Full Course Material:
Additional Material
1. Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the capacity to tune into your own emotions. It allows you to know what you are feeling and why and how those feelings help or hurt what you’re trying to do.
Do you have the core competency of self-awareness?
- Emotional self-awareness: You understand your own strengths and limitations; you operate from competence and know when to rely on someone else on the team. You also have clarity on your values and sense of purpose, which allows you to be more decisive when setting a course of action.
Developing the skills:
Every moment is an opportunity to practice self-awareness. One of the biggest keys is to acknowledge your weaknesses. If you’re struggling with something at work, for example, be honest about the skills you need to work on in order to succeed. Be conscious of the situations and events in your life, too. During times of frustration, pinpoint the root and because of your frustration. Think about any signals that accompany how you feel in that moment.
2. Self-management
Self-management is the ability to keep disruptive emotions and impulses under control. This is a powerful skill for anyone to have.
What core competencies of self-management do you have?
- Emotional self-control: You stay calm under pressure and recover quickly from upsets. You know how to balance your feelings for the good of yourself and others or for the good of a given task, mission or vision.
- Adaptability: This shows up as agility in the face of change and uncertainty. You’re able to find new ways of dealing with fast-morphing challenges and can balance multiple demands at once.
- Achievement orientation: You strive to meet or exceed a standard of excellence. You genuinely appreciate feedback on your performance and are constantly seeking ways to do things better.
- Positive outlook: You see the good in people, situations and events. This is an incredibly valuable competency, as it can build resilience and set the stage for innovation and opportunity.
Developing the skills:
During moments of distress, do not brood or panic. Take a deep breath and check in with your emotions. Instead of blowing up at people, let them know what’s wrong and offer some solutions. Accept that there will always be sudden changes and challenges in life. Try to understand the context of the given situation and adjust your strategy or priorities based on what is most important at the time.
3. Social awareness
Social awareness indicates accuracy in reading and interpreting other people’s emotions, often through non-verbal cues. Socially aware individuals are able to relate to many different types of people, listen attentively and communicate effectively.
What core competencies of social awareness do you have?
- Empathy: You pay full attention to the other person and take time to understand what they are saying and how they are feeling. You always try to put yourself in other people’s shoes in a meaningful way.
- Organizational awareness: You can easily read the emotional currents and dynamics within a group or organization. You can sometimes even predict how someone on your team or the leaders of a company you do business with might react to certain situations, allowing you to approach situations strategically.
Developing the skills:
First and foremost, social awareness requires good listening skills. Do not talk over someone else or try to hijack the agenda. Ask questions and invite others to do the same. Challenging your prejudices and discovering commonalities is also key. Practice putting yourself in other people’s shoes. When we do this, we are often more sensitive to what that person is experiencing and are less likely to tease, judge or bully them.
4. Relationship management
Relationship management is an interpersonal skill set that allows one to act in ways that motivate, inspire, and harmonize with others, while also maintaining important relationships.
Which core competencies of relationship management do you have?
- Influence: You can gather support from others with relative ease, creating a group that is engaged, mobilized and ready to execute the tasks at hand.
- Coach and mentor: You foster the long-term learning by giving feedback and support. You put your points into persuasive and clear ways so that people are motivated as well as clear about expectations.
- Conflict management: You’re comfortable dealing with disagreements between multiple sides and can bring simmering disputes into the open and find win-win solutions.
- Teamwork: You interact well as a group member and can work with others. You participate actively, share responsibility and rewards, and contribute to the capability of your team as a whole.
- Inspirational leadership: You inspire and guide others towards the overall vision. You always get the job done and bring out a team’s best qualities along the way.
Developing the skills:
If you’re a constantly negative person, you’ll have a very difficult time managing long-term relationships. Instead of focusing on “the worst that can happen,” try to see yourself as an agent of positive change. Don’t be afraid to go against the grain of conventional norms or take risks, either. These kinds of people ultimately leave the people they work with feeling inspired, motivated and connected.
8 Habits of Highly Emotionally Intelligent People
When emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into what many people had always assumed was the sole source of success—IQ. Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack.
How much of an impact does emotional intelligence (EQ) have on your professional success? The short answer is, a lot! It’s a powerful way to focus your energy in one direction with a tremendous result. Of all the people we’ve studied at work, we’ve found that 90% of top performers have high EQs. You can be a top performer without emotional intelligence, but the chances are slim.
Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behaviour, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive results. Emotional intelligence is made up of four core skills that pair up under two primary competencies: personal competence and social competence.
Personal competence comprises your self-awareness and self-management skills, which focus more on you individually than on your interactions with other people. Personal competence is your ability to stay aware of your emotions and manage your behaviour and tendencies.
- Self-Awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they happen.
- Self-Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct your behaviour.
Social competence is made up of your social awareness and relationship management skills; social competence is your ability to understand other people’s moods, behaviour, and motives in order to respond effectively and improve the quality of your relationships.
- Social Awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on.
- Relationship Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions and others’ emotions to manage interactions successfully.
Despite the significance of emotional intelligence, its intangible nature makes it very difficult to know which behaviours you should emulate. So I’ve analyzed the data from the millions of people who have taken my EQ test in order to identify the habits that set high-EQ people apart.
They’re relentlessly positive. Keep your eyes on the news for any length of time, and you’ll see that it’s just one endless cycle of war, violent attacks, fragile economies, failing companies, and environmental disasters. It’s easy to think the world is headed downhill fast. And who knows? Maybe it is. But emotionally intelligent people don’t worry about that because they don’t get caught up in things they can’t control. They focus their energy on directing the two things that are completely within their power—their attention and their effort. Numerous studies have shown that optimists are physically and psychologically healthier than pessimists. They also perform better at work. Remind yourself of this the next time a negative train of thought takes hold of you.
They have a robust emotional vocabulary. All people experience emotions, but it is a select few who can accurately identify them as they occur. Our research shows that only 36% of people can do this, which is problematic because unlabeled emotions often get misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive actions. People with high EQs master their emotions because they understand them, and they use an extensive vocabulary of feelings to do so. While many people might describe themselves as simply feeling “bad,” emotionally intelligent people can pinpoint whether they feel “irritable,” “frustrated,” “downtrodden,” or “anxious.” The more specific your word choice, the better insight you have into exactly how you are feeling, what caused it, and what you should do about it.
They’re assertive. People with high EQs balance good manners, empathy, and kindness with the ability to assert themselves and establish boundaries. This tactful combination is ideal for handling conflict. When most people are crossed, they default to passive or aggressive behaviour. Emotionally intelligent people remain balanced and assertive by steering themselves away from unfiltered emotional reactions. This enables them to neutralize difficult and toxic people without creating enemies.
They’re curious about other people. It doesn’t matter if they’re introverted or extroverted, emotionally intelligent people are curious about everyone around them. This curiosity is the product of empathy, one of the most significant gateways to a high EQ. The more you care about other people and what they’re going through, the more curiosity you’re going to have about them.
They forgive, but they don’t forget. Emotionally intelligent people live by the motto “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” They forgive in order to prevent a grudge, but they never forget. The negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Holding on to that stress can have devastating health consequences and emotionally intelligent people know to avoid this at all costs. However, offering forgiveness doesn’t mean they’ll give a wrongdoer another chance. Emotionally intelligent people will not be bogged down by mistreatment from others, so they quickly let things go and are assertive in protecting themselves from future harm.
They won’t let anyone limit their joy. When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction is derived from comparing yourself to others, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something that they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or accomplishments take that away from them. While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. Regardless of what people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as good or bad as they say you are.
They are difficult to offend. If you have a firm grasp of who you are, it’s difficult for someone to say or do something that gets your goat. Emotionally intelligent people are self-confident and open-minded, which creates a pretty thick skin.
They quash negative self-talk. A big step in developing emotional intelligence involves stopping negative self-talk in its tracks. The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. You can stop the negative and pessimistic things your inner voice says by writing them down. Once you’ve taken a moment to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational and clear-headed in evaluating their veracity. You can bet that your statements aren’t true any time you use words such as “never,” “worst,” and “ever.” If your statements still look like facts once they’re on paper, take them to a friend and see if he or she agrees with you. Then the truth will surely come out.
Bringing It All Together
Unlike your IQ, your EQ is highly malleable. As you train your brain by repeatedly practising new emotionally intelligent behaviours, your brain builds the pathways needed to make them into habits. Before long, you will begin responding to your surroundings with emotional intelligence without even having to think about it. As your brain reinforces the use of new behaviours, the connections supporting old, destructive behaviours will die off.
Which strategies are your favourites? Please share in the comments section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.