What if you could leverage every emotion as a springboard to higher performance? In a world where change is accelerating and competition is intensifying, leaders must be able to meet challenges and adversity with composure and resourcefulness -- while keeping their people engaged and aligned. To do this, emotional intelligence (EI) is a must. The idea that EI is the foundation of effective leadership is not new. What is new is the existence of a reliable method for systematically increasing EI. Building on recent discoveries in the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and tested with nearly a thousand people, the authors lay out a straightforward approach to developing EI. In contrast to other books on EI that view emotions as irrational drivers of reactive behavior, this book demonstrates that all emotions contain valuable guidance on how to improve your performance. The authors provide the equivalent of "emotion-decoder rings" that show you how to exploit frustration to achieve goals, anxiety to mitigate risks, and other common workplace emotions that drive business performance. Stress, the authors'' show, is not caused by what''s happening in the world nor by your own emotions. Stress is caused by fighting against your emotions instead of working with them to improve your performance. The authors back this up by showing that stress results from tolerating tension, reactivity, negativity, powerlessness, and reluctance -- and that these five killers of effective leadership are all signs that you are fighting against your own emotions. Then how do you work with your emotions? Learn TENOR, a proven 5-step method that will help you: Go from feeling stressed to being grounded, composed, accountable, resourceful, and committed. Translate your painful emotions into performance data --and use this vital data to systematically improve how you perform. Apply these techniques to reducing stress and improving performance in those around you. Praise for the TENOR Method Whether you''re an executive seeking to improve your decision-making and leadership skills, a manager seeking to raise the performance of your team, a buyer of corporate training programs seeking an EI solution that delivers tangible business results, or a coach seeking to acquire a powerful new tool -- this book has something for you. "One of the biggest benefits is stress management. As opposed to emotions being a source of stress to be avoided, now they are sources of wisdom. So you don''t have to be afraid that your emotions are going to get out of control, but instead, sit with them and actually encourage them to come forward, and then use them more effectively. It''s a way of managing stress that people haven''t had access to in the past." Terry Hildebrandt, Ph.D., Leadership Consultant "There''s been some real positive changes in my ability to process and understand what''s happening around me, why other people are reacting to my decisions or my statements in the way they are, why I feel emotionally unsettled or confused or angry or otherwise upset about something that''s happening." Jason Marsden, Executive Director, nonprofit "When my people are struggling, when there are emotions coming up that are derailing their ability to do everyday tasks, I take them through TENOR. And that translates to them understanding the emotion. I get them to understand that the emotion is a message and it''s the energy they need to take care of the task that''s in front of them. This translates into tangible results." Greg Sutera, Division Manager, financial services "It''s a logical process. There''s nothing here that''s woo-woo. Every emotion is decoded for a specific need that you are not on track to meet. This leads to faster and higher quality decisions." Andrea C. Zintz, Ph.D., Executive Coach