Emotional self-awareness is the cornerstone of Emotional Intelligence (EI). It's about recognizing and understanding your emotions, which is crucial for developing other EI skills like self-management, motivation, empathy, and relationship-building. Many people, however, are so used to daily pressures that they overlook the negative emotions these pressures create. Without this awareness, it's tough to improve other EI competencies.
Jane, a participant in an EI workshop, worked in a technical field where emotions were often dismissed. Initially, she believed emotions had no place in her work. However, she realized her lack of emotional awareness was affecting her relationships at work and home. By practicing EI techniques, Jane became more aware of her emotions and their impact, leading to improved relationships and support from her boss.
| High Energy | Low Energy |
|---|---|
| Positive | Negative |
Emotional self-awareness is essential for personal and professional growth. By understanding and managing emotions, you can improve relationships, decision-making, and overall well-being. Regularly mapping your emotions can help you transform negative feelings into positive, productive ones.
For more insights on emotional intelligence, check out Daniel Goleman's work and the Emotional Intelligence Consortium.
Emotional Intelligence - Key Benefits
Increasing your Emotional Intelligence skills offers significant benefits in areas that embrace virtually every behavior, every action and reaction, and every situation you may encounter. This applies to your business and professional interactions as well as your family relationships, from the broad sweep of major, multi-million dollar corporations to the day-to-day small incidents that influence your life.
Emotional Intelligence - Improving the CEO Succession Process
The emotionally charged issue of CEO succession is one of the most important decisions a board makes. It can be a painful process, fraught with emotional turmoil for the CEO, the successor and the board. However, when everyone involved has developed skills in the emotional intelligence competencies, the transition runs more smoothly.
Emotional Intelligence - Results are What Really Matters
For over a decade, organizations have used various instruments to assess the Emotional Intelligence (EI) skills of their people. While assessment results in a great deal of information, it does not offer the return on investment (ROI) provided by EI training. Given the decision to assess skill or enhance skill (i.e. train), it appears that helping people develop EI skills is a far better use of scarce resources.
