Emotional Intelligence

It is widely accepted that soft skills make an important difference in how people feel and respond to their boss and senior management. If they feel they are valued, appreciated and heard, they are engaged and motivated to achieve goals set out by leadership. An indicator of how well we use our soft skills is our level of emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is that “something” within us, that something that helps us to sense how we feel and enables us to sympathize with others. Emotional intelligence gives us the ability to be present and listen to someone when they most need it. It is that intuition encouraging us to make good decisions and communicate effectively despite negative emotions and stress. The four main skills of emotional intelligence are:

• Self-awareness – our ability to perceive our emotions and understand our tendencies to act in certain ways in given situations
• Social awareness – our ability to understand the emotions of other people, what they are thinking and feeling
• Self-management – our ability to use awareness of our emotions to stay flexible and direct our behavior positively
• Relationship management – our ability to use our awareness of our own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully

Some of us are born with a great deal of emotional intelligence; others are not. Most of us are not aware of how our emotions may be adversely affecting our thinking and our reactions. The good news is that we can learn to increase our emotional intelligence. We help our clients determine their level of emotional intelligence and how they can improve.

Want to learn more about emotional intelligence? Read the White Paper.