Emotional Intelligence: An Important Trait For Better Productivity.
Knowing the emotions and controlling them makes you and your endeavours more productive.
Emotional intelligence (also known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to deter the emotional cues and information of self and others. And manage them for better results. It is the capacity to recognize, use, and regulate feelings in order to reduce anxiety, communicate clearly, sympathize with others, overcome obstacles, and diffuse conflict. People who possess high levels of emotional intelligence are better aware of their feelings, what they signify, and how it affects others. You may develop better bonds, perform well at your job and study, and reach your professional and personal objectives with the aid of emotional intelligence.
According to Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist, there are five attributes to emotional intelligence: Self-awareness, Self-regulation, Self–Motivation, Empathy & Social skills. Understanding them below.
Self-awareness — It is an ability to recognize and understand self-feelings, emotions and behaviour. And to monitor them in order to understand what feelings we have at what times. Being self-conscious means you are always conscious of your emotions and how they may affect the people surrounding you.
Being self-aware is not the absence of mistakes, but the ability to learn and correct them — Daniel Chidiac
There is a Objective self-awareness theory which is given by psychologists Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund. This theory states the self-awareness as a reflective state with attention concerntrated on ourselves for social evaluation.This consciousness leads us to socially evaluate our own behaviour against the personal standards, which are levied to achieve correctness and consistency in our beliefs and actions.
Self-regulation — It refers to the capacity to regulate one’s impulses and emotions.
A person who regulates himself, hardly verbal abuse others, and does not take emotional decisions, make stereotypic decisions, or compromise their moral principles. The main goal of self-regulation is maintaining control. The following characteristics describe someone who is emotionally in control: consideration, patience, and self-control over urges. Ability to handle uncertainty and change. According to Goleman, self-regulation also includes a leader’s flexibility and commitment to personal accountability.
In succinct, a self-regulated person doesn’t freak out and is highly adept at controlling their feelings.
As discussed above the Objective self-awareness theory, this self-regulation is the ability to make oneself as per the standards, which are set as per the belief, ideal ingrained by the surrounding social status and our visual of oneself.
Self–Motivation — Times were not always favourable. But one needs to suit itself for every situation or circumstance. That is where this quality of self-motivation comes into the picture. A great leader knows to motivate and control his internal environment without the external situation impacting it. He even knew to pacify the internal disturbance and focus on the positive aspect and started to pull over itself again. You need to look at the situations and the things that provide positive energy. And to build a habit to proffer you out of the staple mind. So, that the pressure of the situation would not affect the effectiveness of your orders and decisions.
Self — Motivation is in itself a large debatable topic. There is no uniform way which can be applied to every situation. It needs to be controlled, managed and envisaged cautiously in different situations. You probably had heard about the negative motivation, another important aspect that create negative empulse to foster work. Key example of it is the demotion of the employees by a manager. (Firm have an option to fire out, however they provide demotion so as to create a fear and instigation to grow and more effective).
Empathy — The capacity to consider others’ perspectives and be sensitive to others’ feelings. It is crucial because the world is becoming far too materialistic and self-centred. People that score highly in this area comprehend the needs and desires of others. The companies and the organization started to put more significance on it. As they wanted the person who needed to understand the situation by putting themselves in the shoes of their peers and understanding their issues and problems. Because solving the problems would only be possible when you understand the situation they are clubbed with. It is important as a leader and as a member of a leading team.
The three types of empathy that psychologists have defined are: Cognitive, Emotional, and Compassionate.
Social skills — Social skill is an important component of emotional intelligence which is required for being a successful leader or communicator. The art of being socially active, building relationships, interacting, communicating, and personal touch is necessary. One needs to interact in large parts, the skill in managing the emotions of others. People with better social skills are adept at rallying their team from behind. And enthusing them with positivity for the new goal or project, which possesses equal change for both good and adverse outcomes.
Leaders with strong interpersonal skills are adept at handling disagreements and implementing change. Even while they seldom accept things as they are, they don’t just sit back and let others handle everything; instead, they lead by example.
Importance of Emotional Intelligence
The smartest people were not always satisfied. You definitely know someone who excels intellectually but is socially awkward and unproductive at work or in personal relations. Intelligence quotient or intellectual prowess or IQ (as popularly known as) is insufficient on its own to lead you a successful life. One probably be wonderful at self job with the IQ, but when it comes to teamwork or organizational functioning, you need to have better emotional intelligence (EQ) as well, it enables you to control the stress and emotions and leads you to manage the working in the way that was desired and fulfilled. IQ and EQ must go hand in hand as they work best when they complement one another. EQ solidifies your IQ skill and leads the skills to show their glitter without breaking emotions and mood.
In the Mental Operation
There are four fundamental classes of mental operation, which includes major tirade of motivation, emotion and cognition with the consciousness ( less frequently).[1]
Motivation is the trait by which the organism is compelled to do simple actions to fulfill its reproduction and survival demands. Motivation, in its truest form, has a fairly predictable time path.
The second class in this triad is composed of emotions. Emotion seems to have developed to indicate and react to changes in how a person interacts with their environment (including how they perceive their role in it). Additionally, each emotion coordinates a number of fundamental behavioural reactions to the interaction. For Instance, fear coordinates attacking or running away.
The third component of the trinity, cognition, enables the organism to learn from its surroundings and solve issues in unanticipated circumstances. This frequently serves to maintain happy feelings or satisfy motivations. Learning, memory, and problem-solving are all parts of cognition. It is continual and requires deliberate, adaptable information processing that is based on memory and learning.
Emotional Intelligence is the term for managing these three mental operations. It helps to understand them, control them and let them to motivates and pacify the body. And with the positive attitude leads the mind toward the problem finding the solution.
Dealing with the Stress
A person with strong emotional intelligence has the self-awareness necessary to identify unpleasant emotions and react appropriately to stop an escalation. Unchecked and misinterpreted emotions increase our susceptibility to various mental health conditions, including stress, anxiety, and depression.
With the help of EI, you may evaluate the sociological, psychological, and biological aspects of tension and begin to address its root causes.
Ganster & Schaubroeck (1991) consider our working and professional environment as the primary source of stress, going on to suggest the ability to effectively recognize and deal with emotions and emotional information in the workplace is a vital tool in preventing negative stress and coping with occupational stress.
Contentment & Motivation.
A key component of psychological adjustment and wellness is the skilful management of emotions. It has been discovered that those with greater EI report less stress and more pleasure, demonstrating that the capacity to control perceived stress directly affects contentment. (Ruiz‐Aranda, Extremera & Pineda‐Galán, 2014).
How to Improve Emotional Intelligence
Unlike IQ, EQ does not need specific time, super cognitive power, or effort to improve. Instead, what is required is self-realization and the time to improve yourself as an individual and as a member of your surroundings. So, telling that much one thing is certain that it is purely related to ourself. Indeed the foremost step is to understand yourself.
SWOT Analysis.
The acronym stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threats. This is one of the general ways to improve businesses and heading corporations. However, more important that these four attributes provide you with a guided picture as to what you are, what your strengths are, and what your weaknesses are (List down into the four columns as in the below picture )
Realization and Recovery — SWOT analysis gives you a better picture of what your strengths and weaknesses are. As discussed earlier, knowledge is the key to improvement. And having the knowledge of your weaknesses, you could curb them and knowing the strengths, you could utilize them. For Instance, You know you are a short-tempered person. Thus, next time when the anger strikes you, you probably will not easily fickle the behaviour out. Now having the knowledge of your parts. Realization would foster the way to recovery, compile the strength and try to recover the weakness in order to assess the opportunity.
SWOT analysis is the paracetamol for any fever. However, just like paracetamol, it would only curb, not cure. So, curing any weakness or deficit requires persistent efforts and consistency. Emotional intelligence is one such fear for which this is effective paracetamol. You need to figure out your emotions and behaviour. To analyze when and why you behave in the way you behave. Knowing which consistently try to improve in order to be a better influential person with good EQ. Listed below are the general and virtuous ways that intend to better your EQ.
Being an Active listener
An emotionally intelligent person understands himself and his peers much better. This helps him to regulate and collaborate with the people better. And to understand others, one of the essential things is active attention and listening not only to others but to yourself as well.
Being an active listener would help you to understand your peers and coworkers. Listening to their grievances and problem, understanding why they were demanding what they did. Looking at the situation from their perspective and putting yourself into the situation. All this leads to a better understanding of them and their problems. Not only this, it develops as an employee as being satisfied with head and concurrently develops you as being head as be able to satisfy your employer.
Also, one needs to be an active listener of itself. Listening internally means you need to feel the voices and reactions of your body and understand how they control the mind. For Instance, many a time, we were fatigued with work or exhausted due to unpreferable results. And often, this exhaustion has been being t being favourable, and at that time, if an employee or subordinate asked to have their own self-worker, then sometimes this exhaustion has been poured on it. So, we have to listen and understand this exhaustion and internal disturbance and try to curb this pouring on others.
Optimism & Motivation
Anxiety, depression, fatigue and all the other negative emotions caused due to poor future projection and pessimistic. And these feelings curb the positive wives of the body and affect emotional intelligence. One needs to be confident and believe in the efforts drawn and the efforts drawing. This leads to an optimistic life approach and arouses more motivation to work.
Physically fit
The researcher and analysts often discuss how mental fitness correlates to physical health. When we exercise, the body releases endomorphin that nourishes the pain and provides better focus. Exercising helps to develop the frontal regions of the brain responsible for executive function and release feel-free hormones that help to have a better focused and calm mind. Apart from calmness, physical fitness provides your body with a better posture, look and stout confidence. You look better motivated and enriched to lead your team as a leader. When your internal environment is balanced, you can have better interaction, communication and power to understand others and produce better results.
One of the prominent businessmen and old medium writers Larry Kim elaborated on these ways in his own ways.
Way Ahead
Emotional Intelligence is an upcoming skill of the future. In the last few years, the world has witnessed many disasters, whether man-made or natural, either it was Israel — Palestine, Armenia — Azerbaijan, COWID- 19 pandemic, or the latest Russia — Ukraine work, all led to the massive impacts on the emotions and the feelings of the people around the globe. Thus, it becomes necessary to develop this skill to be a better person and influential leader who is immune to emotional sentiments and prone to hard work and perseverance.
[1] Bain, 1855/1977; Izard, 1993; MacLean, 1973; Mayer, 1995a; 1995b; Plutchik, 1984; Tomkins, 1962; see Hilgard, 1980; Mayer, Chabot, & Carlsmith, 1997, for reviews
