Peter is a manager at a large corporation. He is in charge of his department with 20 to 30 people under him. He is particularly good at strategic thinking, he is technically one of the best; he is a great scheduler and has near-perfect memory. To his colleagues, he is known as “The Masterful Tactician”, since he has shown a fantastic ability to predict next moves by fellow competitors inside or outside of the company.

His rise to power has not been smooth. Peter considers himself as the best in his field, which means he often looks down on others. This doesn’t go down well with most people. Technically, he is very much in control, but people don’t do as he says because they love to, but because they are afraid of the consequences of not adhering to his words and simply want to minimize their own pain. He is quick to make sarcastic comments and is not afraid of humiliating someone in front of others, especially to set an example.

His staff can see his great potential and have tried to tell him to correct his over-the-top behaviour, but he seems to enjoy the old habit and doesn’t get the hint. Many of the people in his team are starting to become frustrated as they cannot see a way of growing within the company as they have always hoped so due to Peter’s behaviour.

If Peter carries out an IQ test, he is likely to score really high. However, he seems to be using a lot of dark-side tactics, can easily get angry, shows his emotions openly and generally doesn’t have many friends. No one really ‘cares’ about him, they just do what he says. Peter is a classic example of a manager who is although technically capable and intelligent, suffers from low emotional intelligence.

The bad news is that without the support of his people, Peter will eventually run into problems that are likely to be painful and permanent.

The good news is that Peter can become an exceptional, almost gifted manager, if he simply focuses on his emotional intelligence to get it in par with his already highly developed logical intelligence.

Exercise: Consider your past managers.  What qualities made them stand out? What would you classify as their greatest qualities?