The Setup

Welcome to Soft Skill Hacking: Emotional Intelligence, a six-blog crash course explaining what EI is, how to assess your personal ability, and ways to improve this talent. My name is Andrew Latona, I am a junior at the University at Buffalo in the school of management and I will be your congenial tour guide as we delve deeper into this topic. Emotional Intelligence is the capability of an individual to accurately perceive emotions both in one’s own self and in others, to understand the exact meaning of these emotions, and to regulate them in an appropriate way.

To me, it is fascinating to sit back and think that humans have unique levels of EI different from one another and that we have the power to not only analyze our own emotions but interpret how somebody else is feeling based off of visual cues. Research suggests that anywhere from 50–80% of communication is nonverbal so it just makes sense that any professional, or any person in general for that matter, would want to master these skills and unlock their fullest EI potential. In a world of increasing global interconnectedness and an emphasis of face to face communication, EI is an essential concept for success in a business career.

In my opinion, work in the business realm revolves around communication, networking, and relationships over everything else. No longer is high level EI solely a natural gift but mastery is now a necessity for prosperity in your career. Over the course of these next two weeks I will be posting about how you can practice and reflect on your own emotional intelligence, what to observe when interacting with others, why it is considered a key leadership skill, how to boost your EI, why it has surpassed IQ in importance, the twelve elements encompassing EI, and much more.