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Emotional Quotient (Emotional Intelligence) for Better Communication

Meassnguon Saint (2019)

Communication has become a tool in the 21st century skills and helped people perform
well and yield their high productivity at the workplace. Concerning to communication, people
cannot avoid conflicts in their daily communication, and such conflicts can be managed through
emotional intelligence, as well. The following section will illustrate the following points mainly:
1. Communication (process and elements)
2. The definition of emotional intelligence
3. Components of emotional intelligence
4. How to develop emotional intelligence

Key Words: Communication, Emotional intelligence/quotient or EQ.

1. Communication elements
Two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in which participants not only
exchange (encode-decode) information, news, ideas and feelings but also create and share
meaning (Business Dictionary, 2019).

Figure 1: Essential elements of communication (Meassnguon Saint, 2018)

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According to Jakson (1960) and Hamlton (2012), in the communication theory, there are
5 essential elements:
1. Speaker/ sender (possesses an emotive function)
2. Message (poetic function)
3. Channel (phatic function)
4. Receiver/ listener (conative function)
5. Feedback/code feedback (metalingual function)
These 5 elements are influenced by the external factor – like the environment – where the
communication takes place in. Therefore, to avoid misunderstanding of communication and
wasting time, communicators need to choose a proper place or location to discuss their
(essential) matters.

2. The definition of emotional intelligence:

“Emotional intelligence is an organising framework for categorising abilities relating to
understanding, managing and using feelings”(Salovey and Mayer, 1994, p. 5). Similarly,
“Emotional Intelligence: has been long neglected core component of mental ability or faddish
and confused idea massively commercialised” (Furnham, 2001, p. 7). In other words, EQ is
defined as to be aware of one own emotion, be able to control and express it with care,
sensibility, and empathy so that one can deal with interpersonal relationships.
Cherry (2019) raised two of the eight intelligences of Howard Garner’s, which are
strongly related to emotional intelligence. They are Intrapersonal Intelligence and Interpersonal
intelligence.
Intrapersonal intelligence

Strengths: Introspection and self-reflection

Individuals with intrapersonal intelligence are good at being aware of their own
emotional states, feelings, and motivations, and tend to enjoy self-reflection and analysis,
including daydreaming, exploring relationships with others, and assessing their personal
strengths. Their characteristics are good at analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, enjoying
analyzing theories and ideas, having an excellent self-awareness, and clearly having
understanding of the basis for their own motivations and feelings (Cherry, 2019; Khemmani,
2015).

Characteristics of intrapersonal intelligence include (Cherry, 2019):

 Good at analyzing his or her strengths and weaknesses
 Enjoys analyzing theories and ideas
 Excellent self-awareness
 Clearly understands the basis for his or her own motivations and feelings
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Interpersonal Intelligence

Strengths: Understanding and relating to other people

Those with interpersonal intelligence are good at understanding and interacting with
other people and are skilled at assessing the emotion, motivations, desires, and intentions of
those around them. Their characteristics include being good at oral communication, skilled at
non-verbal communication, seeing situations from different perspectives, creating positive
relationships with others, and being good at conflict resolutions (Cherry, 2019; Khemmani,
2015).
Characteristics of interpersonal intelligence include (Cherry, 2019):
 Good at communicating verbally
 Skilled at nonverbal communication
 Sees situations from different perspectives
 Creates positive relationships with others
 Good at resolving conflict in groups

3. Elements of Emotional Quotient

Although some authors suggest just four components of emotional intelligence –
perceiving emotion, understanding emotion, using emotion, and managing emotion – there are
five essential elements of EQ (Furnham, 2012, p. 17 – see figure 2; Hughes et al., 2012):
1. Self-awareness: the ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions, and
drives as well as their effects on others.
2. Self-regulation: the ability to control or reflect disruptive impulses and moods, the
propensity to suspend judgment – to think before acting
3. Empathy: awareness of others’ feelings, needs, and concerns; skills in treating people
according to their emotional reactions.
4. Motivation: emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate (to reach the goals)
5. Social skills: proficiency in managing relationships and building networks; an ability
to find common grounds and build rapports.

Personal competence
Self-awareness can be divided into emotional awareness, accurate self-assessment, and self-
confidence.
1. Emotional awareness refers to the recognition of your own emotion and its impact(s).
2. Self-assessment refers to the ability to identify your own strength and limits.
3. Self-confidence refers to strong sense of self-worth and capabilities.

Self-regulation can be divided into self-control, trustworthiness, conscientiousness, adaptability,

and innovation.
1. Self-control: you keep checking your impulsive and disruptive emotions.
2. Trustworthiness: you maintain honesty and integrity.
3. Conscientiousness: you are accountable for your own performance.
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4. Adaptability: you are flexible to suit any new/changing situation

5. Innovation: you are open-minded to or feel comfortable to novel information, ideas, and
approaches

Motivation can be divided into achievement drive, commitment, initiative, and optimism.
1. Achievement drive: this emotional tendency makes you strive to meet the standard or
improve to be excellent.
2. Commitment: you try to align your emotion with the goals of the groups or organization
3. Initiative: you are ready to act on opportunities under the guidance of your emotions.
4. Optimism: obstacles or setbacks cannot stop you from pursuing goals.

Empathy can be divided into understanding others, developing others, service orientation,
leveraging diversity, and political awareness.
1. Understanding others: you can sense other people’s perspectives and feelings, so you are
actively interested in their concerns.
2. Developing others: you can sense that people need development, so you bolster their
abilities.
3. Service orientation: you anticipate, realize, and meet other people’s needs.
4. Leveraging diversity: you develop opportunities within different kinds of people.
5. Political awareness: you notice or read your group’s current emotions and power
relationship.

Social skills (can be another long article, yet a brief account has been given here) can be divided
into influence, communication, conflict management, leadership, change catalyst, building
bonds, collaboration and cooperation, and team capabilities.
1. Influence: you use effective tactics to persuade people
2. Communication: you actively listen with open-mindedness and convincing message
3. Conflict management: you negotiate in the conflict and resolve the disagreements
4. Leadership: you can inspire and guide individuals and groups.
5. Change catalyst: you initiate or manage change (s)
6. Building bonds: you nurture important or instrumental relationships
7. Collaboration and cooperation: you work with others towards shared goals
8. Team capabilities: to pursue collective goals, you create group synergy

4. The Significance of EQ:

There are various points to account for benefits of competencies in EQ (Furnham, 2012):
1. High EQ individual is better at transferring ideas, intentions, and goals; what is more,
he or she is more assertive, articulate, and sensitive.
2. Teamwork, social skills, effective and efficient coping skills are strongly associated
with EQ, which is very essential at work because such skills can help people deal
with pressure, stress, and demands better.
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3. The supportive climates which increase the organizational commitment can be built
by high EQ business leaders. Eventually, such commitments can lead to success of
their workplace.
4. High EQ leaders can be more supportive and inspiring and can determine what their
followers feel and need.
5. When coping with problems and making decisions, high EQ managers are less prone
to destructive, negative, and defensive.

5. Conclusion and Recommendations for Developing “Emotional Quotient”

Since we all know that EQ is absolutely essential and necessary in daily communications,
conflict avoidance, job performances, and productivity. We should also be aware of media of
development of EQ. The following points are just some of the suggestions made by two famous
authors.
Caruso and Peter Salovey (2002) broke down four of the core skills involved in
developing emotional intelligence:
1. Identifying your feelings and those of others
2. Using feelings to guide your own thinking and reasoning, along with others
3. Understanding how feelings might change and develop as events unfold
4. Managing to stay open to the data of feelings and integrate this into decisions and
actions

Justin Bariso suggested 7 points to help you develop your emotional quotient
1. Reflect on their own emotions: they should take some time to sit down and reflect on
their emotion usage.
For instance, a. another driver jumps in and cuts you off on the motorway (speedy
national road); b. a close friend or colleague unexpectedly begins to cry; c. you feel
unfair since somebody blames you for something. Think about how you normally
respond to the above situations!
First, you should identify your own emotions and reactions so that you will become more
mindful and begin to control or process of building your control.
2. Ask other people for perspectives: it is not about being right or wrong; it is that you can
ask people how they view you and simply understand that people perceive things
differently; in the meantime, comprehend what will happen after such differences can
create.
The following examples show how you can ask for other perspectives: “Did I act as usual
while I was under an emotional situation? Could you describe how I acted?” Or you can
ask whether you were too sensitive to other people’s emotions and feelings or not during
that time.
Their answers could build your knowledge to adjust and adapt your solutions with them.
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3. Observe more: with the knowledge of EQ you have now, you can commence your
observation of your current emotions and use what other people have shared with you and
your self-reflection will help you be able to realize or understand what you are feeling.
Whenever you experience any new discoveries, you can repeat number 1 again! You can
write down and reflect the experience; it is, a learning mode helps to clarify your
thinking.
4. Use “why” technique to explore: it is very challenging to put yourself in someone else’s
shoes. Empathy and compassion are the qualities and valuable ingredients for healthy
relationships. So often, we forget or fail to discern how difficult a close friend or
colleague or partner is feeling and what he or she is going through. Therefore, we need to
ask how people feel when they experience something we have never had experiences.
You need to show your true empathy and compassion and to find out why your close
friend or partner feels the way he or she does, what he or she is dealing with what you
cannot see, and why he or she feel differently that what you do. If you cannot answer the
questions yet, take some period into consideration in order to truly understand what is
going on.
5. Use “the pause”: It is easier said than done. We have normally not thought through and
tempted to jump into the conclusion and to look really good at time. If you make that
practice, you can save time in meeting and make an email short. Stop for a moment and
think before you act or speak. Doing so, you can create the habit of “pause”.

6. Ask “What can I learn?” when being criticized and do not take offense. We all know
that it is never easy to get criticized. Criticism is often rooted in truth (truly it is rarely
delivered in an ideal manner). However, you have two options when receiving negative
feedback or criticism:

1. Keep your emotion aside and try to learn and understand the situations.
2. Get angry and let your emotion get best of you.

When you get criticism, it is best to consider the following points (whether ideal or not):
- What can I learn from this alternate viewpoint? (Put your personal feeling aside!)
- How can I utilize the negative feedback to help me or to improve my team? (Not just
focus on the delivery!)
The question is whether I should listen to criticism all the time? Especially, when the
criticism is false or is destructive (you lose your sense of self-worth). Remember if you goal to
truly get better, do not let your emotion control you or close your mind from negative feedback.
7. Practice, Practice, and Practice: learning to improve and control your emotional
intelligence cannot happen overnight. Of course, like any other skills, practice makes
better. Consistently practise these steps!
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Writer’s words: We communicate daily, and it is very unlikely that we can avoid conflicts in
our life. Therefore, after gaining knowledge from the concepts mentioned above, you are
recommended as follows:

1. Learn and relearn the emotional intelligence (Learning is lifelong).

2. Apply the emotional intelligence in daily life and work life.
3. Analyze your application every time you have employed EQ.
4. Transfer knowledge to your networking – siblings, (close) friends, and partners.

Meassnguon Saint has been working as an instructor and curriculum development member
since late 2009 at Western University, Cambodia, and a consultant to GEP
programme at Western Training Center since 2014, and he was a Program
Director at Cam- ASEAN International Institute in 2016. He has conducted
several trainings to the public and university students on various topics. He
is now doing his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at Chulalongkorn
University, Thailand, and completed his Master’s Degree in Educational
Leadership and Management from Charles Darwin University, Australia,
and his 2-year postgraduate programme, Development Studies, emphasizing Development Issues
and Research, from Royal University of Phnom Penh. He has compiled books – Writing at
Tertiary Level, Mastery Skills, Academic Writing A and B, and so on, done researches –
Improving Quality Teaching at Tertiary Level, The Impact of Thai Hazing on Students’
Academic Performance and Life Skills – and written a few articles for online journal –
Academia.edu, Why out With Students; Cooperative Learning and Conflict Resolution: Essential
21st Century Skills; Active Learning, and local journal: Language, Culture, and Communicative
Competence, and Curriculum Management: Why It Is Necessary for Educational Institutions?

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