Emotional Intelligence, as the name suggests, is knowing, understanding, and responding to emotions, overcoming stress in the moment, and being aware of how your words and actions affect others. We do not have a positive mindset all day long. There are moments when we get hyper, or carry stress that we don’t have. It is during those times, that we may unload them on people who do not deserve it. These moments are when we will require emotional intelligence. We have to be smart enough to not let our anger take control of our words.
Emotional intelligence is widely known to be a key component of effective leadership. The ability to be perceptively in tune with yourself and your emotions, as well as having sound situational awareness can be a powerful tool for leading a team. So how does one develop emotional intelligence? Well, it can be learnt over time, but it will require a lot of introspection.
It all begins with you learning about yourself. When you start thinking about how you react to situations, you will start understanding about yourself, about what you are good at, and where you need to work more. If you want to be the best version of yourself, understand and accept all your good with your bad.
Next in line is to take control of what you do when you are overcome with disruptive emotions, and how you channel them towards a positive direction. Being calm is contagious, as is panic. When you take on a leadership role you can no longer afford to panic when things get stressful. When you stay calm and positive you can think and communicate more clearly with your team.
Finally, the most important part of Emotional intelligence – Empathy and Compassion. We all bring something unique to the table. It could be something from our past, or recent times. Our experiences make us the person we are and might even influence our decisions in our future. As a leader, one must be able to accepts and acknowledge this. A person reacting that way could be fuelled by anything, and the only way we will be able to accept that is by placing ourselves in their shoes. Try to empathise with those who are being disruptive, and try to make peace with them. Help them make peace with themselves.
Established in United Arab Emirates, Ecube has been successfully delivering leadership, management and softs skills training programs to corporate. Its training titles include situational leadership, time management, stress management, customer service and sales training across the Gulf including Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. Every training session is preceded by a training needs analysis and is followed by measurement of training results.
