Mastering Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage your emotions in positive and constructive ways. It’s about recognizing your emotional state and the emotional states of others. It is also about engaging with others in ways that draw people to you. Recently, Emotional Intelligence has been validated with about 25 major skill areas that can influence your career and create abilities that improve your worth at work. Why not read this article and discover ways to enhance your emotional intelligence reflecting positively on your personal and professional life?

Emotional Intelligence consists of four core abilities:

Self-awareness:

The ability to recognize your own emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior, know your strengths and weaknesses, and have self-confidence. 

Self-management:

The ability to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances. 

Social awareness:

The ability to understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group.

Relationship management:

The ability to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and manage conflict.

Emotional intelligence is not learned in the standard intellectual way; it must be learned and understood on an emotional level. To do so, we need to engage the emotional parts of the brain in ways that connect us to others. To develop your emotional intelligence, you need to develop these five key skills each depending on the previous one:

1. The ability to quickly reduce stress:

The ability to quickly calm yourself down when you’re feeling overwhelmed. This skill helps you stay balanced, focused, and in control–no matter what challenges you face. Develop your stress-busting skills by working through the following three steps:

• Realize when you’re stressed


• Identify your stress response


• Discover the stress-busting techniques that work for you

2. The ability to recognize and manage your emotions:

Emotional awareness is the key to understanding yourself and others. Many people are disconnected from their emotions. Unfortunately, without emotional awareness, we are unable to fully understand our motivations and needs or to communicate effectively with others.

• Do you experience feelings that flow and change as your experiences change?


• Are your emotions accompanied by physical sensations?


• Do you experience discrete feelings and emotions evident in subtle facial expressions?


• Can you experience intense feelings that are strong enough to capture your attention and that of others?


• Do you pay attention to your emotions? Do they factor into your decision-making?

If any of these experiences are unfamiliar, your emotions may be turned down or turned off. To be emotionally healthy and emotionally intelligent, you must reconnect to your core emotions, accept them, and become comfortable with them.

3. The ability to connect with others by using nonverbal communication:

Being a good communicator requires more than just verbal skills; it consists of being aware of our nonverbal cues, and those cues that other people send us. Nonverbal messages will produce a sense of interest, trust, excitement, and desire for connection, or they will generate fear, confusion, distrust, and disinterest.

4. The ability to use humor and play to deal with challenges:

Humor, laughter, and play are natural antidotes to life’s difficulties. They lighten our burdens and help us keep things in perspective. A good laugh reduces stress, elevates mood, and brings our nervous system back into balance. Playful communication broadens our emotional intelligence and helps us:

• Take hardships in stride


• Smooth over differences


• Simultaneously relax and energize ourselves


• Become more creative

5. The ability to resolve conflicts positively and with confidence:

Conflict and disagreements are inevitable in relationships. Resolving conflict in healthy, constructive ways can strengthen trust between people. To resolve the conflict in a trust-building way:

• Stay focused on the present


• Choose your arguments


• Forgive


• End conflicts that can’t be resolved

Emotional Intelligence embraces and draws from numerous other branches of behavioral, emotional, and communication theories. By developing our Emotional Intelligence, we can become more productive and successful at what we do and help others to be more productive and successful too.