Are you intelligent – emotionally?
Leading expert, Stein, 2009 suggests, “People tend to think of others as either emotional or intelligent, but not both.” However, perhaps the correct question is ‘Are you intelligent – emotionally?’
Being intelligent – emotionally requires us to acknowledge, cope with and adapt to our own and other people’s strengths and limitations in a flexible and agile way. Since the original work of Mayer and Salovey 1990, it is becoming increasingly clear that understanding EI can provide us with considerable insight, helping us to better manage our emotions, improve our psychological wellbeing and relationships across all aspects of our work, home or social life.
What is EI and how do we apply it both at work and personally?
There is a lot of interest in EI, to the extent that when you type emotional intelligence into Google, you get 4.35 million references. But what is it?
Essentially it is about:
- Recognising your own and other peoples’ emotions;
- Having the ability to understand these emotions;
- Knowing how to manage others’ and your own emotions.
Whilst there are lots of different models available which cluster EI factors slightly differently, ultimately they are all measuring many of the same core dimensions.
Our preferred model, underpins the TEiQue EI diagnostic by Thomas International as developed by K V Petrides and London Psychometric Laboratory in University College, London.
This defines EI as being made up of the following main factors:
Wellbeing
Your happiness; how optimistic you are and your level of self-esteem, i.e., how you evaluate yourself, your abilities, your achievements and other aspects of your life? Do you think other people view you as being pessimistic or optimistic? Are you unsatisfied with life at the moment or perhaps you may be unsure of yourself?
Self-Control
How you regulate your emotions and impulses together with how you deal with stress. We know from research (Goleman, et. al.) that a moderate level of work demand is common but when this increases to significant levels, an individual’s anxiety and worry also increases, which can overtime affect our mental capabilities. Do you find that you sometimes act in a rash manner? In work, do you have a tendency to take on too many projects or perhaps you display anxiety in a stressful situation.
Emotions
Emotions around your relationships, how you express yourself emotionally, your emotional perceptions, and how you understand other people’s viewpoints and their reasons for feeling and acting the way they do. Do you find it difficult to understand people’s feelings? Perhaps you sometimes are unclear about how you feel? Are their troublesome relationships that take up too much of your time and energy?
Sociability
Your ability to manage other people’s emotional states, the way in which you are able to stand up for your own rights (assertiveness), how comfortable you are in social contexts and how you behave in the presence of people you do not know well. Do people see you as being shy and passive? Perhaps you are not sensitive enough in a social situation / maybe you are seen as too blunt or aggressive?
Understanding the impact of EI in work
In the world of work, we probably have experienced a line manager who is in a ‘bad mood’. The research indicates that Manager ‘Good Moods = Good Work’ (Isen), whereas their ‘Bad Moods’ lead to feelings of frustration, anger, and disgust with the manager in 9 out of 10 times, when this is experienced (Basch & Fisher). Even at this basic level, experiencing these type of negative emotions, impacts on your work performance, as well as feeding into the overall organisations effectiveness.
In a work setting how we manage ourselves, through self-awareness, self-management, relationships management and social awareness can either increase or decrease performance effectiveness, satisfaction, wellbeing and a range of other outcomes.
How often have you come into work in a ‘Bad Mood’? Have you thought or reflected on the impact of this on you personally or your work colleagues? As an employee how have you felt, experiencing the ‘Bad Mood’ of a line manager?
Can you improve your emotional intelligence?
The good news is that you can.
Measuring our EI can provide us with considerable insight into ourselves. This can then be used as a starting point to help you explore, learn and adapt your approaches and responses, according to your job demands and personal life demands. Such approaches can also be used to develop emotionally intelligent teams and workplaces.
So what can you do to improve your EI?
- Take a EI diagnostic / psychometric; assess where you are now by undertaking an EI diagnostic. From this, you can start to focus in on the areas you want to develop to improve your emotional flexibility / intelligence. Consider, what kind of a manager do you want to be known as? How do you want others to see you?
- Start to become more reflective; start to notice your environment and how you interact with it and react to it. Maybe consider making a note / record your thoughts and feelings. Notice how others respond to you in certain circumstances. Are the responses they are giving you either positive or negative. What could you do differently or change? Have you considered what works well for you?
- Take action; take responsibility for trying out new or different approaches and responses. Again observe what impact this has and notice your thoughts and feelings. Remember, you will rarely get it right first time, so try taking 10 deep breadths to refocus and try again.
- Seek feedback and support from others; making changes to how we approach things can be frightening for us all. Seek feedback and support from someone you trust.
If you would like to find out more?
Please do get in touch for a free discussion.