Emotional Intelligence

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Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence became a popular buzzword in the early 90's and has progressed into being one of the hottest topics in corporate America. Many of us know that we have emotions, but harnessing that knowledge to use it as a benefit in the workplace is another story. As IQ measure your cognitive intelligence EQ measures your emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is the street smarts or common sense in you reflecting on your ability to deal successfully with other people, your feelings, and your everyday work and social environment.

Key Points

There are five dimensions to emotional intelligence, which include self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, empathy and social skills. Self-awareness is knowing your own limitations and perceiving how your actions will affect others. Self-regulation involves control and the ability to maintain your self when your emotions are running high. Self-motivation is the ability to direct yourself and look towards outcomes. Empathy allows you to put yourself in the other person's shoes without taking on their emotions. Social skills are the ability to deal with others emotions.

Why is EI Different

Emotional intelligence is different because it deals with the touchy feely side of things. Emotional intelligence has come to mean many things to many different people. For some people, it is about being a nice guy, but it is much more then that. To use emotional intelligence properly one must be able to identify emotions (the ability to correctly identify how people are feeling), use emotions (the ability to create emotions and to integrate your feelings into the way you think), understand emotions (the ability to understand the causes of emotions) and manage emotions (the ability to figure out effective strategies that use). There is much more to emotional intelligence then just being a nice guy.

Importance of EI

For years, educators, human resource professionals, corporate trainers, recruiters, managers and others have known what sets apart the average performers from the stars. It isn't technical skills - those are easy to learn, and it's easy to determine if someone has them or not. It isn't necessarily intelligence, either. It is something else, something that you knew it if you saw it, but which was difficult to clearly define. Interaction with others or people skills perhaps, but it all comes down to emotional intelligence. The ability to know ones own emotions and effect others emotions. With the skills needed for a high emotional ...