Emotional Intelligence (EI)@workplace
OD & HRBP PRACTITIONER, L&D Leader - HR Policies | People Strategy, Organization Development & Change Leadership | GenAI, HR Transformation | Talent Management & Retention | Employer Branding
August 30, 2017
noun: emotional intelligence
1. the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.
"emotional intelligence is the key to both personal and professional success"
Jonny an experienced and a veteran professional in a local IT company was working in a turbulent project – he met Paulo his stake holder for his weekly review, Paulo was not happy with the fact that delivery was not met completely and only partial delivery was met by Jonny and his team, Paulo escalated the matter to Jonnys manager of the same and he also told Jonny that he was being lenient with his team and need to push them harder be more aggressive, Johny was upset of the fact that matter was escalated to his manager despite of he and his team putting in the best efforts.
Next day Jonny held a meeting with the team, since he was upset he was very aggressive with the team and came down heavily on them stating how come they faltered on the promise of the delivery, he conveyed that it was not acceptable and not keeping promise will not be tolerated and there are no excuses, the team retaliated stating that they had been toiling day and night and the fact that they were being driven up to the wall was not acceptable, this left Jonny puzzled and speechless.
When you think of the Jonnys message to the team it’s clear that how he delivered message made the things worse in the meeting.
Could Jonny would have handled the situation differently?
The answer is absolutely yes, if Jonny was aware of his emotions he would have been more self-aware & displayed empathy towards his team members thereby he would have been able to manage the situations differently.
That’s were Emotional Intelligence (EI) plays a very big role at workplace. Technical competence helps to reach a particular level in the corporate hierarchy, in case if you want to enhance / move forward EI is the key differentiator.
What does EI at workplace look like, how can the same be practiced?
Lets take a quick look at how can we put EI in practice. Its takes a perseverance to develop EI in a person, given below are some steps that would help in enhancing EI at workplace.
- Knowing and managing ones emotions- This is the first step in understanding what one is feeling when met with an event – in the above example if Jonny was more in tune with himself he would have recognised his feeling and he would have addressed it by focusing on:
a.How could have he managed his emotion to get a better/positive outcome from the team.
b.Effect of his behaviour that would have on the team and on him.
c.Would taking the aggressive approach be appropriate for the time or would there could have been a different approach.
2. Understanding emotion in other people- Emotions are contagious – when we see a baby smiling, we tend to smile this phenomena is called emotion contagion. It was no surprise when Jonny had his outburst on the team, his team reacted and pushed back. Understanding emotion in other people helps to take appropriate course of action. It helps to be more emphatic to others need. Empathy can be at cognitive level, emotional level & compassionate level. Cognitive empathy is where you understand the thoughts and feeling of other person in a rational manner – without being emotional. Emotional level empathy is catching some ones feeling and feeling the same that is emotional contagion. Compassionate empathy is understanding some ones feeling and taking appropriate action.
Empathy is crucial for success of any relationship.
3.Separating content from context: Many a times in the organization context people are under pressure, when things don’t go their way, there is an outburst of emotions or it could be due to a person’s personality trait. When operating from a prism of “separating content and context” helps an individual to choose their response to situation then to react as they would by being in cognizance of the whole situation. If Jonny would have explained the context of his meeting with Paulo, shared why aspect along with empathy to his team his team would have seen things from a different perspective and would back him up next time when giving commitment.
4.Seeking guidance from appropriate coach/mentor to recognise and overcome blind spots-Frequent interaction with mentor or coach can also help in terms of understanding how one act in a given situations and this can also be a good point to improve one’s self and take one step closer to being an Emotionally Intelligent person.
Developing EI helps a leader to enhance their ability to cope with the ecosystem along with enhancing their capability and build a climate where Individuals & teams can flourish.
In the end- as stated by Maya Angelou - People will forget what you have said, they will forget what you did but will never forget how you made them feel.