A lot of articles and books were written about emotional intelligence, as many believe that it is crucial to learn about it in order to use in the daily life and in the workplace. Moreover, many believe that emotional intelligence should even be taught at schools.
Obviously, this topic has been the trend in the recent years, emotional intelligence could be the skill needed in the upcoming years to enhance the way humans communicate in both their social life and even on their professional level as well, it is said that “It is one of the most needed skills for the next decade”.
Daniel Goleman states in his book “Emotional Intelligence” that emotional intelligence does not mean how smart people are in their romantic lives; it is not about feelings. However, emotional intelligence is about understanding our own emotions as well as the emotions of people around us. It is the ability to interpret ourselves; our own actions, and why we behave in a certain way.
It argues that the way we think and behave now is highly linked to how deeply we are influenced by our childhood. Moreover, emotional intelligence helps us recognize where our emotions arise from, and that will help us better encounter our fears and navigate our wishes.
Many believe that we could develop a better decision-making process if we enhanced our emotional intelligence skills, however, we need to work more on the attributes of emotional intelligence.
As mentioned before, it involves self-interpretation. When a person is self-aware, they know how they always feel, they should be aware of their own emotions and how their actions and behavior could not only affect them, also it affects the people around them. For example, in a leadership role, leaders should know their own strengths and weaknesses without letting their egos interfere in the decision-making process.
There are ways of increasing self-awareness, like writing a journal; those who do that can actually monitor their thoughts on a daily basis, which would help them in recognizing their emotions. When faced with any situation, it is better to slow down and analyze what happened in that certain situation; whether it was anger, fear, or any other strong emotions, because the next time they face this kind of situation, they can choose how to behave.
Other than being aware of their own emotions, emotionally intelligent people should know how to control those emotions, thus, it enables them to control the way they behave as well.
It also includes being adaptable to any faced situation. That is, despite being prepared to face challenges and other situations; emotionally intelligent people should know how to adapt depending on the situation. Their focus should be on the achievements and goals, rather than focusing on people and situations, especially negative situations, because people with high EI should have a positive outlook to the world, this will not only help them in their social life, but in their professional life as well.
In this context, emotionally intelligent people should know their own values. They should know when to compromise and when to be strict, they should know how to set their priorities properly. They also take responsibility for their actions, they should not blame others for their setbacks and mistakes, instead, they should commit to these mistakes, take the blame, and accept the consequences. This does not mean that emotionally intelligent people do not get angry, however, they know how to control that anger, and show their anger without shouting at others; because as mentioned before, they should also be aware of others’ emotions, and most importantly, if they do get angry, they get angry for the right reasons.
People come from different backgrounds and their childhoods had influenced them differently. Thus, it is only natural to have different point of views and different perceptions, and misunderstandings can develop because of that. Therefore, it is important to EI people to have empathy; understand people’s emotion, needs and behaviors, they should know that they ought to behave differently because they came from a different background.
It is said that the best way to communicate is to listen. Not merely listening in order to reply, however, listening in the sake of genuinely understanding the other person’s point of view.
Since EI is also about considering others’ emotions, EI people should be able to build good relations with those around them, moreover, they should be able to maintain good terms with them. But basically, they are the ones who are a source of motivation, people get inspired by their words and actions, as they are the ones people consult regarding their problems, and most importantly, it is about how people feel when they are around EI people.
On the personal level, EI people should be self-motivated, they should know how to motivate themselves when they encounter challenges. When they learn how they do that, they will learn how they would motivate others, motivate the people around them, and teach them how to be optimistic even in the darkest hours.
They also know how to resolve conflicts; they have enough awareness to comprehend others’ problems and act upon that. As mentioned earlier, they are socially aware, and they always develop social skills.
In the same context, EI is extremely helpful in the workplace and it is said to increase the job satisfaction for those with high EI, moreover, employees with high EI are said to have a better performance.
Taking into consideration the attributes of EI, it allows employees to have emotional stability, which would allow them to better manage their stress. When employees are not stressed, they tend to have more confidence, which is important for the employee on the individual level as well.
There are many scenarios that can happen at the workplace which demands a high level of EI. For example, when an employee is upset it is very important that they find someone to talk to, someone who really listens to their problems without judging them and offers compassion and makes them feel welcomed. Or for instance, colleagues in a meeting listening to each other carefully, with no interruptions and no fears for how their ideas would be perceived. A healthy environment, where employees are expressing themselves and being heard by their colleagues and even superiors. This kind of environment is more likely to enhance the teamwork in the workplace.
It will upgrade the communications skills between colleagues, which would result in improving the relations between them. All this would lead to a common vision of the goals of the company.
However, looking at the ugly side of it, not everyone will be committed nor dedicated to learning about emotional intelligence skills, thus, not everyone in the team would master the skills and attributes of EI, so colleagues in the same team, would end up talking different languages regarding the team vision. On another level, people with high EI might not commit to the code of ethics and take advantage of their skills to manipulate their colleagues with low EI.
Organizational behavior is simply the process of studying and understanding the behavior of individuals in the organization, as per John Newstrom and Keith Davis. “Organizational Behavior is the study and application of knowledge about how people act within an Organization. It is a human tool for human benefit. It applies broadly to the Behavior of people in all types of Organization.”
Callahan, Fleenor and Knudson explained that Organizational Behavior is a subset of management activities concerned with understanding, predicting, and influencing individual Behavior in Organizational setting.” It is a part of management process which aims at improving the performance of organizations through understanding and controlling human behavior.
It is through the organizational behavior that organizations can understand the behavior of the people working with them. Stephens P. Robbins. “Organizational Behavior is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on Behavior within the Organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.” So, it helps improving the relation between people working in the organization and increasing their efficiency.
In short, organizational behavior revolves around two fundamental components:
We do not live in this world as individuals, we live in groups; at home we love with our families, in the workplace we live with our colleagues and when we want to hang out with our friends. All of which come from a different background and have different way of seeing things, however, we all can have the ability to understand each other at all levels. In order to do that, we need to understand what the others’ background is and do not judge them for having different opinions than ours, instead we should be aware not to create an environment that is built on conflicts and unnecessary challenges. We should focus on being productive as individuals as well as groups, and when we learn to communicate better, we can achieve these goals.
Pinnacle understand the challenges facing leaders, management and employees in being able to have the right emotional intelligence needed to perform, working on the mindset and the skills of being able to communicate effectively specially with the challenges happening now working remotely and managing remote teams, also the challenges of the fear and stress coming from this pandemic called COVID-19 and the fact that the economical slow down made millions to lose their jobs in time where it is so difficult to find suitable jobs. Our coaching and training plans can help organizations big or small find the right pathway of keeping their staff focused on their jobs.
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