal cortex - that allow us to feel fast without thinking deeply. They tune us in by arousing in our bodies the emotional states of others.
Empathic concern, which is closely related to emotional empathy, enables you to sense not just how people feel but what they need from you. It’s what you want in your doctor, your spouse - and your boss.
Building Relationships. Alarmingly, research suggests that as people rise through the ranks and gain power, their ability to perceive and maintain personal connections tends to suffer a sort of psychic attrition.
Mapping attention to power in an organization gives a clear indication of hierarchy: The longer it takes Person A to respond to Person B, the more relative power Person A has. Map response times across an entire organization, and you’ll get a remarkably accurate chart of social standing. The boss leaves emails unanswered for hours; those lower down respond within minutes.
Where we see ourselves on the social ladder sets the default for how much attention we pay. This should be a warning to top executives, who need to respond to fast-moving competitive situations by tapping the full range of ideas and talents within an organization. Without a deliberate shift in attention, their natural inclination may be to ignore smart ideas from the lower ranks.

Focusing on the Wider World
Leaders with a strong outward focus are not only good listeners but also good questioners. They are visionaries who can sense the far-flung consequences of local decisions and imagine how the choices they make today will play out in the future. They are open to the surprising ways in which seemingly unrelated data can inform their central interests.
Focusing On Strategy. The two main elements of strategy are exploitation of your current advantage and exploration for new ones. Brain scans that were performed on 63 seasoned business decision-makers as they pursued or switched between exploitative and exploratory strategies revealed the specific circuits involved: Not surprisingly, exploitation requires concentration on the job at hand, whereas exploration demands open awareness to recognize new possibilities.
The Wellsprings Of Innovation. In an era when almost everyone has access to the same information, new value arises from putting ideas together in novel ways and asking smart questions that open up untapped potential. Moments before we have a creative insight, the brain shows a third-of-a-second spike in gamma waves, indicating the synchrony of far-flung brain cells. The timing suggests that what’s happening is the formation of a new neural network - presumably creating a fresh association.
A classic model of creativity suggests how the various modes of attention play key roles. First we prepare our minds by gathering a wide variety of pertinent information, and then we alternate between concentrating intently on the problem and letting our minds wander freely. Those activities translate roughly into vigilance, when while immersing ourselves in all kinds of input, we remain alert for anything relevant to the problem at hand; selective attention to the specific creative challenge; and open awareness, in which we allow our minds to associate freely and the solution to emerge spontaneously.
The link between attention and excellence remains hidden most of the time. Yet attention is the basis of the most essential of leadership skills - emotional, organizational and strategic intelligence. Learn to master your attention, and you will be in command of where you, and your organization, focus.

* Daniel Goleman, a co-director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University, is the author of "Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence."

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