UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Emotional Intelligence is an important skill for leaders to have.  Emotional Intelligence is decision-making based on emotions and relationships, and a preference to sympathize with others.  

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the ability to manage your emotions AND understand the emotions of individuals around you.  Good Emotional Intelligence is your ability to perceive, use, understand, and manage emotions.   The four key elements of Emotional Intelligence are: 

• Self-Awareness
• Self-Management
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Management

Individuals with high emotional intelligence are more likely to stay calm in stressful situations, resolve conflict effectively, and respond to others with empathy.   The opposite is true for individuals who lack emotional intelligence, they have conflicts from misunderstandings and do not recognize or understand emotions.  They have difficulty managing and expressing emotions, they struggle with active listening, and are unable to acknowledge others concerns appropriately.  Developing emotional intelligence means understanding the four key elements. 

Self-Awareness:  The ability to understand your own strengths and weaknesses, as well as your emotions and how they affect you and your team.  Research done on self-awareness has shown that only 10–15% of individuals are actually self-aware (95% of people think they are self-aware).  You cannot bring out the best in others, unless you first bring out the best in yourself.  One way to assess your self-awareness is to participate in 360-degree feedback where you evaluate your performance and compare it to how your direct reports, peers, and boss evaluate your performance.  This process provides insights into one’s own behaviors and how they are perceived in the organization.   

Self-Management:  The ability to manage your emotions, especially in stressful situations, while maintaining a positive outlook.  Individuals who lack self-management are reactive and impulsive.  Reactions are automatic responses to a situation; however, the more emotional intelligence you have the easier it is to be responsive and not reactive.   One way is to pause, breath, and do whatever you need to do to manage your emotions.  This will allow you to respond to stressful situations intentionally and appropriately. 

Social Awareness:  The ability to know how to read the room; to recognize others’ emotions and the dynamics that are playing out.  Individuals with self-management skills practice empathy by purposefully understanding others’ feelings and perspectives; they communicate and collaborate effectively with their peers.  When individuals communicate with empathy, they support their team better and improve their own individual performance.  Managers who show empathy towards their staff tend to be viewed as better performers by their boss.  

Relationship Management: The ability to influence, coach and mentor others, as well as resolve conflict effectively.   There are leaders who avoid conflicts at all costs; however, it is important to properly address issues as they arise.  Conflicts that go unaddressed will waist approximately eight hours of time in gossip and other unproductive activities, all of which drain morale.  It is important to have those tough conversations in a respectful and fair manner.  It is equally important to ensure you are communicating the key points in which you believe you are communicating.  Thinking you are communicating one thing, while the other person is hearing something different, is the quickest way to damage a relationship and trust between a manager and an employee. 

Leaders set the tone in all organizations.  When they lack emotional intelligence, it can result in a lack of employee engagement and higher turnover rates.  Individuals who excel at their jobs do not always have effective communication skills with their team, and they do not collaborate well with others; eventually their technical skills get overlooked.  

Learning and mastering emotional intelligence takes a dedicated focus to work on yourself.  As noted above, 95% of individuals believe they are self-aware, but in reality, only 10-15% of people are truly self-aware.  If you want to become self-aware and enhance your leadership abilities, take an online course or training, begin journaling to record your emotions and decision-making skills, reflect on the emotional responses you have and why you felt that way, and practice active listening by focusing on the speaker and put distractions away.  Strengthening emotional intelligence begins with strong self-awareness.  Begin the process of learning how you can become a more effective leader today.