It is a human ability that helps the individual to use, understand and even manage own emotions in a positive way. Emotional intelligence is essential to relieve stress, for improved communication and for emphasizing with others. Also known as emotional quotient, it helps in overcoming challenges and in defusing conflict.
Now in our daily lives, we come across several situations when need to use our emotional intelligence to deal with life’s problems.
What happens when someone criticises you?
Do you accept your mistake and move on, reminding yourself to keep a note of it? Or do you realize it’s your mistake, but you decide not to admit it?
Well- emotional intelligence is all about accepting criticism and taking up responsibility. It means being able to move ahead even after making a mistake.
Emotional intelligence is the power and ability to say ‘No’ when there is a need. It is about sharing feelings with others.
Also, emotional intelligence is defined as the power an individual has to handle any kind of crisis situation in life.
The crisis is a part of life – these situations can come in different forms – how you react is your way to handle a situation. Such situations never come with a warning – no wonder, big organizations always have contingency plans in place.
Let’s imagine one such crisis – most of us have faced this at some point in time or another.
“It’s an important project meeting with the client tomorrow. Lots of data, presentation, notes and tasks to be completed. There is a network failure and almost all machines at the office have stopped working. Jack is anxious, and worried – the tech guys have still not been able to identify the problem – Now what? Just a few hours left…how do you handle this?”
An essential factor in crisis management is our emotional intelligence! It’s about how we can handle our emotions in a crisis.
Any emotionally intelligent leader can handle any crisis – whether it is big or small in quite an effective way.
4 Domains of Emotional Intelligence:
- Self-Awareness
- Self-management
- Social awareness
- Relationship management
Self-Awareness
It’s about being conscious about your own thoughts, feelings, and reactions. When any crisis arises, its necessary to be aware about one’s own reactions, behavior and body language. It’s important not to focus on the problem at that time but to find a solution so that one can come out of the crisis.
Self-Control:
Without self-control, nothing can be managed. Anger, frustration, and emotional outbursts will never help in coming out of a crisis.
Social Awareness:
As a leader, when there is a crisis, one needs to be aware that others, especially juniors can get panicky. They might need to calm down and stop being scared, worried, and even upset. It is a social responsibility to ensure that the crisis does not have any major impact on businesspeople.
Relationship Management:
Whenever there is a crisis (whether personal or professional), the priority is to manage the relationship. This is about ‘friendliness with purpose’. The purpose can be to build teamwork, for inspiring others, manage conflicts or anything else.
What is the importance of emotional intelligence in professional life?
In any workplace, emotional intelligence is of utmost importance. This is necessary so that an individual can perceive, can reason, understand, and manage different emotions not only of the person but also of others. When a person can handle different emotions, it provides the person with the ability to help or guide people. This in turn means a happier and more successful life.
Why is Emotional Intelligence Important in a Leadership?
Any leader must make a connection with others. Those who have high levels of emotional intelligence can easily understand what is in the mind of the employees. They understand what can motivate the staff, how incentives can help and how they can keep things positive in an environment. This is optimism which works as a constructive response to stress.
So, what about people who realize that their emotional intelligence is not as it should be or when they are lacking behind?
Well, there are certain ways that can help in improving emotional intelligence.
First Step –
Observe – How do you react to people?
Are you moody? Do you always respond to people? Do you snap back? You have to judge yourself honestly when you think about how you interact with others. You can put them in your place. You can be more open about certain things – are you accepting their needs or perspectives? If not – you need to change.
Just place yourself in their situation and think about how would you react?
How are you at your workplace?
Do you love to take credit for different things? Do you love to speak about your accomplishments? Humility can be a great quality and that does not imply you do not have the confidence, or you are shy. A good way to enhance your emotional intelligence is by practising humility.
You must give others an opportunity to do well for themselves. Let them perform as they are willing.
A Self Evaluation Can Help:
Why not evaluate yourself? It’s a simple step, just put down your strengths and weaknesses. Be honest about your weaknesses and do not hesitate to accept that you might not be perfect. It is necessary that you work on certain areas, and you can make yourself one better person. It is all about having the courage to see yourself clearly and to change yourself.
Reacting to Stressful situations
Stress is something that is a part of our lives. Try and evaluate yourself to find how you tend to react to different stressful situations.
How do you react? Do you get very upset?
Do you become very angry?
Do you stay calm?
Are you able to control your emotions?
Taking Responsibility for Actions is Important:
Often during a process or in any action, we tend to hurt the feelings of others. Taking responsibility for the actions helps in reducing the guilt.
Why not apologize directly? People whom you have hurt might just forgive and forget quite easily. Just make an honest attempt to get things going. You might feel a bit better.
Strong Emotional Intelligence:
There are many people who can boast of having a strong emotional intelligence. Many people are not even aware that they have great Emotional intelligence. Here are some signs that you need to look for in case of strong emotional intelligence.
Here are some of the best signs that people with strong emotional intelligence have – if you have at least 80% of these – you certainly have strong emotional intelligence.
- If you usually get along well with others without major differences, verbal spats or quarrels.
- If you are aware of your major strengths and weaknesses.
- If you love to focus on the present.
- Those who love to tend to operate with great integrity.
- Being self-motivated
- Have set yourself well-placed boundaries
Emotional Intelligence is something that can be worked upon even if you feel you lack it to a certain extent.