17

Emotional Intelligence

17.1 Introduction

There are many things in common between Farida and Puneet, such as their even temperament and muted emotional reaction when things go wrong around them. They both have the ability to deal with stressful situations in a cool, objective manner focusing on finding a good solution. They do not overreact, neither do they display any negative emotions in the heat of the battle. And even if there is no crisis and things are running smoothly, they are still so popular that everyone feels it is a treat to talk to them. They manage their emotions well by being composed and remaining rational. In short, Farida and Puneet both exhibit what is generally referred to as ‘emotional intelligence’, or EI.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, use, understand and manage emotions in positive ways. It is the ability to identify the emotional state you are in, as well as the knack of sensing the emotional temperature near you. Using this information, you can deal with your emotional needs as well as those of the others around you effectively. You can then go on to manage your emotions in such a way that you reduce your stress level quickly and start working on solutions by communicating and interacting with the others in a positive manner.

In this chapter, we will talk in detail about emotional intelligence, an area of increasing importance in the workplace and, in fact, in your personal life as well. In Section 17.2, we will see what emotional intelligence entails and the stages through which it evolves. Section 17.3 lists some methods by which you can enhance your emotional intelligence. Section 17.4 presents some of the benefits of enhancing your emotional intelligence. We conclude with a summary in Section 17.5.

17.2 The Components of Emotional Intelligence

This section presents some of the central ideas outlined by Daniel Goleman in his seminal book¹ on emotional intelligence. According to Goleman, there are five stages of emotional intelligence. These stages are depicted in Figure 17.1.

Fig. 17.1 Stages of emotional intelligence

• Emotional self-awareness
• Ability to manage emotions
• Ability to harness emotions
• Ability to empathize
• Ability to handle relationships

Emotional self-awareness is the essential first step. After all, if you are not aware of your emotions, how can you manage or control or harness them? At this stage, you should be able to:

• Recognize and objectively assess your own emotional state.
• Understand the emotional stimuli around you that caused a change in your emotional state.

Suppose you are feeling stressed. If you are emotionally self-aware, you would be able to know the level of stress and what caused it. This can enable you to look at yourself more objectively and, therefore, not let emotions and feelings hijack your actions. Thus, an essential benefit of being emotionally self-aware is that you are able to clearly separate feelings and emotions from actions. Further, by being emotionally self-aware, you are:

• Alert to your own vulnerability—how your thoughts and action may be affected.
• Mindful of your emotional strengths, weaknesses and your confidence level.
• Able to gauge the impact of your own emotional reaction on the others around you.
• Able to identify resources around you that can help you deal with emotional situations.

Being aware of your emotions can lead you to the next step of being able to manage your emotions. Please note that when we say ‘manage emotions’, we mean your ability to control their effect on you. At this stage, you may not yet effectively use your emotions in your interaction with others. (That comes in the next stage). In this stage:

• You have the ability to control and manage your emotions; you do not get carried away or react impulsively; you desist from exhibiting uncontrolled rage and frustration.
• Your reactions are muted; you do not allow yourself to indulge in destructive and negative behaviour.
• You can be counted upon to maintain calm and composure even when bad things happen to you.
• Your response is more studied and comes after a careful consideration of the facts.
• You are open to new ideas, changes and innovations.

Once you are able to manage and control your emotions, the stage is set to harness your emotions to benefit you. When you harness your emotions:

• You take responsibility in cases where you are personally accountable.
• You are very resilient and persistent, in spite of earlier failures. You have better focus on what needs to be achieved.
• Your self-control enables you to achieve more and set a high standard of excellence.

After you have mastered the ability to harness your emotions you start empathizing with others. At this stage:

• Active listening (discussed in Chapter 13) becomes a well-ingrained habit.
• You start observing and taking non-verbal or body-language cues that enable you to better understand others.
• You develop a good sense of intuition about other people’s wants, needs, feelings and concerns and, therefore, become sensitive to others.

After you become adept at making other people feel comfortable about interacting and working with you, you reach the final stage of building relationships. At this stage:

• You become an excellent communicator.
• You know how to work with others, how to get things done and how to be assertive without being offensive.
• You become more social and sought after. You have a fairly large social network.
• You are perceived as being considerate and reasonable.
• You influence and sometimes even inspire other people and perform a lot of functions to maintain group cohesiveness (such as conflict resolution, ice-breaking and facilitating interpersonal communication).
• You become a go-to guy both for for your colleagues as well as your friends.

Some researchers have come up with standardized emotional quotient (EQ) tests, which are similar to IQ tests, and some organizations have even begun using EQ scores to identify and recruit candidates. Such quantitative testing is not universally accepted as a tool to identify well-adjusted and composed employees. But what is widely accepted is that almost anyone can improve their emotional intelligence by looking at themself honestly and working on eliminating bad emotional reactions and habits. We reiterate here that these are skills that you do not have to be born with, and you can improve them provided you have the inclination and put in the right efforts.

17.3 Enhancing Your Emotional Intelligence

There is a misconception that emotional intelligence—like other soft skills—is a skill that you are born with and not a skill that can be developed. Recent studies have shown that emotional intelligence indeed can be learnt and honed, just as you can develop any hard skill. So how does one go about enhancing emotional intelligence?

• Enhance self-awareness. Periodic spells of introspection can help you calibrate your emotions. You can also take feedback from colleagues and friends. This feedback can be informal or formal (like a Johari Window).
• Periodically tabulate your emotions, as well as the trigger for each emotion and your response. In addition, focus on how you can identify the trigger and proactively manage your response to the trigger.
• Practice exercises such as yoga, deep breathing and meditation so as to have better control over your emotions and to keep yourself physically and mentally fit.
• Try to do active listening so that you get a better sense of others’ emotions and true (and hidden) feelings.
• Pay special attention to body language and other non-verbal signals.

17.4 Benefits of Emotional Intelligence

You need to have a high degree of emotional intelligence to survive and work in the pressure cooker like atmosphere that prevails in many workplaces today. Emotionally intelligent employees are highly sought after by organizations—some-times more so than even candidates with high IQs or superior technical skills. Being emotionally intelligent provides you with the following benefits which pervade both your professional and personal lives. Emotional intelligence:

• Enables you to handle pressure better because you are able to identify and control your emotions better.
• Teaches you fun and easy ways, such as developing a sense of humour to combat stress.
• Helps build rapport with team member, thereby making your work and workplace more enjoyable.
• Improves your communication skills because you become more adept at observing body language, empathizing with others and communicating with them in a way they can understand.
• Facilitates better conflict resolution because it enables you to see the other person’s point of view with empathy.
• Nurtures better physical and mental health because it lets you gain better control over your emotions and prevents stress from affecting you much.

Overall, as you enhance your emotional intelligence, your work is also significantly enhanced and this has a carry-over effect on your personal life.

17.5 In Summary

Emotional intelligence can be a key to your success in both your professional and personal lives. You should complement your technical and business skills with a right mix of emotional-intelligence skills and use concepts such as anger management and relaxation response.

• Emotional intelligence is extremely important for your mental and physical health, your career growth and even for your organization’s performance.
• A lot of emotional-intelligence components can be learnt and acquired and, therefore, you should pay attention to them even as you start your career.
• Learn from people who are considered to have high emotional intelligence.
• Learn high emotional-intelligence traits such as humour, resiliency and conflict resolution.
• Develop ways to cope with work-related stress and learn to relax.