Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence, or EQ (emotional quotient), is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathise with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflicts.
Applying emotional intelligence in the workplace allows for the promotion of a positive work environment and the construction of better work relationships, strengthening the workers’ ability to share ideas, opinions, and feedback which, in turn, can target goal achievement. This a great skill to get your head around when joining any Think Pacific project, as working in a team and with a variety of people is central to the experience.
Why is emotional intelligence valued?
- Employers look for people who are able to build strong relationships in the workforce. Emotional intelligence is an essential tool in the development and maintenance of good relationships.
- Builds rapport (Progressing teamwork skills).
- Raises self-awareness (Ability to understand your strengths and weaknesses).
4 Attributes of Emotional Intelligence
This short video offers you a guide to unlocking the four fundamentals of emotional intelligence; self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness and relationship management.
Self Awareness
Self-awareness is the ability to identify your emotions and how you will respond to them.
People who are self-aware can better understand their strengths and weaknesses as they recognise that their actions can trigger certain emotions, ie. someone with good communication skills feels at ease when they are talking with a co-worker; however, someone with bad communication skills feels anxious when talking to a co-worker.
Although, it can be said that a person who is self-aware is better capable of improving their weaknesses as they can learn to control the fear/anxiety that is evoked and associate the task with more positive emotions.
Furthermore, self-awareness helps people to better understand how others might perceive them. You may use this to understand how you are viewed by your co-workers, clients, or managers.
Questions to consider:
- Can you name the behaviours you are doing at all times?
- Can you name the emotions that you are feeling at all times?
- Can you identify the ways in which people perceive you?
Self Regulation
Self-regulation is the ability to use your emotions to make decisions about your behaviour.
It is very important to understand how you are feeling and take steps to adjust these feelings to remain in control of them. This adjustment can create a desirable effect, projecting a more positive outlook both personally and professionally.
In the workplace, self-regulation can help to relieve stress created by challenging tasks and allow for more effective responses which evidently leads to a more positive working environment.
Questions to consider:
- How interested are you to do a task, and how can you increase your level of interest and motivation if they are low?
- Are you in a good physical place and position to do this task?
- Have you eliminated all potential distractions that can affect your ability to do this task?
Relationship Management
Creating amicable and productive relationships with others is predominantly based upon your ability to clearly communicate your thoughts, influence others and successfully work as a team.
Hence, we can formulate that relationship management is inseparable from the other fundamentals of emotional intelligence.
People who are aware of how they are feeling can better understand how others are feeling. This then translates into understanding the strengths and weaknesses of both themselves and those around them.
This skill is incredibly valuable in the workplace when working within a team of people as you can confidently place tasks for those in your team, establishing an environment whereby one can relate to and support the other.
Question to consider:
- Do you have the ability to create an environment where people can support one another?
Social Awareness
Social awareness is the ability to recognise the emotional needs of the people around you.
When you become socially aware, you are better able to empathise with others’ emotions, as well as the intent behind their actions. This can allow you to handle workplace situations more effectively as you are more likely to maintain better work relationships due to your willingness to learn and understand the needs of those around you.
Questions to consider:
- Are you able to understand other people’s feelings and empathise with them?
- Can you demonstrate that you understand and appreciate the views or issues another person expresses?
Emotional Intelligence Self-Evaluation
Simple statements to ask yourself to assess your EQ:
- “I find it easy to put words to my feelings”.
- “I accept responsibility for my reactions”.
- “Even when I am stressed, I am aware of what is happening around me”.
- “I can accept feedback without allowing my emotions to cloud my better judgement”.
- “I am good at perceiving how others are feeling”.
- “I find it easy to share my deep feelings with others”.
If you answered yes to most of the statements above, then you are perceived to have high emotional intelligence.