The importance of emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions – your own and those around you.
The concept of emotional intelligence was introduced by Daniel Goleman. He noted that not always good academic performance and a high level of intelligence give private, or professional success. It is EQ that is the factor that determines the ability to cope in everyday, practical life.
An emotionally intelligent person can also connect emotions with specific situations, knows how emotional states develop and understands complex emotions. Emotional intelligence is a component of various competences, such as:
- Self-awareness, i.e. awareness about your feelings and their appropriate use in making decisions. Thanks to this, we also make a realistic assessment of our abilities and believe in them.
- Self-regulation, which assumes the control of emotions, but also a quick return to the initial emotional state after the occurrence of a troublesome situation. It is also the ability to postpone the “reward” for later, which is to help us achieve our goal.
- Motivation means a consistent pursuit of the goal (despite defeats) that we have set according to our preferences.
- Empathy understood as the ability to identify the feelings of other people and the ability to look at the matter from their point of view.
- Social skills. This category assumes a very wide range of skills that a person may have, ranging from the ability to control emotions in interpersonal contacts, through the ability to recognize social situations and networks, ending up with conflict-free maintaining relationships with other people and using these abilities for cooperation or teamwork.
At work
Even the best-educated specialist with extensive knowledge and many years of experience, with low emotional intelligence, may not be professionally successful. Although some professions do not involve engaging social contacts, there is no profession that does not require them at all.
What can lack of emotional intelligence mean? Inability to cope with stress and anger, difficulties in executing team tasks – negating the opinions and ideas of colleagues, expressing unfair judgments regardless of the consequences, little or no motivation to act frustration and dissatisfaction. All this does not really help in a professional career.
It is worth developing personal and social competences related to the sphere of emotions at work. The better they are, the more satisfying both our career and private life can be.
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