21/08/2022
𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 consists of a set of skills that contribute to the appraisal of emotions in oneself and others. Developing emotional intelligence skills can help navigate all kinds of social interactions by understanding the feelings behind cues and signals from others (Salvoy & Mayer, 1990).
Emotional intelligence expert, 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐥 𝐆𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧 (𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟗), 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 (𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞) 𝐚𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐈𝐐. He developed a model of emotional intelligence which includes five domains:
𝟏. 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
𝟐. 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
𝟑. 𝐌𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟
𝟒. 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞’𝐬 𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
𝟓. 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬 (𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬’ 𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬)
As seen in the post above, these five realms are divided into four quadrants, namely self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. These four quadrants lie upon a base of competence (either personal or social), recognition of emotions, and regulation of emotions.
Understanding the different characteristics of the emotional intelligence domains can be useful when being on the personal journey to optimizing your emotional intelligence. A big part of learning to be more emotionally intelligent includes learning more about your own emotions and which categories they fall into.
Emotional Intelligence is the capacity to acknowledge ones and others’ emotions, then leverage emotional information to adapt thinking and behavior to the environment and to achieve one’s goal.
Here, we will review the Social Skills from Emotional Intelligence. In other words, the emotional competences to handle relationships.
𝐓𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬:
𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞
Empathy, the fourth competence of Emotional Intelligence as described by Daniel Goleman, structures overs 5 skills: Understanding others, Service orientation, Developing others, Leveraging diversity and Political awareness.
Empathy is the awareness of others’ feelings and needs. To put it differently, it is our social radar. Surely, the prerequisite for empathy is self-awareness. Indeed, before identifying and understanding others’ feelings, we need to identify and understand feeling in general, starting with our own feelings.
Empathy is an automatic response to our environment. Actually, we tend to unconsciously mimicry the others’ feelings. This comes from the most primitive parts of the brain and the objective is to enforce survival. For instance, when people that surround us experience fear, then we will feel fear too, so we will be ready to manage the threat even if we have seen it yet.
But how well we use Empathy depends on our will to do so and how much we practice it.
𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬: detect and decrypt others’ feelings and needs and show compassion
The root of this principle is listening. Indeed, all start with true listening. In other words, active listening. As I am used to define it, listen to understand, not just to answer:
𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:
Suspend judgement.
Reflect the other person infra-communication, but also emotions.
Dig the topic, asking open questions to explore, specific questions to clarify. Then summarizing to make sure that we have understood properly.
Truly, without listening, there is no step further to understand the others. Actually, people will close themselves when they face a poor listener.
The listener especially if quite sensitive should protect himself or herself. To illustrate, we may experience empathy distress when someone we care about is going through a lot of pain and we become as a result deeply upset. So, there is a need for self-regulation to calm our own sympathetic distress.
This competence of Emotional Intelligence covers the following:
𝐁𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫:
Be attentive to emotional signals.
Demonstrate sensitivity and understand others’ feelings and needs.
Support others based on the understanding of their feelings and needs.
Service orientation: identifying, even anticipating needs, and meeting them
Daniel Goleman presents this practice as sense of service to client. In truth, service orientation is more that just for client, as it can happen internally in the organization. So, the same as we care about serving clients, we watch about others and how to support them. All the more so, their tasks may contribute to the group’s or organization’s goal.
01) 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Understand needs and match them to services or products.
Look how to increase customers’ satisfaction and loyalty.
Offer appropriate assistance demonstrating good mood and authentic desire to help.
Get into the shoes of the customers to advise and serve them better.
Developing others: detecting needs of development for the others and help them to grow their skills
This practice is about helping the others to grow. It starts with feedback for the coworkers or the collaborators to identify their areas for improvement. Then, it continues with mentoring and coaching.
02) 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Acknowledge and reward people’s strengths and achievements.
Propose constructive feedback to support others’ growth.
Propose and deliver regular mentoring. Offer opportunities to foster others’ skills.
Leveraging diversity: generating opportunities for people with different profiles to collaborate
Having a different product or service on a market is a competitive advantage. Without a doubt, different people bring different ideas. So, when an organization properly values but also properly leverages diversity, it makes the difference. But diversity is also a challenge. Indeed, there is still a need for a given group to have a minimum commonalities to be able to work together and deliver a consistency.
This practice covers at the same time the ability to include people with different profiles and to build connections with them and between them.
03) 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Connect well with people having different profiles and backgrounds.
Understand diverse point of views, and culture coming from different backgrounds, social groups or countries.
Consider diversity as an opportunity.
Create an environment for diversity to be fertile.
Challenge bias and intolerance.
Political awareness: reading a group’s emotions and relationships of power
This competence starts with being able to empathizing at the organizational level. In other words, being able to grasp the emotional climate and culture of an organization. Then, the competence continues with being able to see the real and informal organization where actual power stands with alliances and rivalries.
04) 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Read key power 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬.
Detect crucial social networks.
Understand what shapes thinking and acting of clients, customers, or competitors.
See through official organization to perceive the informal network.
Social Skills, the fifth competence of Emotional Intelligence
𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬, the fifth competence of Emotional Intelligence as described by Daniel Goleman, structures overs 7 skills: Communication, Influence, Collaboration & Cooperation, Conflict management, Leadership, Change catalyst, and at last, Building bonds. Note that Team building capacity skill has been merged in this post with Collaboration and Cooperation skill.
As we have seen above in the introduction to empathy, we influence each others with emotions that are a primitive way of communication, for instance to alert on a threat. Furthermore, influence with emotions can be with negative but also positive emotions. These emotions come in various level, most of the time too subtle to notice.
Social skills are the emotional intelligence skills to properly manage one’s and others’ emotions, to connect, interact and work with the others. If empathy is outward driven to the others, social skills are inward driven and focus on how to interact with and leverage the others to reach our goals.
When we master social skills, we choose emotions we show and those we hide, like some sort of theater. To illustrate, in our backstage, we feel our emotions, and on our front stage, we choose the emotions we want to reveal.
𝐒𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞. For instance, we can choose to smile even if we are worried. But this smile will turn our coworkers in a positive state. Indeed, smile is the most contagious emotional signal of all. As a result, people cannot resist and smile in return. Clearly, collaboration will be easier and we may even feel a little bit better with all those smiles we will get in return. In addition, we will trigger and get back positive energy.
𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: listening actively and delivering a clear and appealing message
Communication is key to connect to the others and build the best of our collaboration with them. Surely, control of the mood is essential. Indeed, we can be a good communicator, be clear in what we say, with the others ready to listen, only if we stay calm and positive. Then, this may require buffering with our real emotional state if different.
05) 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Identify emotional cues and adapt message accordingly.
Listen actively to understand, not just to answer, and build common understanding.
Promote open communication and welcome all information sharing, including bad news.
Influence: smoothly guiding the others toward a direction that is valuable also for them (if not, this is manipulation)
Prerequisite of influence is, of course, the capacity to read emotional cues. To begin with, this principle starts with building a bond or highlighting a commonality with our audience. Then, the second step is to integrate the emotional drivers to make people move. Especially, when logical arguments have failed. To illustrate, some influence tactics include: legitimizing with the authority source of the request, socializing, appealing to values or exchanging or building an alliance.
06)𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Inspire sympathy and trust to the others.
Master influence strategies and tactics to build adhesion.
Leverage all audience’s motivation drivers to make them move in the right direction.
Collaboration and cooperation: working with others to a common goal
Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence are not just for individuals, but scale to team and even organization levels. Indeed, when a team operates at its best, individual IQ and EQ does not just simply add, they multiply. As a result, outcomes are far beyond what anyone could have imagined.
07) 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Balance between delivering tasks and preserving relationships.
Collaborate sharing information, resources and efforts.
Promote a friendly and cooperative climate.
Identify and mature new opportunities for collaboration.
And when collaboration is on the long term:
Propose a frame for collaboration to enforce respect and cooperation.
Build a common identity and a shared vision to support motivation and commitment.
Preserve the group from external challenges and promote it outside.
Note that we have merged what Daniel Goleman calls Team (building) capabilities in this collaboration and cooperation competence.
Conflict management: resolving disagreements and preventing conflicts
This practice requires as prerequisite to master our emotions in stressful conditions and to read the emotions of the others. Then, it is about facilitating smooth debate, preventing conflicts and when they happen, working to de-escalate them and support a win-win solution.
08) 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Handle difficult people and situations with diplomacy.
Encourage debates and open discussions.
Facilitate win-win solutions.
Identify and defuse potential conflicts by supporting disagreement resolution.
Leadership: inspiring and guiding people
Leadership is about generating internal motivation that can make a whole group mobilize toward the same objective. Emotions are a source of charisma for the leader: be able to feel strong emotions and express them with force and impact.
09) 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Build motivation through an appealing vision.
Step forward to lead when required.
Support and develop the others without micromanaging them.
Lead by example.
Change catalyst: initiating and managing change
Today, change is everywhere, it never stops and its rhythm accelerates. Therefore, being able to manage change is a key competence.
10) 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Identify and build awareness around the need for change.
Build the frame to channel the change, identify and manage actions to support the change.
Role-model the change one’s wants to happen.
Building bonds: cultivating useful relationships
As collaboration within a team multiply the efficiency, collaboration at the level of a network does the same for each person involved. Surely, each member of a network is an immediately available extension of knowledge, expertise and potentially more.
11) 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠:
Cultivate and maintain living and informal networks.
Seek and grow relationships that are mutually beneficial.
Make and maintain personal friendships among coworkers.
𝐈𝐄𝐋𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐌𝐨𝐡𝐬𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐡𝐬𝐚𝐧