What exactly is emotional intelligence, and what are the essential component or skills required? According to Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence distinguishes and sets apart great leaders from merely good ones. He brought the term into the spotlight in his 1995 Book, “Emotional Intelligence.” Emotional intelligence includes a group of five set skills that enable the best leaders to maximize their performance and their followers.
1. Self-Awareness
This is a first and essential skill, and it requires that one knows their emotions, weaknesses, strengths, values, what drives them, their goals, and their impact on others. When one is self-aware, one can accurately assess who they are and how others view them. This also provides one self-confidence because they are not groping in the dark. One knows, and with that knowledge, they can seek the constructive criticism they need to become better individuals.
2. Self -Regulation
Once you have adopted or learned to be more self-aware, the next skill to pick up is the ability to regulate yourself. This skill requires that you can control or redirect disruptive emotions and impulses when you find that a conversation is quickly escalating into something else. Signs you are becoming better at self-regulation is that you become comfortable with ambiguity and change since you have learned how to regulate your impulses. It will not be long before people find you trustworthy because of how adaptable you are, even in intense situations.
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3. Motivation
The next step is to become more motivated. To be motivated requires one to be self-driven and have the desire to achieve for the sake of achievement. The signs that you are becoming more motivated show up when you have a passion for the work itself and the new challenges you face at work. Someone motivated also possesses this constant energy to improve. They also tend to be full of optimism, even when they are faced with failures.
4. Empathy
Acquiring this skill requires that one can consider the feelings of others, especially when it comes to making decisions. Once you have become proficient in being empathetic, you become an expert in attracting and retaining talent at work. Because people will respect you even more because you genuinely listen to them and respect their feelings, so they are more likely to want to continue working with you on more projects. Another benefit is that you can develop others because you can look beyond the physical and draw more from them. Also, when in a cross-cultural situation, you will be able to create sensitivity when communicating with others from different cultural backgrounds.
5. Social Skill
This last step requires that one can manage relationships to move people in the desired direction you want. This is the toughest of the five skills because getting people to work together can be very complicated, and it takes a master at managing emotions to accomplish that. However, the benefits far outweigh the stress and struggle to get to this point of enlightenment and achievement. Because as a leader, you will be more effective in leading change, as you will become a master at the art of persuasion. Another benefit is that you end up building an extensive network. But most importantly, you grow your expertise in not only building but leading successful teams at work.
Getting these five skills is not a walk in the park. Still, it can be done if one is persistent, puts in the many hours of practice, and is willing to receive feedback from one’s colleagues at work. If one has an opportunity, one can also hire a coach. To help them be accountable for the growth they want to achieve when it comes to becoming more emotionally intelligent.
Using these five skills helps people understand their own emotions and triggers. It also equips them with the tools they need to avoid the things that cause unhealthy emotional responses—at the same time, providing them with the tools to understand others and work well and lead people with their various personal needs.
The place of emotions cannot be repressed in conflict—both during the conflict and during resolution. Conflicts are an emotional response to situations; therefore, we must be mindful of the various emotions at play when dealing with conflict.
Emotions play a critical role in conflict situations; they can escalate or resolve it. It all depends on how well the parties involved are aware of them and how they manage their emotions.
The most important skill to navigate organizational conflicts, politics and to build healthy relationships is emotional intelligence. A self-aware person navigates organizational conflict unscathed because such a person is conscious of their emotions, weaknesses, and strengths and can use them to their advantage in any given situation.
Emotional intelligence is important for leaders of organisations too. This is because they set the tone of their organisation. Their emotional state, how well they are aware of their emotions, and how they can manage it directly affect their organisation. They must not be mindful of their own emotions alone; they must understand the emotions of the people they lead and how to manage it. The most effective leader is one who is emotionally intelligent and can apply it in a conflict situation.
