What is your emotional intelligence? February 21, 2008
Posted by Jim Eberle in Analytics and Business Intelligence.Tags: Daniel Goleman, Emotional Leadership, Primal Leadership, Rich St. Denis
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My good friend (author and trainer) Rich St. Denis recently e-mailed me to let me know that he would be visiting ESPN in the near future to speak about Emotional Intelligence. Rich (richstdenis@earthlink.net) has created a number of courses about EI and has developed this into an art. About fifteen years ago, Rich and I sat down over multiple cups of coffee and talked about all sorts of things related to and about emotional intelligence to include the questions leaders should ask themselves. Rich and I understand that Emotional Intelligence is something that takes years to master and is a critical component to being a good leader.
What is emotional intelligence? Rich states that Emotional Intelligence means being smart and effective about emotions. According to catalystconsultingpartners.com, Emotional intelligence is “based on the notion that the ability of managers to understand their own emotions, and those of the people they work with, is the key to better business performance.” EI is critical because as an individual, you have to understand what you’re all about. You have to understand what you react to, what you don’t react to, why you react to certain things, and how you’re going to react to these things. In addition, you also need to be aware of how you’re affecting those around you. What are they going to react to and how are they going to react to it?
There are several steps involved with Emotional Intelligence. It involves skill in 1) emotional literacy which is the ability to sense, name, and express all types of emotions accurately, and 2) emotional labor which is the ability to prevent, cope with, defuse non-productive and destructive emotions, and influence productive and constructive emotions
Emotional Intelligence is crucial to leading. As Daniel Goleman states in his book entitled Primal Leadership, a high IQ is great, but is immediately negated by low emotional intelligence. Regardless of how intelligent you are, if you can’t interact with people, you can’t be an effective leader. By understanding and mastering your own emotional intelligence, you are able to control your environment because you understand better how other people are going to react and how you’re causing them to react.
