Classroom 1: Emotional Intelligence

Christopher Hope

Sep 11 (edited) in Motivation & Insights 💡

You're probably wondering what on earth this is... can you be Emotionally Smart?

Emotional intelligence is less about academics and more about street smarts in the business world.

It is split into 4 sections:

Self Awareness
Self Management
Social Awareness/ Empathy
Relationship Management/ Social Skills

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand your own emotions and understand the emotions of those around you.

Self Awareness is simply being able to understand what emotions you are having right now, and whether you are leading with emotions or with reason.

Sometimes in business, and with people, emotions can take over our actions and make things worse... checking yourself at the door means you can choose to handle things more effectively by removing the emotion in the situation and use this to solve a problem, diffuse tension or to look at issues objectively rather than taking it personally.

As a Leader, Self Awareness is important because your emotional state can affect the team's emotions and reactions. If you walk in positive and purposeful, it is easy to raise the motivation within your team to get the work done with smiles and joy.

If you let the blown tire on the way into work cloud your mind and you walk in angry, your team will not know about the blown tire etc and will be walking on egg shells the rest of the day. Left unchecked, your emotions could lead to snappy comments and you may say or do something that harms your relationship with your team.

Self Management/ regulation is the ability to understand you are angry at the tire... but choosing to take an extra minute or 2 to compose yourself and choose to push on and have a good day despite the not-so-good start. It is the ability to receive bad news or top-down stress and choosing NOT to pass the stress on to the team, however, you choose to turn it into a constructive mission to things resolved.

Social Skills (sounds like a simple one) - It is picking up on other people's emotions and choosing how to respond. Some people need a word of encouragement, others a space to vent and be heard...

It may be as simple as adapting the jobs list for the day so that the colleague that has just lost their dog can spend some time away from customers, sorting the warehouse, giving them space and time to be able to process it.

Social Awareness is understanding the team and empathising with the struggles hey may have. It may be that the colleague you are talking to has had some difficulties at home etc. When performance managing this person, you may look into adjustments that can be made or support that is available to help them get back on track... and understand that underperformance is not always a result of laziness or lack of wanting to do the work. Sometimes, we as managers, just need to step back and see the full picture... and the strive to help the prtson in front if you to reach their goals and aspirations through Empathy and coaching them back to success.

ACTING on our emotions in the heat of the moment and letting feelings dictate our actions is the opposite of emotional intelligence.

Used right, you can appear more confident, you will form much better bonds in the workplace and will be sought out by future employers, as high emotional intelligence is fast becoming a very desirable trait in leadership and management.

(Edit: Grammar correction)

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