Are You Emotionally Intelligent?

Emotional Intelligence is the ability, capacity, or skill to identify, assess, and manage one's own emotions and the emotions of others. More and more research is being done on this relatively new idea, but it is becoming clear that emotional intelligence is among the top abilities required of managers.

Break down the definition. First, it requires an ability to identify emotions - to recognize and understand them. Next, to assess emotions - where do the emotions stem from, how serious are they, etc. And finally, to manage emotions - how do you deal with them in such a way as to control the outbreak of negative emotions, turn the emotions into productive actions, and determine ways to prevent negative emotions in the future or bring about more positive emotions.

In my experience, this is a key ingredient in a great manager - the ability to recognize, understand emotions and their severity, and to convert them into productive action. Very often however, I have seen managers fail completely in these areas. These managers take the negative emotions of others personally and may possibly lash out at the other person. They seek to invalidate emotions or find excuses for the person expressing emotion. They are nervous in emotional situations and don't know how to respond. They may even avoid them all together and hope the situation just goes away - weak.

That's about negative emotions. What about positive? Managers low in emotional intelligence have no idea how to capitalize on positive emotions. They don't realize that success breads success and that people want to be rewarded for success, especially with public compliments on good work.

Finally, those with emotional intelligence also understand their own emotions. These people don't take bad personal situations out on others. They don't take abuse from their low emotionally intelligent boss and then let it roll down heal (so to speak). They don't take constructive criticism personally. They understand their own strengths and those of others. They build on those and don't penalize people for their weaknesses because they know that we all have weaknesses.

This just scratches the surface for this complex and relatively new topic, but as a manager, you need to understand that such a topic exists and that when you score a high emotional IQ, you will excel. For more information, google emotional intelligence and read more.