Emotional Intelligence – A study of Skill

Dr Babita Tyagi,
Assistant Professor,
KIET Group of Institutions, Ghaziabad, UP
Affiliated to
Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam Technical University,
Lucknow.

ABSTRACT
Emotional intelligence is the ability to comprehend our own behavior, emotions and senses with the
outside environment as well as the people around us. In day-to-day scenario, the need of study of
emotional intelligence has been observed in all the spheres. This paper discusses various aspect of
Emotional intelligence. This paper focuses on various aspects of Emotional intelligence, its need,
component, advantages, disadvantages and importance in crisis management. For the study literature
review of previous researches has been done. The study suggested that EI has an important role at
workplace as well as in daily life routine. The selection of employees in an organization should be done
keeping EI in consideration and various training programs should be conducted from time to time to
improve EI of workforce. There is an utmost need of the identification of EI analysis in everyday life.

Keywords: Emotional Intelligence, Occupational stress, component, need, Advantages, disadvantages,

, crisis Management, leadership, learning.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a unique ability acquired by individuals to understand, control and
regulate emotions. It affects different aspects of our daily life such as our behavior and
interaction with others. It prepares us to perceive and react to the emotions and feelings of others.
Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist popularized the term Emotional Intelligence through
his book-Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ(1995).

Travis Bradberry says,” Emotional Intelligence is something in each of us that is bit intangible, it
affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that
achieve positive results.”

According to the APA dictionary of psychology, Emotional Intelligence is

“a type of intelligence that involves the ability to process emotional information and use it in
reasoning and other cognitive activities”

– ([Link], 2018).

Emotional Intelligence primarily gives a measure to one’s ability to use, understand and manage
emotions in ways that positively affect one and others, as well as helps in relieving stress,
communicating effectively, showing empathy, resolving conflicts and overcoming challenges. It
is an important personality trait that enables us to recognize our emotions and understand how
they may affect people around us. It involves in understanding perceptions of others which helps
in effective management of human relationships..
It should be understood that the emotionally intelligent working environment is the backbone for
amiable social life and professional excellence. It enables people’s competence and makes them
more supportive, healthy and productive.

Need for Emotional intelligence

Some of the important aspects of a person’s life are greatly affected by the EI level of the person.
Some of these aspects are:

1. Professional Excellence: Higher EI is a motivating factor in one’s life. It helps us

achieve many things professionally and socially. We plan and lead our career in a better
way by setting new goals and working hard for achieving them, engaging people and
leading them and thus contributing to the overall growth of our self as well as people
around us.
2. Physical wellness: EI has direct correlation with our physical and mental wellness. In
other words, EI plays a significant role in maintaining our body and nervous system in
good shape. It improves our stress management and also enables us to improve our
immunity.
3. Mental Health: When emotions are not managed properly, it results in various
psychological disorders and other serious ailments. EI keeps us mentally alert and calm.
It will be a great help in tackling stress and mood swings as well as enable in generating
creative ideas.

4. Relationship Management: Understanding of emotions enables an individual to

reciprocate to the emotions of others in a better manner. EI makes it easy for us to engage
with new people and share our ideas and information with them in better manner. It is
helpful in developing compatibility among the team members and empowers them to
deliver effectively and efficiently.
5. Leadership: It has been shown from the studies that those who show outstanding
leadership qualities at their workplace or in their professional field, such people are level
endowed with high of EI. Such people are natural leaders as they understand, motivate
and build strong rapport with the people across the organization. This aspect of EI makes
them acceptable as leaders.

Emotional Intelligence plays crucial role multidimensional development of an individual. It

enhances critical skills of an individual.
 Critical skills developed due to Emotional Intelligence

 Decision making
 Assertiveness
 Time Management
 Stress Tolerance
 Presentation Skills
 Anger management
 Trust
 Accountability
 Communication
 Team work
 Social Skills
 Empathy
 Change Tolerance
 Flexibility
 Customer Service

Components of Emotional Intelligence

The framework was developed by Daniel Goleman to support five elements of Emotional
Intelligence. They are as follows:

1. Self-awareness: This is the first actual assessment of an emotionally intelligent

person. It is an evident from a rich and true understanding of oneself and an honest
introspection of one’s strengths and weaknesses. Besides these, a self-awareness
person has the objectivity to seek and accept feedback from others and the humility to
bring the required changes in him / her.
Benefits:
  Increases the likelihood of you handling and using constructive feedback
effectively.
 By knowing your strengths and weaknesses you can improve your
organization’s performance, for example, you may hire individuals who
perform well in areas you struggle with.

Improve self-awareness by:

 Keeping a diary of the situations that have triggered disruptive emotions in

you, such as anger, and your thoughts and behaviors during those situations.
With this information you can form an understanding of your emotions and
reactions and work towards self-regulation.

2. Self-Management: It is another key area of personal skills that make up emotional

intelligence. It includes an element of taking responsibility of your own actions, and
ensuring that that whatever actions one does, it matches with his/her personality. Self-
regulation is all about staying in control of you. A person should control his words,
emotions as well as decisions. He should not impose his feelings and values on
others. A self-managed person creates a zone of healthy interaction with people and
displays qualities like patience, understanding and insightfulness. She/he shall be
positive and thoughtful in all circumstances. It is a powerful and healthy tool for
developing interpersonal relationships.
Benefits:
 Self-Management helps to earn the respect and trust.
 Improves adaptability.
 Allows you to react rationally.
Improve self-Management by:
 Take responsibility, if you have made mistakes. Rather than blaming others.
 Responding to situations calmly as your communication is more effective
when you're in this state and this feeling will spread to others.
 Use controlled breathing techniques.
3. Motivation: Self-motivation means enjoying what you do, working towards
achieving your goals and not being motivated by money or status. Self-motivated
persons always work towards achieving their goals and sets high standards for the
quality of their own work. They are optimistic, use powerful vocabulary and are
energetic in their actions. They don’t give up even if their efforts don’t yield them
results in short term.
Benefits:
 Reduces delaying of any task
 Increases self-confidence
 Keeps motivated during adverse conditions
 Keeps focused towards achieving your goals

Ways to increase your motivation:

 Remember your objective - why you wanted it initially.

  Set small goals and step by step bigger things will be achieved.
 Be optimistic because to be motivated you must be positive even in adverse
conditions.
 Think everything and everyone to be valuable
4. Empathy: Empathetic people are able to identify and understand others' emotions i.e.
imagining you in someone else's position. They are slow to condemn and are open for
diverse viewpoint of others. They are efficient observers and take care of emotions
and viewpoint of their team members. If pit in leadership, they help develop the
people on their team by being connected with them.

Benefits:

 Provides you with an understanding of how an individual feels and why they
behave in a certain way.
 Especially helpful when delivering constructive feedback.
 Being empathetic shows your team that you care.

To develop empathy:
 Imagine yourself in someone else's position. Even if you have not experienced a
similar situation, remember a situation where you have felt the same emotion.
 Practice listening to others without interrupting them.
 Observe others feeling.
 Never ignore your and other’s emotions.
 Your body language open and regulate your voice to show your sincerity.

5. Social skills: Effective social skills consist of managing relationships in a way that
benefit in every sphere of life. People with social skills are good communicators. They
have the ability to get their teams motivates about new tasks. Their ability to interact with
people also helps them to empower others, manage change and handle crises with ease.

Benefits:

 Effective social skills help you to build rapport with others and earn their respect and
loyalty.
 People will trust you which is especially valuable.
 You can identify the best way to meet individual needs and identify how their
abilities can be used to achieve the aims.
 People will feel comfortable presenting ideas to you and discussing concerns.

Ways to improve social skills:

 Developing your communication skills.

 Listen to feedback carefully.
 Learning how to provide praise and constructive feedback.
 Cooperating and working together to achieve shared goal.
 Resolving conflict by looking at the situation from all the viewpoints involved and try
to come to a compromise that benefits everyone.
Advantages and Disadvantage of Emotional Intelligence

Advantages

The advantages of being emotionally intelligent would be too many. Some of them are:

1. If you be emotionally intelligent you would not judge people too quickly. You will
definitely understand their perspective and try to analyses their situation wisely rather
than jumping to the conclusions.
2. It will help in your decision making ability. You will struggle less while looking for
both sides of the persona.
3. You will develop a higher level of understanding between yourself and the people
around you.
4. Your mind will automatically look what is inside the people instead of the outside
appearance.
5. You will be aware of beliefs, likes, dislikes, comforts, integrity, opinions and thought
processes of yours as well as the people around you.
Disadvantages

Some of the disadvantages would be:

1. At some point of time you would be expecting the people around you to understand
your perspective too but you may end up being dejected.
2. Your opinions may not be agreed by everyone and you may have tough time with
some people explaining yourself.

Emotional Intelligence and Crisis Management

A crisis is any event that is expected to lead to an unstable situation that is likely to
affect an individual, a group, a community, a geographical area or society as a whole.
Crisis situation can arise on the personal as well as the professional front. In personal
crisis, harm may happen to an individual due to unforeseen reasons. In an
organizational term, crisis is an unexpected event, which tends to harm an
organization, its stakeholders and the people associated with it. A crisis triggers
feelings of fear and threat among individuals who confront it. People in crisis suffer
emotionally. It is natural for those affected, to be panic and loss their sense of balance.
The suddenness of a catastrophic event gives very little and sometimes no time for
preparation. However, wise people, especially those in leadership positions, put
together a crisis plan, even when everything is going in proper manner. The calamity
may include natural disaster, an economic depression, or even a major client suddenly
deciding to take his work somewhere else. Able leaders are prepared for such
eventualities. But the planning works only to an extent. In the aftermath of a crisis,
 able leadership does not lose its responsibility and may take few steps to handle an
unpredictable situation are:
 Be visible and available to the related personnel’s in the aftermath of the crisis
and address their concerns firstly.
 Affected persons should be counseled to face the situation and their fears,
 Routine task should be delegated in order to overcome the situation of crisis
management.
 Help persons to understand the real gravity of the crisis and make them strong
to face the situation.
 Avoid rumors that magnify the extent of damage.
 Appear in action to instill the confidence among employees.
 Record the learning from the crisis and factorize them into the crisis
management plan.
 Map the progress of steps initiated to handle the crisis. Show your sincerity of
purpose in handling the situation even to the authorities.

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership
(LI, Gupta, Loon, & Casimir, 2016) Researchers have found relationship between emotional
intelligence and leadership. The leaders who favor before style i.e. with the cushion of
psychological support have the highest levels of emotional intelligence than the one who
favors delayed style i.e. leaders who delay in providing support with the pressure.
Emotional intelligence can be linked to the style of leadership. The study supports before
style leadership which mean providing support to the employees along with the pressure
and the leader who is emotionally intelligent is in a better position to give that support.
They found the effectiveness of leadership in the form of supportive behavior and optimism
in terms of emotional intelligence.
Conclusion
From the literature review of the papers studied, it can be very well concluded that
Emotional Intelligence plays a crucial role in an individual’s life. It has a great impact on
the behaviors of the employees at workplace. It increases the level of tolerance of the
employees as when they become emotionally intelligent they can empathize well with their
co- employees. There is a need to hire employees with a good level of emotional quotient.
EI is an essential element during crisis management as well as leadership.
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