Emotional Roller Coaster
For ages, people have debated if leaders are born or made?
So too, goes the debate about emotional intelligence. Perhaps it has been my
most favourite organisational behaviour topics since I read Daniel Goleman’s
book about emotional intelligence in 1998. I always had a belief it could be an
acquired skill but I never knew how? But later on I felt it must be a born
talent hidden in genes and finally I got the answer actually it is both. It is
just like empathy, some people are born with it and some people acquire it with
life experiences.
Emotional intelligence like empathy is a psychological
muscle which needs emotional work out, like our physical muscles. Good news is that
our psychological muscles too get stronger and stronger with work out just like
our physical muscle. Only the work out regime is little different, in order to
build our emotional intelligence muscles we need play full out in our brain gym
with dumbbells of feelings, drive, impulses, anxiety, stress, motivation,
laughter and happiness.
Our brains have a little area called “Neocortex” responsible
to grasp concepts and logic. It along with our conscious thoughts and
experiences form emotional intelligence system.
Some people might be better with it by virtue of genome
structures. Rest of us could also develop this by putting our mind to work out
in the brain gym simply, by taking each experience with intension to get better
at it next time when it comes around. Just like as a kid when you learnt not to
touch a hot stove after getting burned with it once or as an adult learning how
to handle professional and personal stressors. Once you do it next time round
you’ll have emotional muscles much stronger to handle the situation better.
There are five aspects to practice when it comes to building
muscles for emotional intelligence:
·
Self-Awareness – Knowing your emotions, strengths,
weaknesses, drives, values and goals. Their impact on you and others around
you.
·
Self- Regulation - Controlling or redirecting
disruptive thoughts, emotions and impulses.
·
Motivation – Being driven to achieve for the
sake of self-esteem.
·
Empathy – Considering others feelings,
especially when making decision about things that matters.
·
Social Skills – Managing relationships to move
people/ thoughts/ situations in desired directions
Research is demonstrating that people can, if they take the
right approach, develop their emotional intelligence. I had personally found it
very rewarding and can easily tell the difference between the days it works and
days it doesn’t. Offcourse it is a never ending learning experience and not an
easy process. It takes time and most of all commitment. But the benefits that
come from having a well-developed emotional intelligence, both for the
individual and for the organisation, make it worth the efforts.
Happy working out at the brain gym!
"When I say managing your emotions, I only mean really distressing, negative emotions. Feeling emotions is what makes your life rich. You need your passions." - Daniel Goleman
