LEADING YOU
Growing Emotional Intelligence
Caroline Nyamwaya Mwazi
Students are often advised to study hard and get good grades in order to get good jobs . Early in our careers , the advice is that hard work leads to promotions and career progression . After diligently following the advice and achieving varied levels of success , we soon realized that this is not entirely true . There ’ s clearly more to success than just hard work . Emotional intelligence , first coined by Daniel Goleman in his 1995 book , Emotional Intelligence - Why it Matters more than IQ , is a key component .
Psychology Today defines emotional intelligence as the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and those of others . Research indicates that people with high emotional intelligence are more likely to get hired and promoted and earn more because high emotional intelligence leads to more excellent work and better interpersonal relations . If you want to succeed , understanding and intentionally developing emotional intelligence will more rapidly lead you to greater success .
Emotions are part and parcel of the human experience . They colour our lives and enable us express ourselves . Our lives would be very bland if we were static and emotionless .
Emotionally intelligent people own their emotions , and notice , understand , and positively influence the emotions of others , while effectively managing themselves to achieve desired results . High emotional intelligence leads to greater self-awareness , easier adjusting to different situations , better teamwork and work culture , and better individual , team and organizational performance , benefits which extend to personal relationships .
How does emotional intelligence show up ? Think of how you handle stressful situations . For instance you may be caught in traffic , running late and have an accident , or you could be furiously working to complete some work and your computer crashes and you have no backup files , or you may have to deal with an angry , belligerent client .
How do you handle these potentially inflammatory situations ? Emotional intelligent people remain even and calm , even in high pressure situations , and are able to diffuse negative situations into positive ones . According to Daniel Goleman , there are five aspects of emotional intelligence - self-awareness , self-regulation , motivation , empathy and relationship management . To understand how to develop emotional
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Our lives would be very bland if we were static and emotionless . Emotionally intelligent people own their emotions , and notice , understand , and positively influence the emotions of others , while effectively managing themselves to achieve desired results . intelligence , let ’ s look at each in turn .
Self-awareness
Self-awareness involves knowing yourself , including your strengths , weaknesses , emotional triggers , motivations , values and goals and how these affect your behavior and results . Self-awareness also involves knowing who you are and whether you can effectively handle a situation or not .
Growing in self-awareness is a continuous process ; you never arrive . A good place to start is by assessing your strengths , weaknesses , values and motivations . Honestly list your strengths and weaknesses and decide on actions to build on your strengths while managing your weaknesses . Assess your values and motivations and modify them if they are wrong .
Notice patterns in your behavior as well , including how you respond to different situations and the results . One way to do this is to keep a journal where you regularly summarize the main events of your day or week , including your thoughts , feelings , reactions and observations .
We also increase self-awareness by knowing how others see us , since they may notice things that we may not be aware of . Pay attention to what people say about you in general and ask trusted people for feedback , looking for common observations .
Self-regulation
Self-regulation involves discipline and includes effectively managing your emotions , impulses and actions . Everyone experiences negative emotions such as anger , jealousy , discouragement or panic ,
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