Leadership Skills

EI: Empathy

The next component of emotional intelligence is to understand how emotions impact your life and others' lives. Once we are aware of and able to manage our emotions, we will be able to understand and interact better with other people

This week, take some time for people watching. This could be observing your family and friends, or you could go to your local store or event. You will need to be close enough to hear the converstaion. Observe two people talking forat least five minutes about something dramatic that happened recently.

Ask yourself these questions.

• Were the listeners respectful? Is that normally the case when speaking with others?
• Were the speakers respectful. Is that normal?
• Was the message understood clearly?
• Were any emotions involved in the message (either as the listener or receiver)? If so, what were they?
• Did either person display empathy? (Empathy is recognizing and responding appropriately to someone else's emotions.)

When we display empathy, we create empathy in others. Empathy goes a long way in building relationships and demonstrating understanding.

Remember that you can acknowledge someone's emotions while NOT taking those emotions on as your own. You can understand someone else's emotions and where they come from, but you are NOT responsible for those emotions.