Emotional Intelligence

‘Emotional Intelligence’ by renowned Psychologist Daniel Goleman is a revolutionary bestseller book that introduced the importance of Emotional Quotient to the world. The book explains the concept of Emotional Intelligence and shows its enormous impact on various facets of life. It also describes how Emotional Intelligence develops and how you can improve it.

Goleman explains that emotions can be studied, and people can be taught how to understand and manage their own emotions. The author explains how two separate minds live in our brains- one rational and one emotional. He further describes the five key skills making up emotional “literacy”, which actually are true indicators of happiness and success than the Intelligence Quotient i.e. IQ.

Psychologists Salovey and Mayer formulated the theory of emotional intelligence. They gave an elaborated definition, that included the presence of the following factors:

A. Self-awareness – the ability to recognize emotion as it happens.
B. Managing emotions.
C. Motivating oneself.
D. Recognizing emotions in others.
E. Handling relationships.

Highlights:

IQ is overrated. Emotions have a huge impact on human behaviour, many times more than logic or reason. Emotions help us learn new things and spur action. Our emotions have a long evolutionary history.
Emotional hijackings are short periods of emotional explosions or outbursts. These explosions happen before our thinking brain i.e. Neocortex gets a chance to analyze the situation. It’s all because of a part of brain called Amygdala- the seat of passion. Amygdala initiates response after it scans the surroundings and situation. Therefore the emotions generated are not random, but in accordance with the situation and hence they should not be ignored.
Academic intelligence has limited utility. It doesn’t prepare us to face the challenges of life. Technical skills are important but emotional intelligence adds meaning to life.
Self-awareness and recognition of emotions is the first step of handling emotions. There are three type of personalities- Self aware, Engulfed and Accepting.
Our control on our emotions is limited. But we can definitely decide how pong the emotion will last. You can handle anger, anxiety and melancholy by trying to move on. Emotional intelligence is important because of emotions are handled improperly they can distort judgement and make one act wrongfully.
The Marshmallow experience revealed that children with better willpower were more socially competent and able to cope with the frustrations of life. Skill to read life situation is a very useful asset.
One should have the ability to assess others’ feelings. One must learn to understand the message conveyed nonverbally through gestures, tone, expressions.
The ability to ‘move’ people’s feelings helps one to be a great leader. One needs social competencies to communicate intelligently with others.
Emotional Intelligence is very important in context of family and relationships. Disagreements are bound to happen in any relationship but what matters is the way of handling it. Emotionally intelligent parents is a great positive influence on children.
Emotional competencies are very useful at workplaces. Leaders who think that using their heart is weakness are missing out on effective leadership. The ability to resolve grievances, to deal with diversity, to work on group IQ is essential for leaders.
Temperament is biologically determined emotional setup. It can be improved with positive reinforcement. You can boost your EQ by having inner dialogue, thinking optimistically and mirroring body language of others.
Emotional literacy must be brought in the mainstream. Emotional literacy of children will determine the future of society. For the overall well being of society it is important to have individuals who are emotionally self-aware, empathetic, emotionally literate.