For many individuals, teams and organizations, Emotional Intelligence (EQ) has been pivotal in advancing careers, building relationships, improving team work and even impacting the bottom line. Although EQ has become a popular buzzword in companies and organizations, developing your emotional skills can boost your career and enhance your relationships and quality of life.
EQ is your ability to recognize, understand and manage your own emotions and then to recognize the emotions of others. Simply, EQ allows you to use your awareness to manage your own behavior, cope with challenges, develop your relationships, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.
There are a number of EQ assessments that measure your degree of emotional intelligence and offer tools and suggestions for managing behavior and navigating social complexities in the workplace and beyond. In my work, I use EQi 2.0, an emotional intelligence assessment produced and distributed by MHS. This tool explores 5 core competency areas or scales that measure EQ. Here are the key areas to consider as you think about your own emotional intelligence.
1. Self-Perception—Knowing and Managing Yourself. This is about your own emotional self-awareness and the ability to be aware of and understand your own feelings and their impact on others.
How comfortable are you when it comes to understanding your own emotions and the emotions of others?
2. Self- Expression- The way you face the world. Emotional expression, or your ability to express your feelings both verbally and non-verbally, includes the ability to express your feelings, beliefs and thoughts in a productive manner.
Are there some emotions you are more comfortable sharing than others? And which emotions make you really uncomfortable when you see them in others
3. Interpersonal—Getting Along with Others. This is really about those interpersonal relationships in our lives and the ability to develop and maintain mutually satisfying relationships. This includes empathy—the ability to recognize, understand and appreciate the feelings of others.
Pay attention to your reactions to the emotions of others. Can you accept the other person’s feeling? Are you judging them? Not sure you really know how to help? Challenge your assumptions.
4. Decision-Making— is about solving problems and making choices. This includes impulse control, which is the ability to resist or delay an impulse, drive, or temptation to act. It also includes reality testing which is the ability to remain objective by seeing things as they really are.
Do you ever feel emotionally triggered when there is a tough decision to make? Can you control the impulse to act? Are you seeing the situation clearly? In these emotional situations, ask yourself, “Is it true?” This simple question can often separate fact from fiction or something we may have created in our minds because we are triggered.
5. Stress management—involves flexibility and tolerance. This is your ability to adapt your feelings, thinking and behavior to change and to effectively cope with stressful or difficult situations. This scale also measures optimism. In other words, this is your ability to remain hopeful and resilient despite setbacks.
How do you cope with stress? And how to you handle difficult situations? Are there some strategies you’d like to put into practice?
There is one other area that is measured in the EQi 2.0 model that encompasses the 5 key areas we’ve just covered. This is the Happiness factor. While this is a little more intangible than some of the other core competencies, MHS includes this scale to measure your overall happiness or sense of well-being. This is the ability to feel satisfied with yourself, with others, and with life in general.
On a scale from 1-10, hoe satisfied are you with your self, with others and with your life? How would you rate your own sense of your well-being? Give yourself a score of 1 if you don’t feel satisfied and give yourself a 10 if you are totally satisfied with your life and well-being. Based on your self score, you can decide if there’s room for improvement. Who wouldn’t want to increase their own sense of well-being? It sounds good, doesn’t it?
So, here’s the good news about EQ. Research shows that EQ is something we can continue to grow and develop throughout our lifetime. How we score ourselves is an entry point to understanding ourselves and where we can grow and refine our EQ over time. In other words, we can each continue to grow our emotional intelligence, well into our 80’s. So where’s a good place to focus?
Start by taking an EQ personal assessment. This is a great way to identify areas for improvement. If you are interested in learning more about the EQ i 2.o or would like to take this survey and debrief the results, send me an e-mail and we can set this up.
Another thing you can do right away is to ask for feedback. It’s hard to work on a challenge if you don’t recognize it. So ask your colleagues or co-workers, as well as your friends and family, what they observe. Listen to the feedback, try to understand it, and think about areas you would like to refine or improve.
And finally, never underestimate the power of taking a deep breath and a pause. Rather than responding to an emotional trigger and lashing out, check in with yourself and see if you can identify the “hot spot” inside you. Then take a moment to listen to others and see if you can identify other perspectives or ways to look at the situation.
Strengthening your emotional intelligence takes commitment, practice and an understanding of its value in all areas of life. We now know that working on our EQ can benefit not only the bottom line at work, but our own health and well-being!
-Dawn