Five areas of emotional intelligence

Emotional Intelligence in Leadership - from MindTools.com

Learning How to Be More Aware

Does your emotional intelligence lift your team to new heights?

When you think of a "perfect leader," what comes to mind?

You might picture someone who never lets his temper get out of control, no matter what problems he's facing. Or you might think of someone who has the complete trust of her staff, listens to her team, is easy to talk to, and always makes careful, informed decisions.

These are qualities of someone with a high degree of emotional intelligence.

In this article, we'll look at why emotional intelligence is so important for leaders – and how you, as a leader, can improve yours.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence or EI is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you. People with a high degree of emotional intelligence know what they're feeling, what their emotions mean, and how these emotions can affect other people.

For leaders, having emotional intelligence is essential for success. After all, who is more likely to succeed – a leader who shouts at his team when he's under stress, or a leader who stays in control, and calmly assesses the situation?

According to Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist who helped to popularize emotional intelligence, there are five key elements to it:

Self-awareness.
Self-regulation.
Motivation.
Empathy.
Social skills.

The more that you, as a leader, manage each of these areas, the higher your emotional intelligence. So, let's look at each element in more detail and examine how you can grow as a leader.

Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

1. Self-awareness

If you're self-aware, you always know how you feel, and you know how your emotions and your actions can affect the people around you. Being self-aware when you're in a leadership position also means having a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses, and it means behaving with humility.

So, what can you do to improve your self-awareness?

Keep a journal – Journals help you improve your self-awareness. If you spend just a few minutes each day writing down your thoughts, this can move you to a higher degree of self-awareness.
Slow down – When you experience anger or other strong emotions, slow down to examine why. Remember, no matter what the situation, you can always choose how you react to it. (Our article on Managing Your Emotions at Work will help you understand what your emotions are telling you.)

2. Self-regulation

Leaders who regulate themselves effectively rarely verbally attack others, make rushed or emotional decisions, stereotype people, or compromise their values. Self-regulation is all about staying in control.

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This element of emotional intelligence, according to Goleman, also covers a leader's flexibility and commitment to personal accountability.

So, how can you improve your ability to self-regulate?

Know your values – Do you have a clear idea of where you absolutely will not compromise? Do you know what values are most important to you? Spend some time examining your "code of ethics." If you know what's most important to you, then you probably won't have to think twice when you face a moral or ethical decision – you'll make the right choice.
Hold yourself accountable – If you tend to blame others when something goes wrong, stop. Make a commitment to admit to your mistakes and to face the consequences, whatever they are. You'll probably sleep better at night, and you'll quickly earn the respect of those around you.
Practice being calm – The next time you're in a challenging situation, be very aware of how you act. Do you relieve your stress by shouting at someone else? Practice deep-breathing exercises to calm yourself. Also, try to write down all of the negative things you want to say, and then rip it up and throw it away. Expressing these emotions on paper (and not showing them to anyone!) is better than speaking them aloud to your team. What's more, this helps you challenge your reactions to ensure that they're fair!

3. Motivation

Self-motivated leaders work consistently toward their goals, and they have extremely high standards for the quality of their work.

How can you improve your motivation?

Re-examine why you're doing your job – It's easy to forget what you really love about your career. So, take some time to remember why you wanted this job. If you're unhappy in your role and you're struggling to remember why you wanted it, try the Five Whys technique to find the root of the problem. Starting at the root often helps you look at your situation in a new way.

And make sure that your goal statements are fresh and energizing. For more on this, see our article on Goal Setting.
Know where you stand – Determine how motivated you are to lead. Our Leadership Motivation Assessment can help you see clearly how motivated you are in your leadership role. If you need to increase your motivation to lead, it directs you to resources that can help.
Be hopeful and find something good – Motivated leaders are usually optimistic, no matter what problems they face. Adopting this mindset might take practice, but it's well worth the effort.

Every time you face a challenge, or even a failure, try to find at least one good thing about the situation. It might be something small, like a new contact, or something with long-term effects, like an important lesson learned. But there's almost always something positive, if you look for it.

4. Empathy

For leaders, having empathy is critical to managing a successful team or organization. Leaders with empathy have the ability to put themselves in someone else's situation. They help develop the people on their team, challenge others who are acting unfairly, give constructive feedback, and listen to those who need it.

If you want to earn the respect and loyalty of your team, then show them you care by being empathic.

How can you improve your empathy?

Put yourself in someone else's position – It's easy to support your own point of view. After all, it's yours! But take the time to look at situations from other people's perspectives. See our article on Perceptual Positions for a useful technique for doing this.
Pay attention to body language – Perhaps when you listen to someone, you cross your arms, move your feet back and forth, or bite your lip. This body language tells others how you really feel about a situation, and the message you're giving isn't positive! Learning to read body language can be a real asset in a leadership role, because you'll be better able to determine how someone truly feels. This gives you the opportunity to respond appropriately.
Respond to feelings – You ask your assistant to work late – again. And although he agrees, you can hear the disappointment in his voice. So, respond by addressing his feelings. Tell him you appreciate how willing he is to work extra hours, and that you're just as frustrated about working late. If possible, figure out a way for future late nights to be less of an issue (for example, give him Monday mornings off).

5. Social Skills

Leaders who do well in the social skills element of emotional intelligence are great communicators. They're just as open to hearing bad news as good news, and they're expert at getting their team to support them and be excited about a new mission or project.

Leaders who have good social skills are also good at managing change and resolving conflicts diplomatically. They're rarely satisfied with leaving things as they are, but they don't sit back and make everyone else do the work: they set an example with their own behavior.

So, how can you build social skills?

Learn conflict resolution – Leaders must know how to resolve conflicts between their team members, customers, or vendors. Learning conflict resolution skills is vital if you want to succeed.
Improve your communication skills – How well do you communicate? Our communication quiz will help you answer this question, and it will give useful feedback on what you can do to improve.
Learn how to praise others – As a leader, you can inspire the loyalty of your team simply by giving praise when it's earned. Learning how to praise others is a fine art, but well worth the effort.

Key Points

To be effective, leaders must have a solid understanding of how their emotions and actions affect the people around them. The better a leader relates to and works with others, the more successful he or she will be.

Take the time to work on self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Working on these areas will help you excel in the future!

The 5 Aspects of Emotional Intelligence and Why They Matter

You might not have heard a lot about emotional intelligence, but you use it every day. How much you have has a huge affect on your success in several areas of your life, including your career. In fact, 90% of the people who perform the best at their jobs have high emotional intelligence, and 58% of a person’s ability to lead can be explained by their emotional intelligence. Since higher emotional intelligence correlates with improved job performance, it also correlates with higher annual income.

Emotional Intelligence is also useful outside the world of work. It’s hugely important for managing relationships with friends and family. Most conflicts between people can be prevented or handled in a healthy way by using emotional intelligence to understand ourselves and each other.

What is emotional intelligence?

It’s the ability to perceive and manage the emotions of yourself and others. Of course, perceiving and managing emotions are two completely different things, and so are your emotions versus another’s. That’s why emotional intelligence is split up into five different categories: internal motivation, self-regulation, self-awareness, empathy, and social awareness.

1. Internal Motivation

Internal motivation is the ability to make yourself work with little to no pressure from others. Some sources of internal motivation include curiosity, a desire to fulfill your potential, and/or a desire to see your vision come to life. If you’re highly internally motivated, you might want rewards like money or praise, but they aren’t the driving force behind your behavior. This means you have more control over your productivity, because your motivation is self-generated.

2. Self Regulation

Self regulation is the ability to remain calm in emotionally trying situations. While many factors influence how you feel and may be beyond your control, if you’re highly self regulated, you’re good at controlling your reactions. You can make clear-headed decisions even if the world is falling apart around you. Also, if you’re highly self-regulated, you can easily adapt, because the discomfort that often comes from change won’t make you stumble. Self-regulation is a necessary skill for people planning to go into jobs that are fast-paced and dangerous. For example, you would want to be self-regulated as a firefighter. If you panicked you could hyperventilate and pass out, endangering yourself and those you were trying to save.

3. Self Awareness

Self awareness is the ability to evaluate yourself socially and understand how your behavior is being perceived by others. If you’re self-aware, you know how you’re feeling, how you’re acting, and how you appear. You likely have a strong grasp on your own strengths and weaknesses, which means that you know where and how you’ll be most useful. This knowledge can make you a great leader because you have an understanding of what skills you may be missing and therefore where and how you need others to apply their skills.

Self-awareness can also help you train yourself to think about your emotions in a productive way. It requires self-reflection and interpretation, so if you’re self-aware, when you get upset you might start to think about why you feel as you do and find that the feeling is momentary, misplaced, or a catalyst for positive action. Doing this allows you to think of your emotions as part of a larger picture, so you don’t become consumed by them. Knowing the reasoning behind your emotions can also give you a greater sense of control over them, improving self-efficacy.

4. Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand how others feel and put yourself “in someone else’s shoes.” While no one can completely know for sure if they’re feeling what someone else is, If you’re highly empathetic, you’re good at intuiting what their feelings might be. If you’re highly empathetic, you’re also likely to feel pain when you see others in pain and pleasure when you perceive others’ pleasure, allowing you to connect with others emotionally.

5. Social Awareness

Social awareness is the ability to pick up on social cues and communicate well with others. It requires being quick on one’s feet in conversations. Socially aware people are often very good listeners, who can easily figure out what’s important to the people they speak with. If you’re socially aware, you’re also good at perceiving power structures and group dynamics and appealing to the proper people. As such, social awareness is a powerful tool that can lead you to fit in, thrive, and potentially become a powerful leader.

Emotional Intelligence Matters

Emotional intelligence matters because you need to work successfully with others to truly create value in the modern economy. When a team has high emotional intelligence, the workplace is welcoming, creating happier, more productive employees.

While all jobs require emotional intelligence to some extent, some careers depend on it above all else. Jobs in sales, for example, require superb emotional intelligence. In sales, once you become an expert on your product and the context surrounding it, you need to be able to build a relationship with a prospect, determine what they are looking for and provide it. All of these activities are based on a person’s social awareness and empathy.

At Awato we believe people should be aware of emotional intelligence and know what emotional intelligences they possess. Our assessment platform includes an emotional intelligence assessment to help you reflect and learn which intelligences you possess.

Knowing your emotional intelligence and how it corresponds with careers is useful for navigating the world of work. Just as you would want to know what hard skills are required to fulfill a role, you want to know the soft (subjective, universal) skills too, which emotional intelligence is a major part of. You can either use this knowledge to choose careers where you know your current emotional intelligence would be a good fit or to determine where you might like to improve your emotional intelligence.

If you decide you need to improve your emotional intelligence, there are several tactics you can use. They all boil down to two essentials: paying attention and brainstorming. If you pay attention, your habits will become apparent to you, and if you brainstorm you can come up with alternatives to your default thoughts and actions. Once you feel like you’ve gotten the hang of it, take our assessment again to see how you’ve improved. You’ll find new and exciting career horizons open up for you.

Five components of emotional intelligence.

- from Erickson International Coaching University mailing list, August 8, 2016

The term emotional intelligence (EI) was first introduced in the 1990s and has been reasonably recognized as a major factor that determines a person's success. In some cases, a person's emotional intelligence (EQ) can be much more important than intelligence quotient (IQ). Research has shown that emotional intelligence can improve academic and professional achievement.

Today, the term emotional intelligence is synonymous with business and academic success. However, its benefits are not limited to achievements only in the professional field or in the business field. Emotional intelligence can significantly improve the quality of life and make it more enjoyable. But before we can understand the benefits of emotional intelligence and how to use it, it will be helpful to gain a deeper understanding of the qualities that emotional intelligence brings to our lives.

Learn more about our Emotional Intelligence Online Course >>>

In his papers "Emotional Intelligence: Why might it matter more than IQ?" and "Emotional Intelligence at Work" Daniel Goleman described five different categories or components of emotional intelligence:

1 Self-consciousness
An emotionally mature person understands both their strengths and areas for development and how to act accordingly. This quality reveals confidence, which is different from overconfidence or manifestations of low self-esteem, located at the other end of this spectrum. People with a high level of emotional intelligence tend to deal with criticism more easily and can also use it to better understand and improve their lives.

2 Self-regulating
Living without feelings is like dying. To be absorbed in feelings is to fall into childhood. An emotionally mature person can restrain and control their feelings and emotions properly in the appropriate situation. But this is not the same as hiding your feelings or extinguishing your emotions inside. A person with a high level of emotional intelligence can express their emotions in a healthy way, controlling and restraining them.

3 Motivation
Motivation in the most significant way affects both career and life in general. Healthy self-motivation can help you respond better to life's setbacks and disappointments, and help you deal with them with optimism and resilience.

4 Empathy
A reasonable amount of empathy can significantly improve the quality of life and connect with people on an emotional level. The most recent business research also shows that people who are naturally more empathic demonstrate more resilient leadership.

5 Social skills
A person with well-developed social skills likes to be around people. Other people also enjoy being with him. Building relationships and connecting with people is the key to happiness.

How, then, can these five qualities improve our lives, and how can emotional intelligence make them more enjoyable? Developing the five components of emotional intelligence can significantly improve:

Family and interpersonal relationships
Increasing self-awareness contributes to the formation of better thoughts, behaviors and feelings towards other people. This leads to an increase in the level of social recognition, an improvement in the quality of family life, friendship and romantic relationships. By better understanding ourselves, we can better understand other people. By restraining ourselves, we better control emotions, which, in turn, contributes to better personal and interpersonal relationships. Not only has this been shown to increase happiness levels, but it also increases the likelihood of success. Relationship problems are a major source of stress. Better relationships contribute to a better quality of life.

Physical and emotional health
Various studies show that most physical illnesses are related to stress. Depression is a phenomenon that becomes more dangerous every year and is the cause of divorce, adversely affects children and can even lead to suicide. As already mentioned, the development of our emotional intelligence contributes to a reduction in the likelihood of stress and depression, leads to a healthier physical and emotional life.

The best definition of life purpose
Doubts about life's purpose are the main, if not the only, cause of depression or stress. People are afraid of the unknown. For some people, striking a healthy balance between ambition and realistic expectations is a surprisingly difficult task. Increasing your level of self-awareness leads to a clearer understanding of your strengths and can help you realistically define your life purpose.

Success
Although this article is dedicated to discussing the benefits of emotional intelligence, we cannot deny the fact that success is the key to happiness and quality of life. Emotional intelligence has been shown to increase the chances of success in both the academic, professional and personal fields and may be a more important success factor than intelligence.
Maintaining a successful and healthy lifestyle with a clear life purpose certainly makes emotional intelligence worthy of attention.

Translator: Elena Ratz
Scientific editor: Tatyana Andrievskaya

Primary source >>>

Five areas of your emotional intelligence

When we talk about well-being as a life strategy, it is important to remember one more aspect of our life - emotions. And speaking more specifically, it is about understanding your emotional state and managing emotions.

The ability of a person to perceive their own emotions and manage feelings for effective problem solving is called emotional intelligence. In recent years, the study of emotional intelligence and how to develop it has become widespread and has become a fashion trend.

Books are written about it, trainings and retreats are held. The development of emotional intelligence is part of the mindfulness practice and integral coaching courses.

Interest in emotional intelligence arose at the beginning of the 20th century due to the inability of classical IQ tests (intelligence quotient) to explain the peculiarities of people's motivation and behavior. In 1920, Professor Edward Thorndike first introduced the concept of social intelligence, which he described as "the ability to understand people, men and women, boys and girls, the ability to deal with people and act intelligently in relationships with people." But by and large, mass interest in emotional intelligence began after the publication in 1990 years of the article "Emotional Intelligence" by Peter Salovey and John Mayer, which actually determined the entire modern understanding of emotional intelligence. It sparked interest in previous research and was the catalyst for many publications on the subject.

Journalist and researcher Daniel Goleman wrote a book in 1995 that stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year and a half. It's called Emotional Intelligence. Why it might mean more than IQ." In it, he argues that emotional abilities are skills that can be learned and developed.

According to Goleman, emotional intelligence can be divided into several areas:

Self-awareness. That is, knowledge about what is happening inside you, your preferences, possibilities and desires.
Self-regulation. This is the ability to manage internal states, emotional movements and desires.
Motivation . Attitude that leads you to achieve the goal
Empathy . A very important element is awareness of the feelings, emotions and desires of other people and their adequate reading.
Social skills. The ability to communicate in people in a predictable and desirable way.

Emotional intelligence is a special case of the more complex multiple intelligence map proposed by Howard Gardner and later incorporated into his Integral Vision map by the philosopher Ken Wilber. Gardner made a list of eight kinds of intelligence:

Verbal intelligence - the ability to generate speech, including mechanisms responsible for the phonetic (speech sounds), syntactic (grammar), semantic (meaning) and pragmatic components of speech (the use of speech in various situations).
Musical intelligence - the ability to generate, transmit and understand the meanings associated with sounds, including the mechanisms responsible for the perception of pitch, rhythm and timbre (qualitative characteristics) of sound.
Logico-mathematical intelligence - the ability to use and evaluate the relationships between actions or objects when they are not actually present, i.e. to abstract thinking.
Spatial intelligence - the ability to perceive visual and spatial information, modify it and recreate visual images without recourse to the original stimuli. Includes the ability to construct images in three dimensions, as well as mentally move and rotate these images.
Body-kinesthetic intelligence - the ability to use all parts of the body in solving problems or creating products; includes control over gross and fine motor movements and the ability to manipulate external objects.
Intrapersonal Intelligence - the ability to recognize one's own feelings, intentions and motives.
Interpersonal Intelligence - the ability to recognize and discriminate between the feelings, attitudes and intentions of other people.
Naturalistic intelligence - perhaps one of the rarest. People who possess it treat all representatives of the natural world with love: be it a plant or any animal.
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