How to help your staff improve their emotional intelligence
1. Ask yourself
Your organisation will undoubtedly be burdened with people whose emotional intelligence isn’t all it should be. In colloquial terms, some people can be ‘jerks’:
- Mary finishes decorating the office for Christmas. Her colleagues praise her efforts. But her supervisor says: ‘It’s okay I guess, but the lights should have been red and the rest green. But I suppose it’ll have to do this time. Anyway, the budget’s too tight this month to change anything.’
- Your staff greet each other with a cheery ‘g’day’, ‘good morning’ or ‘hi!’ - all except Bill, who says nothing and usually avoids eye contact.
- ‘I’ll be taking a fortnight off to get married,’ says Sue. ‘Fine,’ replies her co-worker. ‘You might as well get your first marriage out of the way.’
- Jack yells abuse at Fred because once again Fred fails to return his dictionary.
Do you recognise any of these people? Did you know that, with a little effort, it’s now possible to create an emotionally intelligent organisation?
2. Research says
EQ is better at predicting workplace success than IQ.
Up until your fifties, unlike IQ, the older you get, the more emotionally intelligent you become.
3. Measuring Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence, according to Dr Reuven Bar-On, is ‘an array of non cognitive capabilities, competencies and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with daily environment demands and pressures and helps predict one’s success in life, including personal and professional pursuits’. …
