EMOTIONAL

INTELLIGENCE IN A
WORKPLACE

BY AMINAT AZEEZ
Emotional Intelligence :(otherwise known as emotional quotient or
EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions
in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively,
empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.

Emotional intelligence helps you build stronger relationships,

succeed at school and work, and achieve your career and personal
goals. It can also help you to connect with your feelings, turn
intention into action, and make informed decisions about what
matters most to you.
SKILLS OF EMOTIONAL
INTELLIGENCE
What I see..
• Self Awareness
• Social Awareness

What I do…
• Self Management
• Relationship Management.
SELF-AWARENESS:
• It’s the ability to accurately perceive your own emotions.

• Stay aware of your emotions as they happen

• Keep on top of how you tend to respond to specific situations and people

Thomas Carlyle: “The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none”

HOW TO IMPROVE SELF-AWARENESS

1. See yourself for who you are (what do you think and feel)
2. Track and backtrack your emotions in a difficult conversation or meeting
3. Own your actions- take full responsibility for what you say and do.
SELF-MANAGEMENT:
• Ability to use awareness of emotions to stay flexible and
positively direct your behaviour.
• Managing your emotional reactions to all situations and
people.
“The first and best victory is to conquer self” Plato.

Emotional Triggers
What are the triggers that make you want to
blow an emotional gasket?
 SOCIAL AWARENESS
• Ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people
• Understand what is really going on
• Understanding what other people are thinking and feeling even if you don’t feel
the same way.
Social Awareness requires empathy.
Empathy is the ability to see the world from another’s point of view and to identify
and understand another’s situation, feelings and motives.
“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic
with the striving and tolerant with the weak and wrong. Sometime in your life, you
will have been all of these” Gautama Buddha.
Improving Social Awareness
• Spend extra time observing , asking and listening
• Maintain eye contact
• Give the speaker your full attention
• Playback and summarize.
• Try on their shoes
• Suspend your judgement
• Read body language
• Decipher emotions in speech tone.
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
• Ability to use awareness of your emotions and emotions of others to “If your emotional
abilities aren’t in hand,
manage interactions successfully if you don’t have self
• Ensure clear communication and effective handling of conflict awareness, if you are
not able to manage
your distressing
“People aren’t either wicked or noble. They are like chef salads with emotions, if you can’t
have empathy and have
good things and bad things chopped up and mixed together in a effective relationships,
vinaigrette of confusion and conflict” Lemony Snicket. then no matter how
smart you are, you are
not going to get very
IMPROVING RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT far” Dr. Daniel
Goleman
• Seek to build high quality trust relationships
• Try to discover what role emotions are playing in your interactions
with others
• If you sense tension or other emotional reactions in a person’s body
language or speech, ask questions to seek to understand.
• Be quick to settle disputes, differences of opinion and
misunderstandings..
Why Emotional Intelligence is important in a workplace
• Being emotionally intelligent gives you the ability to understand non-verbal communication. You have the chance to fix a situation before it
becomes a problem. For instance, if you notice a coworker is displaying non-verbal signs of sadness, you might take them aside to
understand what is going on.

• Understanding emotions allows you to be self-aware of personal emotions. You can use this skill to adjust your behavior before it becomes an
issue for a client or coworker. If you know you had a rough night previously, you might attempt to change your behavior by shifting your
focus towards more positive feelings.

• Practicing emotional intelligence can help you develop strong interpersonal skills that can help your team and inspire your whole company.
Emotions are contagious, and displaying explicit motivation, empathy, responsibility and teamwork could encourage your team to follow
along.

• Having an emotionally intelligent workforce promotes progress. When people are empathetic and understanding of each other’s emotions,
employees can make decisions with ease and complete tasks more efficiently.

• Emotional intelligence can lead to further career development like pay raises and promotions. Emotional intelligence shares many of the
same traits as leadership skills. Actively displaying abilities such as patience, active listening, positivity and empathy can help you advance to
a leadership role.
Facial expressions are a universal language of emotion. Which one
these two people will you like to ask for assistance, advice, correct
a mistake and yelled at, when they are in this kind of mood?