Achieve More: Improve Your Emotional Intelligence and Unleash Your True Potential

“The rules for work are changing.  We are being judged by a new yardstick: not by how smart we are, or by our training and expertise, but also how well we handle ourselves and each other,” says Daniel Goleman.  Emotional Intelligence is the yardstick and is crucial in our professional lives, especially in the rapidly changing work environment.  Emotional intelligence is essential in our personal lives as well.

Regarding emotional intelligence, a Fortune 500 Coach was asked what he saw in his practice.  He answered, “Absolute brilliance and a minimum of self-awareness.”*  Such lack of emotional intelligence hampers personal growth and harms leadership and organizational success.  These leaders may struggle to lead their organizations and family relationships and often don’t enjoy living with themselves.  Their leadership may be characterized by edginess, negativity, judgment, dissonance, and conflict, which creates an awkward, tense climate for relating. Ultimately, this curbs productivity and affects the bottom line. People around them are aware of the weakness in relating, but the leader is not aware, and employees may categorize the leader as one of their “worst bosses” ever

Intelligence is a person’s capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and relative aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, and meanings.  Emotional intelligence refers to a person’s ability to apply the capacities of cognitive intelligence to the emotions of self and others.  Emotional intelligence includes:**

• Self-awareness: Understanding your emotions and how they affect your performance.
• Self-management: Controlling your emotions effectively and taking positive initiative. This includes emotional self-control, adaptability, achievement, orientation, and a positive outlook.
• Social awareness: Accurately appraising situations and people around you. This includes empathy and organizational awareness.
• Relationship management: Managing interactions with others to help them feel understood. This involves coaching, teamwork, influence, conflict management, and inspirational leadership.

Emotional intelligence is not a static quality.  You can increase your personal and professional impact by increasing your emotional intelligence.   Here are some practical steps you can take to improve:

• Plan to learn. Be curious and ask questions rather than reacting or making unfounded assumptions about emotional situations.
• Increase your self-awareness. Emotions are natural, normal, and useful but also fickle. Pay attention to your emotions in the moment and the messages your body language and voice send about them. Think through the full range of possible actions available to you. You have more options than reacting.
• Improve self-management. Think before acting.  The temptation will be to react “emotionally.”  Ask yourself questions to move to a more rational place.  “What emotion am I feeling?”  “Can I manage them in the moment, or do I need to take a timeout to process the situation?”  After thinking through the full range of possible actions, rationally determine the best, most productive course with the potential for the greatest positive impact.  Emotions will come, and what you do with them is important for maximum impact.  You can be resilient, flexible, and able to adjust emotions and related actions through various situations you may encounter.
• Social awareness. Pay attention to the emotional expressions of those around you as given through verbal means, voice, and body language.   Ask, “What is the message behind the emotion?”  The answer to this question may be complex and evolve in the moment or over time.  Avoid assumptions and inquire about what you notice, such as “You seem tense about this.  What’s going on?”  Social awareness also includes the ability to recognize how social networks operate.
• Social interaction. This involves influence, cooperation, and conflict management. Ask the other person, “What are you thinking about the emotion you are experiencing?”  Also, be able to explain the meaning of your emotions.  Reason with others about the meaning of the emotions in the situation.  Make the issue, not the person, the point of discussion and debate.  Let others have their emotions and be responsible for them.  You do the same with yours.

At True Course, we use assessments and coaching to support individuals’ emotional intelligence growth.  We would be honored to serve you.

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*Gordon, B. E. (2006) Change and Transition: The Leadership Handoff in The Birkman Reader, Alan Bernstein, ed. Houston: Birkman International.

**Palmer, Ben.  Genos International.