Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQi) has gotten lots of attention over the past several years—as businesses increasingly value intangibles like employee engagement and company culture in addition to the bottom line—but the concept has been around for almost 30 years. 

When you’ve developed your EQ intelligence, you not only strengthen your interpersonal relationships but also make better decisions, communicate more effectively, and problem-solve more diplomatically. 

Emotional intelligence has five main components. Each component is further broken down into three skills or traits, which clearly express emotional intelligence's role in our lives.

Self-Perception: How Do You See Yourself?

How you view yourself, and your circumstances affect how you view and interact with others. Each one must be acutely aware of what they are feeling and how those feelings—expressed in moods and actions—affect those around them. Self-perception includes these three traits:

• Someone with high EQi has a well-defined sense of Self-regard. This person knows “who they are” and can objectively evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.
• Self-actualization is the ability to realize your potential by achieving personal goals and self-improvement. If you do this well, you’re likely to inspire the same in others.
• When you practice Emotional self-awareness, you can effectively recognize and control your emotions and how you react to other people and situations.

Self-Expression: Who Are You, Really?

Appropriately expressing your emotions is vital to success in any domain and role. Why? Communicating how and what you’re feeling (in a constructive way) makes it easy for others to build trust in you. Secure relationships leave no room for guessing games. Self-expression includes these three traits:

• Emotional expression is how accurately you communicate your emotions to those around you. 
• When you are upfront (in a positive manner) with others about your thoughts, feelings, and views, you are practicing Assertiveness.
• In the work environment, you must strike a balance between Independence—the ability to self-motivate and work on your own—and interdependence—the ability to work well as part of a team.

Interpersonal Skills: How Do You Interact with Others?

Strong interpersonal skills help you build relationships. And when you understand others’ emotions and react to them appropriately, you’ll strengthen those relationships. 

• When you exhibit Social responsibility, you carefully consider your impact on those people in your immediate environment and the world at large.
• Effective communication needs Empathy—the ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, see things from their perspective and address their feelings so that they feel “heard”.
• Everyone must be able to build meaningful and mutually beneficial Interpersonal relationships. Emotional intelligence training can help you do that.

Decision Making: What’s Guiding You?

You'll make better decisions when you understand your emotions and where they come from. People with high EQi know when to listen to their emotions versus letting emotions cloud their vision. Three skills involved in decision-making:

• Practicing Impulse control ensures you use the right amounts of planning and forethought when decision-making.
• Emotions can skew your perspective. Reality testing ensures you objectively understand the people and situations around you and adapt your behavior accordingly.
• The most difficult problems to solve are often those involving emotions. Well-developed EQi helps you apply a more measured, considered approach to Problem-solving, leading to more effective solutions.

Stress Management: How Are You Coping?

People with high EQi handle stress much better than those with undeveloped EQi. Emotional intelligence helps you navigate conflict, practice grace under pressure, and dwell less on negative thoughts and feelings. Three traits of stress management concerning emotional intelligence include:

• Flexibility—successful people know how to “go with the flow” instead of needlessly fighting it. 
• Stress tolerance—emotional intelligence helps you get comfortable with stress. For example, reframing a negative outcome as a learning opportunity and avoiding an excessive emotional response.
• Optimism. When you are optimistic, inspire more confidence and trust from direct reports, become more creative, and better problem-solver.