"Slow down, you move too fast,
you've got to make the morning last
Just kickin' down the cobble-stones,
lookin' for fun and feelin' groovy..."
-- Simon and Garfunkel

[Where is he going with this?]

Benton suggests you slow down your demeanor—words and actions. As you enter the office of a recruiter or a new boss, don’t rush over to the chair or meeting table, shake their hand, and spew out a string of clever ideas and observations. A sense of high energy may come across as nervousness, even fear. There are certain stereotypical characteristics that leaders possess. Embrace them. [link]

If there is one thing I admire about my boss, it is that he has learned to manage himself in this respect.  I've seen him at Dave and Busters going berserker playing shoot-em-up arcade games, and I've seen him let his inner-geek out laughing at something obscure from Monty Python, but I've never seen that side of him at the office or in a professional situation.  At times he can sound a little too scripted and mechanical, but most of the time it comes across as confident and that he has all his bases covered.

“I was working with a politician who was running for mayor,” explains Benton. “I asked him to imagine that he had already won and to act like the top elected official wherever he went. How would he dress? How would he conduct himself in a grocery store? How would he respond when people came up to talk with him?”

You can have all the IQ and ambition in the world, but if you can't manage yourself then you won't reach your full potential.

[btw, the referenced article seems to refer to EQ as Executive Intelligence, but anywhere else I have seen EQ it refers to Emotional Intelligence, and most of the EQ concepts they talk about seem to fit Emo-Intel.]

Tags: EQ, IQ, executive, intelligence, pmba