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Have you had the experience of working with or for an individual who only seemed capable of operating in an analytical mode? They want facts and figures, details and solutions. It may never even occur to that person to ask you how you are.

On the other hand, you’ve probably also had the experience of working with a colleague who values creativity, compassion and group unity. It would never occur to this person to not ask you how you are.

There isn’t a right or a wrong here, just a dominant use of the individual’s analytical intelligence or emotional intelligence. The point is for leaders to be able to recognize the difference and for them to cycle from one approach to the other depending on the needs of the moment. If your dominant mode is being used too often, you’re missing out on the benefits of your minor mode.

Emotional intelligence can assist you in employee coaching sessions and negotiation and help you be open to new ideas. Developing a social connection with your team or coworkers can build trust and camaraderie. It’s a great way to improve morale. Paying attention to your feelings about your career path, your current projects and your motivation can pay impressive dividends. If you make the time to be self-aware you’ll be able to create the space to consider new ideas or new ways of doing things.

In his book Emotional Intelligence at Work, Hendrie Weisinger, Ph.D. explains, “You can maximize the effectiveness of your emotional intelligence by developing good communication skills, interpersonal expertise, and mentoring abilities. Self-awareness is the core of each of these skills because emotional intelligence can only begin when affective information enters the perceptual system.”

Your emotional intelligence can be utilized for very positive results. In his article, “When It Comes To Success In Business, EQ Eats IQ For Breakfast,”Chris Myers offers, “People buy emotions, not products. Teams rally around missions, not directives. Entrepreneurs take on incredible challenges because of passion, not logic.”

Analytical intelligence is a key skill when you need to solve a problem or make a decision. Seeking out concrete facts and being detail-oriented is essential to completing complex tasks. It’s also an invaluable skill for planning projects, timelines and assigning resources.

Most people are capable of flowing back and forth, even if it isn’t natural or comfortable. Some people do tenaciously cling to one mode, refusing to be flexible — usually to the detriment of their long-term career possibilities.

I once worked with an associate who was firmly entrenched in the analytical approach. He was a wonderful resource when data analysis was needed or facts needed checking. He left nothing to chance and was very thorough. I never had to question the quality of his work.

All of these traits served him well, but he was incapable of toggling over to emotional intelligence mode and consequently was constantly being reprimanded for treating customers badly, and he had a stubborn inability to cooperate with his teammates. He wasted so much of his manager’s time by having to be chastised on a regular basis. In the entire time I worked with him, he never advanced in the company.

Obviously, the inverse situation of solely depending on emotional intelligence is equally detrimental. At another company, I worked in the same project team as a coworker who took everything personally and would sulk because of any real or perceived criticism. She also craved personal interaction even during times she was supposed to be working on her assignment. She disrupted the team so frequently that the project manager had to terminate her. It was unfortunate because she was quite good at what she did.

There is scientific proof that people’s brains process emotional and analytical information differently. Research by Anthony Jack and his colleagues has shown that the analytical network of our brains and the empathetic network work mostly independently. When we’re in one mode, the other mode is suppressed, so the ability to cycle between the two is optimal.

In the book Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth by Richard Boyatzis, Melvin Smith and Ellen Van Oosten, the study is discussed in detail. They reflect on how subjects who received a coaching session involving analytic questions and were reminded of it while having their brains scanned had different sections of their brains show activity than the subjects who were given questions based on emotion during their coaching session.

The main takeaway here is to understand when one process is more useful for the situation than the other at any given time. Successful leaders are those who can switch back and forth quickly and with little effort. If that isn’t your strong suit, set aside some time every day to work on it. Like anything else, practice makes perfect.

A successful leader is one who can comprehend people’s motivations and what drives and inspires them. They understand how to recruit the participation of their employees in a manner that combines the interests and needs of the individual with the purpose of the group. Of course, this takes time and energy.

In 2018, Harvard Business Review published findings from a study that tracked how large companies’ CEOs spent their time. On average, they worked 9.7 hours per weekday, with many putting in nearly eight hours of work on the weekend. In total, the average number of hours worked came down to 62.5 hours a week. With so much to do and so many skills to master, it’s a wonder there is any time left over to sleep.

Why is this important? In my experience, there are time management techniques that CEOs can utilize in order to be more effective and productive leaders. And it’s not just CEOs that benefit either — whether you’re a project leader, a team leader or a division leader, other leaders often face the same types of challenges. Here’s how to make the most of every workday:

Rein in meetings.

That same Harvard Business Review report shows that 72% of CEOs’ work time in a typical week was spent in meetings. It’s in the CEO’s best interest to rein in those meetings, especially those that can be delegated. Of those that can’t be delegated, it’s advantageous to shorten the meeting times. Very often a one-hour meeting could be conducted in half that time with an increase in the quality of information conveyed. If the other participants know their time is limited, they’ll get to the point quicker.

Make time for you.

By limiting meeting time it also becomes easier to make space during the day for “alone time.” That block of time can now be used to work on setting future strategy goals and assessing the results of the current strategy. Planning is so important when molding a successful future-oriented organization.

Be an ambassador for the company’s purpose.

Being a CEO is comparable to being an ambassador in several ways. They are responsible for representing their company to customers, employees and the public in general. Diplomacy is necessary to ensure the smooth stewardship of the company.

Living the company values shows executives and employees alike that the company culture is a reality, not just pretty words in the employee handbook. In my work, I’ve met CEOs who truly embody the morals, ethics and ideals of their organization and it engenders honest respect and high esteem. I’ve also worked with CEOs who were very good about talking the talk (especially during meetings and company-wide presentations), but, in reality, failed to walk the walk. The deception is terribly transparent and corrodes the authority of that leader.

Overall honesty goes a long way toward creating and maintaining a value-driven organization. A skilled CEO understands that running a business with principles and integrity will ultimately result in a respected workplace where top-quality people want to work. That makes the recruitment of quality hires a more straight-forward process. It also creates an environment conducive to the retention of valuable personnel.

In their McKinsey & Company report, “The Mindsets and Practices of Excellent CEOs” authors Carolyn Dewar, Martin Hirt and Scott Keller note, “Excellent CEOs spend time thinking about, articulating, and championing the purpose of their company as it relates to the big-picture impact of day-to-day business practices. They push for meaningful efforts to create jobs, abide by ethical labor practices, improve customers’ lives, and lessen the environmental harm caused by operations.”

Prioritize face-to-face interactions.

The Harvard study found that face-to-face interactions took up 61% of CEOs’ work time — and for good reason. “Face-to-face interaction is the best way for CEOs to exercise influence, learn what’s really going on, and delegate to move forward the multiple agendas that must be advanced,” wrote the authors of the study, Michael E. Porter and Nitin Nohria. “It also allows CEOs to best support and coach the people they work closely with. How a CEO spends face-to-face time is viewed as a signal of what or who is important; people watch this more carefully than most CEOs recognize.”

With such constrictions on the CEO’s time, it’s important to show employees and customers that you care about them; not just the profits. An effective CEO is empathetic and creates time for guiding and coaching. Since you set the example, if you stress the importance of these actions to your direct reports, it becomes easier for them to create the same environment and expectations for their direct reports. If you involve your associates, your employees, your customers and even the board in your vision for the company it encourages them to get on board sooner rather than later.

Don’t be afraid to delegate.

One extremely important skill to cultivate and nurture is delegation. I’ve worked with many CEOs who are good at their job. It’s not uncommon for them to believe they are the only person capable of handling every decision, every project and every problem. That’s how to get on the fast track to burnout.

When you have confidence in the people around you, assign them the work you know they can do and also assign them work that will stretch their abilities — otherwise, they’ll never develop. If you don’t learn to delegate effectively, you’re only hurting yourself. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

There are many skills and traits that make up a successful CEO, but like most things, it’s a work in progress. Everything is always changing — both you and your business. Make the most of the opportunities presented to you along the way by effectively managing your time.

Accessibility also applies to opportunities, equipment (perhaps modified), cross-training, mentoring and something as obvious as making the interview process accommodating to everyone. Does your interviewee need a closed-captioned interview? Make that possible! Can someone apply via a teleprinter or teletypewriter (TTY) conference? Why not?

A second important focus is equity, which is easily confused with equality. To understand the difference, it might help to think of equality as giving everyone a house to live in. Equity, however, is giving people in the tropics houses that feature good ventilation, windows with screens capable of keeping out mosquitos, and sufficient shade from the heat. In contrast, you would give people who live in arctic climates houses with good insulation and an efficient heating source.

Although equality is a vital goal to strive for and is certainly better than not trying anything at all to level the playing field, it is simply not enough. It doesn’t take into account the individual and personal nature of each person’s struggle to feel as though they’ve had a fair shake.

In his article “5 Reasons to Focus on Workplace Equity Alongside Diversity and Inclusion,” Chiradeep BasuMallick clarifies when speaking on the fairness of corporate entities whose policies only focus on equality: “Equity, on the other hand, attempts to identify the specific needs and requirements informed by demographic traits such as ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, etc. It then tries to address the differing needs of each group by bridging the gap between minority and majority groups. This makes equity central to the genuine empowerment of minority groups (and not just theoretical equality).”

When an institution offers equity in the workplace, word spreads, and that kind of publicity and goodwill can’t be purchased. Employee morale, productivity and employee retention increase while associates not provided with equity can clearly see the reason to desert the (soon to be) sinking ship.

If your company makes it quite clear that it understands that while few obstacles exist for some in the organization, many obstacles exist for others, it can be a great recruiting tool and a fantastic way to keep everyone motivated. Correcting for the obvious (and subtle) disparities between different individuals can make the difference between a slog through the workday — while the employee spends all his free time looking for other employment opportunities — and an inspiring, spirited, focused contribution to the company for a full shift.

A theme that neatly dovetails with the subset concepts of accessibility and equity in the workplace is one of our main goals: inclusivity. If employees don’t feel seen or heard, the results are disheartening. In my experience as a leadership coach, one of the most soul-sucking experiences for colleagues of all levels in an organization is feeling like a cog in the giant corporate machine.

In the book Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams, Stefanie K. Johnson offers this insight: “Faking who we are to fit in is exhausting and we feel most at ease when we can just be ourselves. Even more to the point, we want to know that our unique talents are valued and that our voice is heard and respected. When we feel that these two drives — uniqueness and belonging — are in balance, we feel included.”

We all want to feel that our contributions are important, respected and special. If our workplace allows us the basic respects of equity and accessibility, it allows us to feel proud of the work we do, and that is a basic need that must be fulfilled.