How well do you manage yourself? Can you work despite limitations or obstacles from colleagues or organizational systems? Or do you give up too soon? Your actions are dependent on your outlook. Is it negative or positive?
Van Gogh brought our attention to the importance of our emotions in the 1980s with his words, “Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives, and we obey them without realizing it.” How can we choose not to follow them if we may do so without even realizing it and still ensure that they work for us?
Psychologist Daniel Goleman developed the term emotional intelligence (EI) in the 1990s. EI is one’s ability to recognize, process, and channel emotions to benefit them. It is required in all aspects of our lives, including our relationships with ourselves and others and amid unusual life occurrences.
EI plays a vital role in the workplace and considerably impacts how individuals connect with one another, respond to stress, and carry out their jobs. In our workplaces, we work just like the parts of the body. We individually identify with different roles, but together we achieve one goal.
No matter the profession, one of the key demanding skills in gaining employment is your ability to be a team player or a team leader. This is a skill that is needed to achieve organizational goals. In this regard, identifying and understanding our team members’ emotions at every point is key to avoiding conflicts.
There are five elements of emotional intelligence.
Self-Awareness
The first element is crucial, so you do not sabotage yourself in conflicts. Before you react to any situation, you will have to know yourself. During my research for this article, I came across four essential questions to ask yourself to guard how you respond to unanimous consent. Firstly, how do you interpret yourself? Where are your emotions coming from? How do your past experiences affect your emotions, and how do you deal with your fears and desires? Determining your emotions and what may have caused them helps you take full responsibility for your actions.
Most of the time, we react badly to feedback from our bosses or coworkers because we’re already worried about how well we’re doing at work, or we don’t believe in ourselves, making us defensive so that our flaws don’t show.
Even if your boss does something wrong, being self-aware can save you from some questions and give you the edge you need to work smoothly and not get in trouble because you know what sets you off.
Self-Regulation
Before self-regulation, you need to be aware of yourself; being aware of your emotions is not hereditary. It is based on the numerous experiences you have had to go through. This element has to do with your control over your emotions.
People delight themselves in their ability to ‘fire up’ in situations. Ideally, fire is not needed in our workplaces. What if you fire up and you get fired? Learning how to handle your emotions well is essential, by keeping good and bad results in mind.
Motivation
Goleman identified four motivation factors — a desire for growth and mastery, dedication to one’s goals, the willingness to take the initiative to seize opportunities that present themselves, a positive outlook, and the ability to bounce back from setbacks.
Motivation comes to play when you love what you do and do what you love without support from others.
Empathy
Like expressing a concern or having similar ideas, the focus here is on being able to talk to others and understand their thoughts, feelings, and points of view. Within companies and other organizations, seeing things from other people’s points of view and figuring out how they feel helps build leadership, which strengthens relationships, leading to more work getting done and a happier job overall.
Social Skills
Controlling your emotions, identifying yourself with others’ emotions, and being self-motivated make you become a people person. This element equips you to maintain relationships. Good communicators and great leaders have perfected this skill.
Emotions can be a valuable source of information when making rational decisions at work. Emotional intelligence in the right place is said to help you do well at work, boost your productivity, lower employee turnover, cut down on complaints, and make you a better leader.
Photo: Dean Drobot/Shutterstock
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