After our guest speaker event on October 15th, we've had the pleasure to interview our guest speaker, Bernice Lee, founder of the Etiquette & Leadership Institute. As a corporate trainer, Bernice has worked with a multitude of individuals and organisations from global companies to universities to bring out the best versions of their professional self. In this interview, Bernice spoke to us about her own experiences in her transition from having a corporate career to entrepreneurship, the importance of having emotional intelligence in the workplace, and advice related to navigating through the ups, downs, and crossroads in your own career path.
WiB: Thank you so much for agreeing to be our first guest speaker! We'd like to start off by asking what motivates you to do the work that you do?
Bernice: Knowing that I can help people fulfil their greatest potential, seeing people transform from a place of a lot of stress, fatigue, lack of passion to a place where they are feeling more positive, productive, and motivated.
What are some of the skills you believe are essential in your work?
As a coach, a critical skill is to be a great listener. That means you're able to listen to what they are saying, and also what they are not saying. You also need to know how to ask great questions that prompt the coachee to think of their own feelings so that they can create a clear plan for themselves. Another skill of a great coach is empathy, not necessarily to put yourself in their shoes, but to understand how they're being affected by what’s going on in their life. From that you're able to really communicate to that other person, and listen from a place of non-judgement so they can really express themselves.
As a teacher, you need to have the mastery of the material and have good communication skills. This is to create a learning environment for the group that is conducive to the learning environment. This can include humour, which creates a trusting environment where people can have fun.
I think many students go through a similar experience you went through, applying for their first job and barely hearing back. Do you have any specific advice for dealing with rejection as a student/fresh graduate?
First off, regulate your emotions by acknowledging it. It's okay to say “I feel disappointed, angry, and sad”. That’s the first way to calm down the limbic system.
Then ask yourself: “if somebody else was going through this, how would they feel?”. Chances are, they feel just as crappy as you do. I can tell you now that I have felt the same way when I was your age. The second question you could ask yourself is: "If i were to give advice to my friends about this, what would I say to my friends?". The third question you could ask yourself is: “If I were to look back on this moment 6 months from now, 1 year from now, how would I feel about this?” I think that’s one way to help you to take perspective. It does take practice, it’s not easy, but it’s just about taking perspective.
A piece of advice I can offer is: the thing that can seem like a failure or rejection can actually be a blessing in disguise. It’s absolutely true that one door closes, a window opens. When I look back on my career, there have been so many disappointments. But the outcome of it is that it ended up ok. So just trust that it will end up ok.
In your talk you mentioned the importance of emotional intelligence as a job seeker. Could you elaborate more on what it means to have good emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is a collection of abilities that has to do with being smart in how you deal with people. It's like IQ, but related to how you deal with people. There are six components to it.
The first component is self awareness - whether you aware of your own feelings and how they impact the way you make decisions and interact with people. When people are self-aware, they come across as being very present. They're fully aware of themselves and present to what is going on in front of them. People who are not are perceived as not present, like they're out of control as they are purely reacting and emotionally flooded.
The second component is awareness of others - whether you can see and observe how other people are feeling. When you are aware of other people and you make it known that you are aware of them, it makes the other person feel valued, listened to, cared for, and understood. It helps us demonstrate empathy and anticipate responses and reactions. For example, if we're going to deliver bad news, they're going to act a certain way. Knowing that people might react negatively, we can change our communication to minimise the impact. Somebody who's good at this skill comes across as empathetic, and someone who is not comes across as insensitive.
The third component is authenticity. It's about effectively expressing yourself, honouring your commitments, and encouraging this behaviour in other people. It also involves honesty in how you are feeling. People who are high in authenticity are described as authentic comes across as being genuine and trustworthy.
The fourth area is emotional reasoning. It's about taking data abut your own feelings, other people's feelings, and using them to make decisions. It is also about communicating. An example is rolling out a new IT system - if you know that it is harder for people to learn, some people might be anxious or angry. Therefore, as a leader, you need to think about how to roll things such that people can understand the need for it, so that they don't feel they are not as freaked out. As a leader, you need to make decisions that takes into account other people's feelings to be inclusive.
The second to last area is self-management - whether you are able to manage and regulate your own emotions, time, behaviour, so that you can be resilient in times of stress. If you're good at this, you will be perceived as resilient. If you're not, you will be perceived as temperamental.
The last component is being a positive influence. If you are emotionally intelligent and you're able to exhibit all five areas just described, you're going to be pretty pleasant person to be around. You know how to manage yourself when you're feeling negative, you know how to take care of people and be empathetic when they're not feeling great. You can be authentic and you're trustworthy and make good decisions. You're just going to be a leader that can not only create positive feelings in yourself, but also the power to create positive feelings in others.
Do you have any advice for being authentic even when dealing with uncertainties the future?
Be open minded and try out things that interest you! You have four years right now to explore life, so if there's a hobby that interests you, now is the time to try it!
Lastly, where did you find the courage to trust your gut when it came down to choosing your career path?
Sometimes you just have to keep exploring, until you find the thing that resonates with you. When you feel it, you feel it. Is it a perfect match every time? It's not. I can tell you now that I will probably never go back to HR now, but it was a still happy time in my career - it wasn't the perfect job, but it got me closer to the perfect job.
You just have to keep looking, and don't give up. Sometimes it's not the perfect thing, but you'll get there eventually.
For more information on Bernice Lee's work in performance coaching, please visit: