Most times, intelligence is thought of only from the angle of cognitive reasoning abilities. However, productivity and success in the workplace require more than good reasoning skills. Emotional intelligence, otherwise referred to as emotional quotient (EQ), is equally as important to your success in the workplace as your intelligence quotient (IQ).
Also read:How to Let Go of Things that Cause Stress
What Is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to read, feel, and respond to emotions. In other words, it is the ability to get your emotions under control.
Here are a few illustrations of a typical emotionally intelligent individual:
- Works well with individuals regardless of personal feelings.
- Handles criticism without internalizing or feeling affronted.
Elements of Emotional Intelligence
The three elements of emotional intelligence are social skills, empathy, and awareness and regulation.
- Social Skills: having social skills makes it easy to understand your co-workers, friends or family and also communicate with them. This makes it easy to manage and resolve issues diplomatically. You are in a better position to improve your productivity when you are able to leverage the connection you have with the people around you.
- Empathy: this helps you to understand how people feel, their likes and dislikes, and what motivates them. Showing empathy also allows you to understand the power dynamics that often influence social relationships, especially within the work environment. Based on the information you know about people, you can manage how you respond in certain situations
- Awareness and Regulation: this element helps you understand your emotions and how to control them in every situation. Apart from understanding how you feel on different occasions, self-awareness allows you to know the impact your mood, emotions or actions have on people.
How Emotional Intelligence Impacts Workplace Success
Within the elements of emotional intelligence explained above, you can easily identify the impact EQ has in the workplace:
Striking beneficial partnerships
Businesses have always been and will always be based on relationships. Relationships with customers, relationships with regulators, etc. The same applies to the internal workplace. If you want to make headway in your job, you need to identify the people that are key to your workplace growth.
This is where emotional intelligence comes in. You have an awareness of what you want, identify people that can help you achieve what you want, then try to form a connection with them.
Understanding your co-workers
Most times, climbing up the corporate ladder isn’t just a matter of delivering on the job. Yes, you may have the necessary skills and knowledge, but if you do not know how to relate to both your co-workers and management, this may impede your growth in the workplace.
Knowing your co-workers or managers and learning how to communicate with them may be what stands between you and that needed promotion.
Accepting and incorporating feedback
This encapsulates all that emotional intelligence is about. It puts you in control of your emotional responses. That way, you’ll be less prone to frustration, mood swings, and other negative reactions no matter what the situation is. Most times in the workplace, flare ups can lead to strained relationships. If you plan on staying in your workplace for a while, then learning how to control your emotions should help with that.
Conclusion
Being emotionally intelligent is just one of the many secrets of maintaining healthy relationships in the workplace. Once you master it, you are better positioned for workplace success.