Every Thing You Need to Know About Emotional Intelligence

Updated: Apr 26, 2021
By Happiness Hassan
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Previously, an intelligence quotient  (IQ) was all it required to elevate you up the ladder of success in all endeavours, but that’s becoming insufficient as the spread of civilization sparks creativity in the minds of humans. To seek ways of understanding themselves, others, and their world. Also, learn how to manage their emotions effectively for maximum benefits. Therefore, to augment your IQ, you need to develop your emotional intelligence(EI) which can be learned.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

This is the ability to recognize, understand, use, manage and communicate your emotions positively. Having high emotional intelligence enables you to coordinate yourself, reduce stress, balance your activities, and communicate effectively. Furthermore, understand what others are going through, think through your challenges, make profitable decisions and adjust to evolving environmental changes either at home or work.

What are the Components of Emotional Intelligence?

Daniel Goleman,  an American psychologist, proposed that there are five components of emotional intelligence.

1. Self–Awareness

What is emotional intelligence in terms of self-awareness? This is the consciousness and vivid understanding of what is happening with and around you. A moment of realizing your strengths and weaknesses, also, the effects produced when one is becoming predominant over the other.

2. Self-Regulation

Self-awareness paves the way for self-regulation. The ability to subject your emotions under your control. For instance, choosing to stay happy more often than getting angry at every slight provocation. 

3. Motivation

The zeal to pursue your set goals and objectives notwithstanding the obstacles and oppositions. This aspect of emotional intelligence creates a sense of focus, quality self-standard, and re-examination of our pursuit.

4. Empathy

Beyond understanding yourself and managing your emotions. You need to come to the sense of discerning and interpreting how others around you are feeling. This will guide you on how to interact with people and speak to their needs. In essence, it entails that you picture yourself in what others are experiencing and how you can cope with their challenges.

5. Social Skills

A man by nature is a social being. To survive we need one and another. That’s where social skills or awareness comes into the picture. This component will guide you to manage, associate, and interact with people irrespective of their social, cultural, and political background.

Test For Emotional Intelligence

Being familiar with what is emotional intelligence is not enough to turn your life for the better. You need to take a test to know your level of EI and what to do to enhance your EI. Hence, emotional intelligence can be measured based on Daniel Goleman’s four-quadrant competency model 2002. These are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship awareness. Usually, the questions asked are centred on one understanding himself and others.

Let’s see on a scale of 1-10 you scored below 4 in your EI test, which means your EI is low. If it falls within the range of 5-7 it means your EI is on medium level and when your score is 8upwards it shows you have high emotional intelligence. Make sure to test your emotional intelligence.

Importance of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is seen as the first step to understand your true potential. It helps you stand out amid others, it’s like an aroma of attraction that distinguishes you for greater opportunities. Research has shown that people with high EI have greater mental health, job performance, leadership skills, and healthy relationships. This is made possible because they can maximize their strength over their weak traits. 

How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

1. Consciousness of Mood Enhances Emotional Intelligence

Nobody was born with the power to manage anger, stress, fear, and lots of negative emotions. Rather, they commit to learning how to stay on top of their emotions and manipulate it to their benefit. Likewise, your emotional intelligence will rapidly increase when you commit yourself to gain consciousness of your mood.

2. Activating Your Emotional Intelligence Requires a Positive Mindset/Attitude.

Improvise means of staying positive. A positive mindset supplies the body with positive energy to cope with stress and thinks right. It helps you focus more on developing your strength than heeding to your weaknesses. A positive attitude can be gotten from what you feed your minds with, therefore be deliberate about what goes into your mind.

3. Accelerating Your Listening Skills Boost Emotional Intelligence 

Effective listening skills are one of the quickest ways to understand others. This is because while humans speak you can sense from their tone and body expression if they are happy, sad, disturb, bored, uncomfortable, the list is endless.

Once you pay more attention to listening, you become familiar with socializing with others in the right way. Myself as an example; I don’t start telling someone about how my day went when tiredness is boldly written on their faces. Rather, I make myself useful, probably fix something for them to eat before they take a nap.

4. Communication as a Vital Ingredient in Boosting Intelligence

The thing is this if you don’t talk more with people you are going to have a hard time managing them with little or no teamwork ability. Experiencing difficulties communicating? Start by applying the 7C’s of communication.

5. Goal Setting Helps to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

Your emotions seem to be gaining control over you because you have failed to organize your life. Learn to loosen your day-to-day schedule with practical steps on accomplishing them. Goal setting keeps you motivated and focused. Also, trash out stress and confusion out of your menu.

Books On Emotional Intelligence

1. Think Again: The Power Of Knowing What You Don’t Know By Adam Grant

As the title implies Adams teaches that for one to fit into the advancing world certain ideology which is unprofitable must be unlearned. And also embrace mental flexibility to learn other valuable cognitive skills. 

2. Emotional Intelligence For Sales Leadership: The Secret To Building High-Performance Sales Teams By Colleen Stanley

This book outlines soft skills needed to increase sales performance. It helps you connect business-to-business, business-to-customers and also create sales culture and teams.

3. Emotional Intelligence In The Workplace

How To Use Emotional Intelligence To Build Strong Relationships And Thrive In Your Career By Mark Craemer. In this book you would learn the power of connection, collaboration for success, and how to build a reputation.

4. Handbook Of Social And Emotional Learning: Research and practice by Ed. Durlak et. at

If you are a parent and much interested in building your child’s emotional intelligence to augment their intelligence quotient. I recommend your purchase.

5. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves

Here Travis unveiled the secrets of what is emotional intelligence and its role in our success. He gave step-by-step methods to increase emotional intelligence via the four main Components of EI discussed earlier.

6. The Emotional Intelligence quick book by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves

These two authors are the founder of Talentsmart. In this very book, they explained how you can manage your emotions positively to accomplish goals, decrease stress and increase productivity.

7. Working with your Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

In this book, Daniel steps beyond what is the emotional intelligence to outline the application of EI in our everyday life. Most especially for bosses, CEO, managers, and those in leadership. Interested in increasing your emotional intelligence as a boss or leader?

Conclusion

Emotional Intelligence was never designed for a certain group of persons, but it’s meant for everyone irrespective of your status. Like we have previously seen, to increase your relevance at work, home, and business you need to increase your emotional intelligence to support your intelligent quotient.

Conclusively, share what you think concerning emotional intelligence in the comment section.

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