Read this book.

This one goes out to my professor for encouraging us all to read a book called Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.

I won’t lie…perhaps we were supposed to have read it during our first few weeks but somehow time always ran out and excuses stacked up. Now that I’m quarantined and can’t do a whole lot, I thought to myself that maybe I should do all the things I have always said I wanted to do if I had time.

Reading has become one of my favorite things, but I never seem to have time for it. To say the least, everyone should take a moment to read this book because there’s more than enough wisdom. This book is filled with information but I decided to highlight a couple of things that stood out and resonated with me.

One of the first things that the book does is it introduces the five components of emotional intelligence at work and defines them.

1. Self-awareness: having a deep understanding of one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs and drivers. It’s important to recognize that self-aware people are honest yet frank in admitting failure and look for constructive criticism.

2. Self-regulation: this is the component that frees us from being prisoners of our feelings. This is when people find that they are in control of their feelings and impulses and can create an environment in which they can be fair and efficient.

3. Motivation: the drive to achieve beyond expectations. There needs to be passion and energy, as well as persistence and a level of eagerness to explore.

4. Empathy: thoughtfully considering employee’s feelings in the process of making intelligent decisions. This is important for the increasing use of teams, the rapid pace of globalization and the growing need to retain talent.

5. Social skill: friendliness with a purpose; moving people in the direction you desire. With social skills, people tend to be very effective at managing relationships when they can understand and control their own emotions and empathize with others.

The idea behind these components is a leader’s mood and behavior that ultimately can drive performance in addition to creating a specific work environment. With that in mind, you want a leader with high levels of emotional intelligence because it creates an environment that allows for trust, healthy risk-taking and learning flourish. Being a student who is currently looking for employment, I took this to heart and really placed an emphasis on this as you would like your boss to have this level of emotional intelligence, specifically in this time where company culture is huge. People want to work for those who place value on their employees and their environment.

Right along the lines of behavior but more directed towards mood. If you didn’t believe that your mood can be affected by others’ moods, you’ll quickly change your mind after reading this book. The book dives into what is called an open-loop system, meaning that we rely on external sources and connections with other people to determine our moods. Although our emotional skills have a genetic component, experience plays a large role in how we express ourselves.

Goleman describes five more steps in the form of questions that are designed to re-wire the brain and link directly to our mood:

Who do I want to be?

Who am I now?

How do I get from here to there?

How do I make change stick?

Who can help me?

This ties into process fairness.

Process fairness is described as “how much input employees believe they have in the decision-making process, how employees believe decisions are made and implemented and lastly, how managers behave.”

These three parts give the employer a chance to be heard, which is important in a company and something that shouldn’t be overlooked. Instead of turning to money to solve an issue, it could be beneficial to turn to employees to ask them for their opinion rather than dismiss what their thoughts or explanation may be on the new initiative, etc. Everyone wants to be heard.

The book goes on to discuss various scenarios but leaves us with steps that will make fair process the norm and able to happen in a company.

3 steps to make that shift:

1. Address the knowledge gaps

2. Invest in training

3. Make process fairness a top priority

The book then hones in on this question: How can a good leader make a bad decision or judgment?

The answer is explained with these three red flag conditions:

1. The presence of inappropriate self interest

2. The presence of distorting attachments

3. The presence of misleading memories

There’s a lot more that the book dives into and so much that goes behind the concept of emotional intelligence. After reading the book, I wanted to do a little more digging as the concept was fascinating to me.

The last thing I will share was the link I came across.

This article ties it all together by discussing the 13 signs of high emotional intelligence.

A couple that stuck out to me were:

You pause.

You benefit from criticism.

You praise others.

Not every leader has high emotional intelligence but a good leader does.