It was a pleasure and great opportunity to be a guest with the esteemed host Ms. Cyba Audi on the morning show “Al Sabah with Cyba” (The Morning with Cyba) from Dubai. We introduced the topic of Emotional intelligence (EI). A skill that was once soft but is slowly proving to be a necessity and a gage of growth and success. EI is gaining momentum and quickly becoming a competitive advantage to companies and leaders that implement EI as a criteria for hiring and developing employees and leaders alike. In fact EI is starting to impact, growth, market share, productivity, employee engagement and many crucial success factors to any organization.
Defining Emotional intelligence is always a good starting point to insure alignment on the topic discussed. EI, simply speaking, is the process of understanding and regulating emotions to assist in improving the quality of the thought process in oneself while understanding the emotions of others to assist in cultivating better relationships with others.
EI is divided into two parts and each part is divided into two components. The first part is related to the self and that is divided into self-awareness and emotional regulation. The second part is related to the others and it is divided into social awareness and cultivating relationships. Empathy falls under the social aspect of EI.
The first component of EI is self-awareness and a key point that was highlighted was the fact that any decision we make passes through an emotional filter first. Hence, it is imperative that this filter is accurate to improve the quality and accuracy of our decisions. To achieve that one must understand themselves and understand their triggers and their emotions.
We further highlighted that it is important for professionals and and even more so leaders to regulate their emotions instead of controlling them. Controlling emotions in a suppressive manner prevents the person from processing what they are feeling and acting accordingly. In general, emotions serve as a feedback process; they help extract the data and the information that the emotion is communicating for the sake of understanding how to behave and what decisions to make or actions to take.
One important consideration is that leaders and people of power have the ability to pass on emotions to their team members and this process is called “Emotion contagion.” Therefore, accuracy of emotions and regulation are crucial to the well-being of any relationship and organization.
Finally and perhaps the most important take away about emotional intelligence is that Emotional intelligence is a skill that can be adopted, developed and cultivated in any individual that is interested in improving their relationship with themselves and others. In addition a high emotional quotient can contribute directly in a more successful career and a closer connection with others.
If you’d like to know more about Emotional Intelligence, feel free to drop me a line.
Here is also a link to the interview in Arabic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOwNgQ0rMaM