Emotionally intelligent leader are consistently authentic

An emotionally intelligent leader is always clear about their intentions and where they are coming from. This means employees don’t have to worry about deciphering messages from leadership and keeps them best informed about the organization’s goals and motives. 

Authentic emotionally intelligent leaders share as much as they are able to with their people at all times and expect the same from others in their circle. They don’t feel the need to hide things from others, cover up their mistakes, or play favorites in their workplace. They treat everyone the same, regardless of their position or station in life.  

Harvey Deutschendorf writing in Fast Company

Don't Be a Hack

A hack, Robert McKee says, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for. The hack condescends to his audience. He thinks he’s superior to them.

The truth is, he’s scared to death of them or, more accurately, scared of being authentic in front of them, scared of writing what he really feels or believes, what he himself thinks is interesting. He’s afraid it won’t sell. So he tries to anticipate what the market (a telling word) wants, then gives it to them.

In other words, the hack writes hierarchically. He writes what he imagines will play well in the eyes of others. He does not ask himself, What do I myself want to write? What do I think is important? Instead he asks, What’s hot, what can I make a deal for?

The hack is like the politician who consults the polls before he takes a position. He’s a demagogue. He panders.

It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you’ve sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

As many followers as possible

Noelle Moseley, who consults for technology companies told me that she had recently interviewed heavy users of Instagram: young women who cultivated different personas on different social networks. Their aim was to get as many followers as possible – that was their definition of success.

Every new follow and every comment delivered an emotional hit. But a life spent chasing hits didn’t feel good. Moseley’s respondents spent all their hours thinking about how to organise their lives in order to take pictures they could post to each persona, which meant they weren’t able to enjoy whatever they were doing, which made them stressed and unhappy.

Ian Leslie writing in 1843 magazine