Host

Jag Dhaliwal

Guests

• Liz Sebag-Montefiore, career coach and co-founder, 10Eighty
• Bianca Riemer, founder, Leader Haus

Producer

Ed Adams

Transcript

Jag Dhaliwal: Hello and welcome to ICAEW Student Insights. My name is Jag Dhaliwal, and this podcast is all about learning how the world of work is changing for finance professionals. Today we’re discussing the importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace. The responsibilities of accountants are increasingly people-focused, whether you’re dealing with clients or colleagues, and that means strengthening your interpersonal skills is essential to a successful career in the sector.

Liz Sebag-Montefiore: If you can develop it when you’re more junior in your career, you could just build upon it and practise each time and get more experienced at it.

Bianca Riemer: The most successful people are the people who are able to convey the idea in a way that resonates with other people.

JD: To share some tips and advice, I’m joined by Liz Sebag-Montefiore, career coach and co-founder of people consultancy 10Eighty. And later today, we’ll hear from Bianca Riemer, an accountant whose firm Leader Haus specialises in improving team performance. Hi, Liz, thanks for joining us today.

LS-M: My pleasure.

JD: So, Liz, can you share a bit about yourself?

LS-M: Yes, of course. I did a history of art degree and went into the art world. After that, I’ve always been passionate about people and curious about people in their careers, so I worked for a PLC in the City and an HR consultancy. Then I co-founded my business 10Eighty, which looks at leadership development, career management and outplacement. We’ve been going 12 years, and my role is split into strategy and the growth of the business, sales and business development, and also coaching, which is about 15% of my role. Within that sits coaching people on confidence, emotional intelligence, and a number of other soft skills.

JD: Would you be able to share what people actually mean when they say emotional intelligence?

LS-M: Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is the ability to recognise one’s own emotions, other people’s emotions, and then act appropriately. Emotional intelligence skills benefit both well-being and relationships, and there’s four main hubs: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

JD: That makes a lot of sense, because when I first thought of emotional intelligence, I really just thought it’d be mainly empathy. But there must be a lot more to it than just that.

LS-M: Yeah, it’s much, much wider. I think one of the biggest things is resilience, and that famous song, ‘I get knocked down, but I get up again’ – how you carry on with that. As a student with the ICAEW, all the way through up to leadership, it’s such an important skill to develop.

JD: What does emotional intelligence actually mean in the workplace?

LS-M: It can mean a number of different things. It could be about enhanced collaboration, and that’s around fostering trust and cooperation. But if you’re self-aware, and also you’re competent at self-regulation, you’ll be much more adaptable in the workplace. That could be anything from handling stress efficiently all the way through to resilience, as we mentioned before. You’d also have excellent social skills, and that’s all around understanding others. I truly believe that success at work depends on this ability to manage feelings and emotions.

JD: What benefits does high emotional intelligence bring to businesses?

LS-M: The biggest one for me would be the people skills, because people buy people. In any sector, at any level, you need to have these relationship-building skills. Whether that’s from the very start, building trust, building rapport, understanding what internal team or external clients might want, you need to be able to relate to people at the level you currently know them with the view to building a deeper relationship as the long-term goal.

JD: So, let’s bring it to the accountants then. Are there any specific strengths or weaknesses that accountants typically possess in terms of emotional intelligence?

LS-M: If we take it back one, I think being a professional, or an accountant, isn’t just about the technical skills. Technical skills, maths, logic get you somewhere. However, it’s much more about clients, customers, prospects, stakeholders, colleagues and your team. Learning to recognise thought processes, emotions and biases is really key for those win-win relationships. But if we go back to accountants and those technical skills, that’s so key, but it only gets you so far. The EQ side is where you really understand what drives people, and I think that’s really, really important. I think that’s where to aim for because once you know what drives people, you can tailor your conversations and get to that win-win common goal.

JD: You’ve mentioned tailoring – does that mean it does change depending on who you’re talking to? How might it differ for a client versus, for example, a colleague?

LS-M: It’s a really interesting question – there’s so many similarities in it, because it’s about coming to that common ground and about being able to relate to them. But where the differences are comes to the relationship that you have with your client or your colleagues, because those are likely to be on different levels. I always say to people, it’s important to be the authentic you, and be yourself. For instance, in my case, humour is really important to me in a conversation – obviously within the boundaries of the work environment – but it’s about being yourself. In the working relationship, it’s about understanding what drives them, what makes them tick, and how, with high emotional intelligence, you can adapt your conversation to suit them. Because what we can be in charge of is our reactions, but we can’t be in charge of other people’s emotions.

JD: When you’re coaching professionals on interpersonal skills, do you ever experience any resistance?

LS-M: I have done in the past. Some people think that they know it all. As a coach, your job is to actually give them some feedback, but really it’s about understanding – coming back to self-awareness – how aware are they? So as a coach, I can hold up the mirror to say, “look what I’m seeing”, and show them in the moment what they’re currently doing, because sometimes you don’t know what you’re doing until you see it in action.

JD: So, is that a roleplay exercise?

LS-M: It could be roleplay, but actually making it more specific to them. We could record a session, for instance, or I play back immediately in actions what I’ve just heard and say, “So how I’ve heard you reacting in conflict with someone else, this is what I’m hearing you say, is this what you’ve said?” Then we can come up with tools and techniques to help unpick that in order to move forward.

JD: From that, do you find that they do become less resistant and are more open?

LS-M: Yes, they’re much more open to move forward because they’ve almost seen it. I’m only talking about the people who aren’t so self-aware, they just haven’t seen it before, so they’re almost slightly in denial or just don’t know. But once you can point it out, and as a coach, create a safe space for them to have open, honest conversations – and everything’s confidential that they say to me – by creating that safe space we can really unpick, give tools, give tips in order to move forward and think about in the future, how can I stop doing this and be more self-aware in how I react in the moment?

JD: What are the best kinds of activities or things that people can try to do, for example, if they were practising with their own colleague?

LS-M: What I tend to say is ask for feedback around how you react when you’re emotional, and then to really pinpoint what you could do differently. Some people feel this urge to respond straight away to bad news or news they don’t want to hear. But actually, if you’ve got high emotional intelligence, it’s all about hearing it, reflecting, almost biting your tongue for 10 seconds, pausing, and then going for a reply. Or even an email if it comes through and it’s not what you want to hear, sometimes waiting a day just for the news to settle, the dust settle, and then responding is a far better way of having a win-win relationship with the client.

JD: What do you say to those people who really don’t believe that emotional intelligence has a place at work?

LS-M: I really challenge them back, because without emotional intelligence you just can’t function in the workplace. In order to be successful, as a graduate or middle manager or leader, you need to be aware of this breadth of emotional intelligence and the different things that make it up.

JD: When I think about emotional intelligence in the workplace, I do actually think of it being more important for leaders. Would you agree with that, or would you say it’s equally important at any level?

LS-M: I think it’s important at every level, because if you can develop it when you’re more junior in your career, you can just build upon it and practise each time and get more experienced at it so when you’re a leader, you’ve got your team who are with you on the journey.

JD: In a previous episode of the podcast, we discussed neurodiversity and how neurodivergent people experience things differently. So how does building emotional intelligence help others feel more included in the workplace?

LS-M: Where we encourage employees to develop their emotional intelligence, it’s about building listening skills, building empathy, building sensitivity, which all make for a much more inclusive workplace where biases can be challenged, and where people feel that they’ve been heard and listened to. Managers with good EQ are able to create that psychologically safe environment and space as well, which is all great for having the inclusive workplace. But leaders with high EQ are much more likely to listen and show empathy and communicate effectively, which all helps with creating an inclusive environment.

JD: We’ve already touched on this in terms of people and their views on emotional intelligence in the workplace, and initially having resistance and finally coming on board with it and things like that. But how are businesses responding to it?

LS-M: Because it’s such a key thing for employees to have, they’re really wanting to run courses to support all employees at all levels, to help them be the best they can be in the workplace, knowing that if they’re going to get promoted and lead a team, they’re going to need these skills in order to bring them with them.

JD: What’s something small that our listeners can be doing today to improve their interactions with colleagues and clients?

LS-M: My tip would be to work on your communication skills, especially in ensuring the clarity of your messaging, and ask for feedback to identify areas of improvement.

JD: So, you should be giving feedback and then you should also be asking for that feedback as well.

LS-M: Absolutely.

JD: Thanks, Liz. Now, I’m keen to get Bianca’s perspective on everything we’ve just discussed, and emotional intelligence in the accounting and finance sectors in particular. Thanks for coming into the studio today, Bianca.

BR: Hi, it’s really great to be here.

JD: You’re a chartered accountant, and you’ve been running Leader Haus for six years. Talk me through your career journey – how did you go from working in finance to specialising in coaching?

BR: First of all, I trained as a chartered accountant at PwC. Once I was qualified, I essentially moved over to investment banking where I worked as a stockbroker for Morgan Stanley for over a decade, and then I founded my own business. During my career, I was always very interested in the people aspect anyway. So already, when I was at PwC, I ran lots of training courses for the juniors. And the reason why I then became a stockbroker is because that’s essentially a sales and marketing role, so the technical aspects of doing the accounting bit, and the business analysis, is actually only a really tiny spot. That skill, then, is what really fulfills me, and that’s what I now help other people develop in my role at Leader Haus.

JD: So how does emotional intelligence come into all of that? Is that, again, the people side, the communication side?

BR: The most successful people are the people who are able to convey the idea in a way that resonates with other people. So, they may be software engineers by training, or they may be accountants, or they may have learned some other technical job in the past, and now they’re running projects where they are having to work together with people from different departments, different functions. And the people that tend to struggle are those that are only able to see things from their perspective. The people who tend to be more successful are the people who understand what’s important for the other department and are able to communicate with them in a way that helps the business thrive.

JD: A lot of our listeners will be ICAEW students. Is there anything more at that level?

BR: What’s really important at the student level is to not wait to be managed. Waiting to be managed is really a big mistake, where you’re just sitting in your cubicle, and you’re expecting your manager to read your mind about where you want to go with your career, you’re waiting to be given some work. And that’s not much fun, isn’t it? So, what you want to be doing as a more junior person is to really understand why it is that you’re doing a certain task and get a view of the big picture – as we’ve already talked about – and then see where you can fit in, where we can change things, and overall, as a team, do a better job.

JD: How can someone listening know what they can and can’t ask, and how much to shape their career?

BR: A very simple example would be when your manager is delegating some work to you. Whenever you get an instruction, do you agree with the other person? What does “done” look like? How do I know that I’ve done a good job? And that’s just one aspect of delegation. Then, of course, if you’re junior, you want to agree with your boss – how often are we going to check in if any questions come up? How are we going to communicate? Is it OK to send a Teams message? Are we going to have a daily call just to check in with each other? Should you call me on my mobile phone? What times am I available, etc, etc? Once you have agreed how we are going to check in with each other, how often, etc, then the anxiety levels go down. And then once I know that my manager doesn’t like Teams messages, she just wants me to give her a call, she’s available around lunchtime, then I know exactly what I need to do.

JD: So, it’s really getting to know your managers, your team members, figuring out the best way to communicate with them, how to respond, knowing what their version of “done” looks like. Was there anything you found particularly challenging when you were developing your own expertise in this area?

BR: Here’s the thing, the learning never stops. There’s something called the Dunning-Kruger effect, where if you learn about a new area, initially, you think, Oh, this is quite easy, right? I can totally do this. Then as you learn more and more about that specific topic, you think, Oh, my goodness, I don’t actually know anything about this. And then you gradually become more aware of what you do know, and then your confidence levels go up again. With team coaching, especially as an accountant, we’re used to there being one right way. So even if you’ve been in a sales and marketing role, dealing with lots of different personality types, there’s always more to learn. Especially with team coaching, the more people you work with, the more complex the situation gets, and the learning never stops.

JD: So finally, Bianca, what is one piece of advice that you can share with listeners today to change how they approach clients, colleagues or both?

BR: My one piece of advice would be to remember that people care about what’s in it for them. So, when you try to influence somebody else, think about what might be important to them, and then that’s how you address them.

JD: That’s a really great piece of advice, thank you for that. Thanks again to Liz and Bianca for joining us today. It’s been great to have you both in the studio to learn more about emotional intelligence.

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