Communicating Without Words
When considering a second leadership theory that I see in my daily tasks at World Pediatric Project, emotional intelligence immediately comes to mind. I know, I know, this is probably one of the most commonly discussed theories– but it’s just so applicable.
Most of my time at my internship is spent outside of the office. 75% of any typical day is spent with the patients and their mother going to doctors appointments, picking up medicine, going to the grocery store, taking them on social outings, etc. Considering this, I am constantly talking to them and interacting with them. So far during my internship, WPP has had three families here for surgeries. One family speaks English only, the second family speaks Spanish only, and in the third family, both the mother and son speak low-German while the son also speaks some Spanish (but the mother speaks no Spanish). When it comes to communicating with the English family, I don’t have any issues. When it comes to interacting with the Spanish family, there are some obstacles, but overall we can effectively communicate. When it comes to the third family, I speak no German so the son and I both use Spanish (which is both of our second language) so there are obstacles, but we make do.
Obviously, there can be difficulties when communicating; especially when all three families are together and I am the sole translator. This is why emotional intelligence is so incredibly important for me. Try as I might, there are times when I am not able to understand one of my Spanish speaking families. In this case, emotional intelligence largely becomes my way of communicating with the patient. Emotional intelligence in leadership is a leadership style that involves managing your own emotions, as well as the emotions of those around you. The latter part is key in my situation. Emotion is, in many ways universal. It transcends cultures, beliefs, geography and language– thank goodness. When I am unable to communicate in words, I can resort to emotion.
For example, yesterday I was at an appointment with the third family (both speak German and the son speaks some Spanish). What was supposed to be a fast check-up turned into a five hour appointment and a debate about whether or not to admit him and immediately perform a procedure after bad news was found on an ultrasound. Justifiably, the situation was tense, stressful and the patient kept telling me how worried he was. At one point with multiple doctors leaning over him performing different tests, he looked over at me unable to get a word in, clearly very stressed. The mother looked even more of a mess. The doctors, speaking English quickly and talking over each other, gave me no hope for translating at that point in time. So it was all I could do then to recognize their emotions, and assure them that it was all okay. I told them how great the doctor is, and how safe the son was under his care. Ultimately, I ended up repeating these lines in Spanish until the consultation was done, and I could explain in more detail what was happening. Without emotional intelligence, there would’ve been no hope in me being able to keep the patient calm. Neither he nor I had an ability to talk at that moment, so I could not answer the tons of questions he had in his head. I had to realize he was stressed, and change my behavior accordingly to try and manage that without him telling me, and while staying calm myself. Using emotion provided me with a way of communicating without words. Qualitatively, emotional intelligence seems to be very successful. Due to the amount of different languages spoken, it also helps us to surmount daily communication issues, and function more smoothly as an organization.
Don’t apologize for talking about emotional intelligence; if it is relevant, it is relevant. It does sound like working with the third family (or having all three families together) would be very challenging; hats off to you. For the paper you will write this fall, you have to select a leadership theory and do a deep dive, talking about all the elements and providing examples from your internship site that illustrate (or do not illustrate) those various elements. You’ve done a good job here illustrating about the need to manage emotions given the nature of the situation you describe, but should you choose EI as the theory to explore further this fall, you’d want to talk about all five elements (self-awareness, self-regulation, social skills, empathy, and motivation) and provide examples that speak to each. It sounds like your strategy was the best way to get through the meeting with the doctor until the time when you had adequate time to explain everything to the family; good job.