Leadership Skills

EI: Moving Forward

Emotional intelligence is about using your emotions wisely. It is not about ignoring your emotions, but rather it is about using your emotions as a stimulus. When we meet someone, we decide in the first few seconds whether we like them or not. That is information gathered purely from our emotions.

Rather than seeing people as annoyances or hindrances to your daily life, what if they contributed positively. Now, think about each of the people you work with or deal with daily.

• What if each person was a special gift to you?
• What does each person give you (positively)?
• How much richer is your life because of that person?

Emotional intelligence involves four components:

Compassion by Daniel Goleman

Final Thoughts

In 2012 Engage News (*http://engage.calibreapps.com/tag/employee-happiness) reported that unhappiness in the workplace costed employers $300 billion due to lost productivity. Happiness is seen by employers as contributing to productivity. Engage News also reported that positive brains are 31% more productive. (Consider that the next time you are taking a test.)

Emotions can be intelligent and help us make decisions
because they contain "data."

We feel before we think.

Psychologists at Iowa State University found that venting increased aggression. People in both the study and control groups were insulted by a "peer." They then were allowed to punish him with a loud noise.

• Those in the study group punched a bag for 10 minutes (vented) before pressing the button
• Those in the control group waited for 10 minutes

Guess which group pushed the noise button the longest?

We often think that venting is a good thing, but in reality, it may not be. In the study above, the venters pushed the button for far longer than the control group.