Get to know Danny Cushing, one of ILead’s newest instructors. Danny is teaching grad course APS1029H: The Science of Emotional Intelligence and its Application to Leadership.
What intrigues you most about teaching leadership to engineering students?
Over the past ten years I’ve had the good fortune to teach leadership courses to a wide variety of working managers, many of whom are engineers. My leadership courses are grounded in the concept of emotional intelligence (EI), so there are times when some of my engineering students have been a bit skeptical about how EI relates to them becoming better leaders. However, once they review the evidence-based research linking EI to leadership effectiveness, they become fully committed and apply their great project management skills to their own development.
Why does engineering leadership matter to you?
I care deeply about the state of the world and the legacy we will be leaving the next generation. Engineers are at the centre of designing the technologies that are increasingly shaping our lives and how we interact with one another and how we interact with our natural environment. My belief is that we need to develop leaders who have a healthy balance of strong technical knowledge and skills along with a deep concern and care for the people they work with and their communities.
The course you teach, “The Science of Emotional Intelligence and its Application to Leadership,” equips students with an enhanced level of self-knowledge and a deeper awareness of their impact on others. Why do you think these skills are important for engineers?
I have been teaching and coaching a wide variety of managers for over ten years. In that time, I have discovered that the vast majority of these very bright, talented professionals have blind spots about themselves. Our educational systems have almost exclusively emphasized the importance of cognitive skills, what we often refer to as IQ, as being the passport to success. However, once we begin working in teams and leading teams, we discover that our ability to influence and motivate others is a very messy business indeed! By increasing our self-awareness and by increasing our awareness of others, we can greatly improve our ability to build trusting relationship which research has shown is the basis for high-performing teams and high-performing organizations.
What is one thing you would take with you on a desert island?
My family. However, if that’s not possible…they might not appreciate being called ‘things’ … I’d take my swimming goggles.
Read more about Danny’s course on our Graduate Courses page.