Leadership Skills

Social Intelligence Behaviors

Karl Albrecht (Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success; Beyond IQ, Beyond EI, Applying Multiple Intelligence Theory to Human Interaction, 2009) introduced the terms toxic and nourishing to show the contrast between the two types of behavior.

• Toxic behaviors cause others to feel:
  • devalued
  • inadequate
  • angry
  • frustrated
  • guilty
• Nourishing behaviors cause others to feel:
  • valued
  • capable
  • loved
  • respected
  • appreciated

You are likely to know people who are nourishing (i.e., those whose company you seek) and those who are toxic (i.e., those people you want to avoid). Improving your social intelligence will help you develop more nourishing behaviors and decrease those toxic behaviors. .

Karl Albrecht also identified three terms related to social intelligence: Social Halitosis, Social Flatulence, and Social Dandruff.

Social Halitosis

Social Halitosis is equivalent to inauthentic, inconsiderate behavior––conversational bad breath.

• This would be someone who invades your space and keeps talking with you even though you have tried to end the discussion.
• People such as these are completely incapable of seeing how they are disregarding the social rights of others.
• They treat others as things, entities, non-beings, and they see others as only there for their own selfish purposes.
• We have no obligation to listen to these people.

This is not directed at sales personnel, as some of these behaviors are part of their job descriptions. It is directed towards those who do not treat people as human beings.

Social Flatulence

Social Flatulence may be defined as insensitivity and lack of situational awareness (or possibly lack of respect for accepted norms of behavior).

• This would be someone who shouts out a loud, inappropriate remark.
• This might be the one who asks the heavy set woman when she is due.
• It is ignorance of appropriate social behavior.
• It is the equivalent of a social fart.

This may come from someone who has no respect for accepted norms of behavior.

Social Dandruff

Social Dandruff may be defined as behavior that selfishly imposes one's interests on others.

• This would include music blaring from the next house, car, or cubicle.
• It may be the coworker who comes in every day, sits down, and talks with you as though that is all you have to do.
• This may be those who ask favors inappropriate to the relationship, or the one who always decides where to go for lunch.

These people "spray" everyone in sight or within hearing of their views.

These all come from the same thing:

Lack of insight or concern for
one's impact on others.

These represent self-centered, selfish, and self-serving behaviors. People with social halitosis, social flatulence, or social dandruff lack consideration for others.