Emotional Intelligence Learning
Emotional intelligence
What is emotional intelligence (EQ)?
- Understanding and developing your emotional intelligence is essential if you want to successfully progress in your career. Not only will you reap the rewards personally by enhancing your performance, but you'll also foster strong relationships with others, helping you to collectively achieve more. So let's start at the beginning. What exactly do we mean by emotional intelligence? Well, when we talk about emotional intelligence, we're really focusing on two areas, understanding and expressing our emotions, and being empathetic when communicating with others. The second thing you need to know is emotional intelligence is part of our psychological makeup, along with our personalities and IQ, which is a measure of general intelligence. These three elements make us who we are, and they determine how we interact with others. We all use each of these three elements to varying degrees, and research has shown personality and IQ don't predict emotional intelligence. In fact, all three elements operate independently, interacting together to help us solve problems and make decisions. So whatever personality type you are, or whatever your IQ score, you have the ability to be high on the emotional intelligence scale. Why this is so interesting is because, generally speaking, personality and IQ are fairly fixed. They don't move a great deal throughout your adult life. This is not the case with emotional intelligence, however. You can enhance and grow your emotional intelligence, which will have a direct impact on your performance and personal achievements, and on the relationships you build. It's just a case of learning and practicing the skills. Emotional intelligence is sometimes known as EQ, which stands for emotional quotient. To help explain why we use the terminology EQ, consider the phrase IQ, which is the measure of general intelligence. Quite simply, EQ is the emotional version of general intelligence. Whereas IQ measures a person's reasoning ability and how they use information and logic to answer questions, the measurement of emotional intelligence is completely different. Measuring emotional intelligence focuses on four criteria. Firstly, being aware of emotions. Secondly, expressing emotions. Thirdly, controlling your emotions. And finally, handling relationships with others effectively. There are four areas of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship development. What you'll notice is the first two parts look inwards, focusing on yourself, firstly understanding your emotions, and then learning to manage them. The second two parts are outward facing, so being aware of social situations, and then managing and developing relationships. Take a moment to think about your emotional intelligence. How have you used your emotional intelligence in a work situation? Are there areas you could improve? I'd like you to start considering how you think about and react to situations and the changes you'd like to see.
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