Emotional Intelligence

#week2

This week's focus on emotional intelligence has including the exploration of the related traits via an online self-assessment as well as various readings and resources.  DuBrin defines emotional intelligence as follows:

"Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to do such things as understanding one’s feelings, have empathy for others, and regulate one’s emotions to enhance one’s quality of life."
DuBrin, Andrew J. (2015-01-01). Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills (Page 50). South-Western College Pub. Kindle Edition. 

The four key factors of emotional intelligence identified by DuBrin - Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management - have ramifications on levels of leadership.  While performing the online self-assessment, I realized that many of the points focused around communication and dealing with relationships.  In my opinion, successfully developing emotional intelligence is not as easy to assess as other more discrete measures of success such as reputation and accomplishments.  

Reflecting back on relationships and observations of prior colleagues and peers, it has become clearer how varying degrees of emotional intelligence have affected the level of success that they've had.  I have had the opportunity to work with many high performing individuals in leadership positions, however, their levels of success in their positions and their institutions have varied greatly.  Those who have been quite successful were the ones that created great relationships with coworkers and customers through an understanding of their peers emotions in relationship to their own.  Successful leaders did not alienate or cause others to feel unappreciated, disconnected, or not getting the recognition they deserved.  Rather, those leaders that were successful cultivated relationships with employees that made them feel appreciated and active contributors to collective goals.

In seeing these interactions, I've had the opportunity to refine my emotional intelligence skills to follow the good examples that my peers set forth.  An area discussed in this week's materials that I would like to further develop is the aspect of social awareness which includes empathy for others' emotions.