Ep. 62: Doug Boyle - The Emotionally Intelligent Accountant

Contact Dr. Doug Boyle:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-douglas-m-boyle-dba-cpa-cma-4004468/


Dr. Boyle's Articles and Resources:



https://sfmagazine.com/post-entry/june-2019-do-you-have-emotional-intelligence/


https://sfmagazine.com/post-entry/april-2019-leadership-skills-at-every-career-level/


https://www.imanet.org/-/media/977a1a6d07d3439588094827fdb768f0.ashx



FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Adam: (00:05)


Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and
today you're going to hear how emotional intelligent plays such a
key role in the success of management accountants. Mitch spoke
with Doug Boyle, the accounting department chair at the
University of Scranton about this topic. Doug also serves as the
director of the doctorate in business administration program, the
nonprofit league program and the high school business scholars
program. He is an award-winning researcher and teacher and
recently researched and wrote about the components of emotional
intelligence as they relate to accounting and finance
professionals. Let's hear him explain what it means to be an
emotionally intelligent accountant. 


 


Mitch: (00:47)


So today we're looking to talk about the emotionally intelligent
accountant. And I would first like to kick things off and ask you
how important is it for finance professionals to have emotional
intelligence? 


 


Doug: (00:59)


Yeah. Research has shown that a financial managers who have
mastered emotional intelligence are the ones who typically reach
the highest levels of the organization. For example, a chief
financial officers along with, you know, superior technical
skills. What really sets them apart from their peer group is that
their ability to master emotional intelligence and connect with
individuals. And there's several research studies that support
that. So it's really important if one wants to advance especially
to the higher ranks of an organization that they engage in and
starting emotional intelligence in developing themselves and that
area. 


 


Mitch: (01:37)


And I think this is a good opportunity to really establish a
common understanding for the rest of our conversation here. I
know you mentioned connecting with others, you know, but how do
you actually define emotional intelligence? 


 


Doug: (01:50)


Yeah, emotional intelligence is a pretty complicated construct
and we'll talk about the components later on from a high level.
It's really someone's ability and capability to be aware of their
own emotions and control those emotions and express their
emotions in a way that facilitates strong interpersonal
relationship with others. So for example, if I'm a CFO and I'm
presenting to a group of analysts, it's very important for me to
connect with them and really, express trust in confidence in a
way that makes them believe, you know what I'm saying? Makes me
credible, makes me convincing. So it's really all around
controlling an individual's emotions, understanding emotions of
others, and being able to manage those emotions too to build very
strong lasting trustful relationships. 


 


Mitch: (02:45)


Well, you just kicked off that answer right there with my next
question. I know a little bit about emotional intelligence, but
I'm hoping you can kind of identify and define the components
that go along with emotional intelligence. 


 


Doug: (02:59)


Yeah, there's four major areas and you don't have to master all
the areas at once. Some of us are stronger in some areas
naturally, and some of us have to work on other areas. The good
thing about emotional intelligence is everybody could work on it
and you get better. So there's four really big buckets with
subcomponents. I'll walk through them, pretty briefly, but, you
know, we could spend more time talking about individual ones
later if you want. Now the first one is self-awareness. So that
has two components, which is emotional awareness. So are we aware
of our emotions and how we're reacting in a given situation? Next
one is self-confidence under any self-awareness. So am I somebody
who's confident in myself, somebody who makes people around me
more comfortable because they believe I'm confident in what I'm
doing and why I'm saying so that's the first component. The
second component is self management. So then there's a little
more, elements here. The first one is self control. So when I'm
under pressure, am I able to maintain, control and control my
emotions in a way that are effective instead of destructive? A
second is trustworthiness. So am I somebody who delivers on what
I say I'm going to do, can I be relied on and dependable? And
that's a big part of emotional intelligence. Next one is  is
conscientiousness. So am I somebody who follows up, am I somebody
who is into the details enough to make sure things are getting
done without being a micromanager? But I need to be
conscientious. Next component is adaptability. So am I somebody
who could adapt the situation or am I rigid and I try to solve
all problems the same way every time? Cause maybe that was
successful for me in the past, but it would probably be limiting
in the future. And then the last one is innovation under
self-management, which is am I somebody who's always questioning
the status quo and trying to figure out new and better ways of
doing things. So self management has the most components. The
last two components are social awareness, which is empathy. This
is really important, especially for accountants because as
accountants, sometimes we tend to be very analytical. where in
business it's very important to show empathy towards your
employees, empathy towards your shareholders, empathy towards
your lenders or bankers to really let them know that you care
about them and their interests as well as the company's interest.
So empathy is one that's very important for accountants. And
sometimes it's an area where, you know, there could be some skill
development. last one under social awareness is organizational
awareness. And this one is when you tend to need, when you get
higher up in the ranks. So, not only do I understand my own
emotions and my little group around me, but do I understand the
entire organization and the various cultures and protocols across
different geographic boundaries? And how do I respond in those
different areas. The last bucket is relationship management. And
in a lot of these are very important when you get to the higher
level. So for example, the first component is influence. So am I
able to be convincing and get folks to move in a certain
direction that you know, I need for them to move forward, you
know, a company's success or organizational success and how do I
do in a way where I bring them along where they're part of the
decision making as opposed to me just, you know, mandating
orders. Next is conflict management. Cause as we could just
senior management is lots of conflicts between divisions, between
employees, maybe conflicts with the vendors or even competitors.
How do we manage that conflict in a way that's productive and
that's, you know, destructive or, cannibalizing, the situation.
Next one is, teamwork as again, as you get higher, your teams get
bigger. So we got...