Knowing how to deal with your own emotions and those of others is not only important in your personal life. Applying emotional intelligence at work has been one of the most sought-after skills by companies, especially in times when soft skills — or personal skills — are being valued.
Have you already included this skill as a target in your development ?
Achieving your goals, having the motivation to take on a new project, knowing how to generate engagement in your team, leading people towards the same objective and even maintaining balance while working remotely: all these aspects of your professional life can be impacted by emotional intelligence.
In this article, we will share with you everything about this concept, based on the ideas developed by psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman in his books “ Emotional Intelligence ” and “ Working with Emotional Intelligence ” . Check it out and find out how you can develop this skill!
What is emotional intelligence?
For Daniel Goleman, journalist and psychologist considered the “father of emotional intelligence”, this concept refers to the set of emotional skills based on five pillars:
- know your own emotions;
- dealing with emotions;
- self-motivate;
- recognize emotions in other people;
- dealing with interpersonal relationships.
According to the Future of Jobs report by The World Economic Forum (WEF), emotional intelligence is one of the most important skills for the job market of the future, where soft skills will be even more relevant to differentiate and highlight professionals.
A person with emotional intelligence, according to Daniel Goleman, has some capabilities such as:
- create motivations for yourself and persist in a goal despite challenges;
- control impulses and know how to wait for your desires to be satisfied;
- stay in a good state of mind and prevent anxiety from interfering with your ability to reason;
- have empathy and self-confidence.
How important is emotional intelligence at work?
In the workplace, regardless of the company or area of activity, we need to make decisions , interact with other people and solve problems, right?
Often, these actions happen in the heat of the moment and we end up using only our emotions to guide us, without even realizing our motivations and feelings.
However, people with emotional intelligence are able to go through these processes in a much more positive way, recognizing the emotions experienced in each situation and knowing how to manage them so that they do not negatively affect work and/or relationships with other people.
In 1998, Goleman made a statement that perfectly matches the current scenario and the perspectives for the future of work:
“In an age where job security is uncertain, where the very concept of “job” is rapidly being replaced by “portable skills,” these are the essential qualities that make and keep us employable.”
But it is important not to associate emotional intelligence with the ability to ignore feelings or simply not feel emotions, especially those considered negative, such as anger, sadness or fear.
Being an emotionally intelligent person is actually the opposite of this; it is knowing that emotions appear, but being able to identify them in order to then choose the best response to each stimulus.
How to apply emotional intelligence in the workplace?
According to Daniel Goleman in his book “Working with Emotional Intelligence”:
“My analysis of thousands of jobs revealed that emotional competence generally accounts for about two-thirds of the ingredients of a top professional’s performance. However, in the case of outstanding leaders, emotional competences — as opposed to technical or cognitive skills — account for somewhere between 80% and 100% of those that are identified by the companies themselves as crucial to success.”
Let’s give some examples of common situations in the workplace where emotional intelligence is extremely necessary and can help you avoid conflicts, improve your productivity and boost your results. Check it out!
1. Avoid impulsive reactions
When faced with new, challenging or even conflicting situations, avoid reacting immediately or making impulsive decisions.
Knowing how to step back in these moments to reflect and digest your emotions helps you see the situation more clearly, which enables you to make a rational and effective decision.
Especially in the case of discussions between the team or with clients, for example, this distance can be crucial to resolving the problem peacefully and without damaging your career with an action that you will later regret.
2. Invest in communication
Having emotional intelligence also affects the way we communicate with people.
Therefore, it is important to pay attention to how you express yourself in the workplace to avoid misunderstandings, achieve the desired results and create a pleasant and harmonious atmosphere among the team.
Prioritize clarity when communicating your ideas and thoughts, and be transparent about how you feel, even in frustrating situations.
This honesty and empathy in communication helps to build a healthier environment, focused on individual and collective growth, and open to the expression of divergent opinions and doubts.
3. Understand what triggers negative emotions
As we said before, developing emotional intelligence in the workplace does not mean learning not to feel negative emotions. The most important thing in this process is understanding what causes these feelings.
So, reflect on situations in which you didn’t feel good at work or behaviors of colleagues that triggered negative feelings. Then, observe which emotions appeared in each of these moments, how often they arose and how you deal with each one.
This self-observation exercise is important to understand your patterns and not only know how you can improve your behavior next time, but also learn to respect your limits.
4. Practice empathy and active listening
It’s difficult to have emotional intelligence at work without constantly exercising empathy and the ability to actively listen to what is being said.
This ability to put yourself in other people’s shoes, listen without judging and be willing to accept different points of view is essential for anyone who wants to develop in their professional life, create genuine relationships and enable the exchange of experiences and mutual learning in the workplace.
In this sense, it is also important to learn to receive feedback, including negative feedback, in an understanding manner and without taking it personally.
Especially in professional situations, it is essential to know how to make this distinction so as not to be overcome by bad and demotivating feelings, which can affect your performance and harm the results of your work.
5. Embrace change
Applying emotional intelligence at work also means embracing change and knowing how to adapt. In today’s market, it’s hard to find a company that isn’t constantly undergoing transformations, adopting new technologies and testing processes.
Therefore, prepare yourself to face these changes positively, with resilience and creativity. Understanding that unforeseen events and deviations along the way happen is better than fighting these changes and wasting your energy trying to maintain something that no longer makes sense for work.
By exercising flexibility and applying it in the professional environment, you, the team and the company only have to gain.
You win by reducing stress; the team and the company benefit from having people capable of managing their emotions and seeking innovative solutions for the various possible scenarios.
…
We can no longer say that applying emotional intelligence at work is an extra skill that only counts as a differential. This skill has become a requirement for most positions, in the most varied contexts, organizational cultures and types of work.
After all, technical skills alone — without the emotional intelligence to know how to relate to other people, manage emotions and adapt — are no longer enough for those who want to stand out professionally and be successful in their careers.
The good news is that, still quoting Goleman:
“Unlike IQ, which changes little after our teenage years, everything indicates that emotional intelligence can be, to a large extent, learned and continues to develop throughout our lives, with the experiences we accumulate. Our competence in relation to emotional intelligence grows continually.”
In other words, if you feel that you still have a long way to go to develop the much-desired emotional intelligence at work , know that it is completely possible to do so regardless of the moment you are in.
How about continuing to think about your personal and professional development? Read our other article on Self-Development, how to put it into practice?
