The first step for employees to build emotional intelligence (EI) is being aware of their emotions and emotional responses. For example, workers who understand when their anxiety levels are high can easily evaluate their emotions. Then communicate how they’re feeling in a way that promotes healthy coexistence in the workplace.
Findings in a survey by Talentsmart show that 90% of top performers at the workplace have a high emotional intelligence, according to a report on Forbes. There’s no doubt having a high intelligence quotient can help job seekers land their dream job. However, to sustain and develop their careers, employees need emotional intelligence.
Today’s hiring managers know that emotional intelligence is one of the reasons good talent stays in the organization. People with high emotional intelligence or EI understand their feelings and know how to control them. They can also perceive and understand other people’s emotions, and possess good problem-solving skills. For these reasons, improving emotional intelligence is vital to promoting engagement and productivity. With that said, here are 7 ways in which employees can improve their emotional intelligence.
Improve Emotional Intelligence By Developing Self-Awareness
The first step for employees to build emotional intelligence (EI) is being aware of their emotions and emotional responses. For example, workers who understand when their anxiety levels are high can easily evaluate their emotions. Then communicate how they’re feeling in a way that promotes healthy coexistence in the workplace.
How to develop self-awareness
Processing feelings and labeling emotions is vital to building self-awareness. It’s also important to know how to respond to certain emotions. For instance, if you act negatively or positively to feelings, understand the emotional motivation behind that reaction. Once employees build self-awareness, they should work on other components of emotional intelligence, like relationship management, social awareness, and self-management.
Improve Listening Skills To Boost Emotional Intelligence
In today’s professional world, communication is vital to improving employee engagement and productivity. For this reason, it’s important for workers and managers alike to possess good listening skills. This means understanding what someone is saying during a conversation.
Ways to be a good listener
When communicating in the workplace, team members should commit time to understand the deeper meaning behind conversations. If you’re an employee, ask yourself what the other person is trying to express through their emotions. Remember, taking the time to engage others in meaningful conversations and listening to them before responding can help establish healthy and long-term relationships.
Being Empathetic Is Key To High Emotional Intelligence
Emotionally intelligent people strive to be empathetic. This emotional skill entails understanding someone else’s feelings and trying to bridge the gap. When employees practice empathy, they can respond to each other in a respectful and comforting way.
Practicing empathy in the workplace improves communication and builds stronger relationships. However, listening to someone without jumping to conclusions can be challenging. Fortunately, there are simple rules workers can follow to show empathy.
Rules of empathy
The single most important rule of empathy is to embrace not knowing. Ideally, employees should avoid relating to one another by expressing what they’re feeling personally. For example, if someone lost a loved one, don’t respond by saying you know how it feels.
To develop emotional intelligence, an employee should stop, listen, and realize they don’t know what another team member is feeling. There should be willingness among workers to learn and understand each other before responding. Other rules of empathy at the workplace include accepting radical differences, commitment, and being a part of a community.
Understand That Effective Communication Is An Important Aspect of Emotional Intelligence
Another important characteristic of emotional intelligence is knowing what to write or say and when to convey information. With that said, every employee should learn ways emotionally intelligent people communicate.
How to communicate with Emotional Intelligence
Instead of sending regular messages asking for favors, employees should foster a culture for brief conversations. Knowing how the other person is feeling and whether they need help shows personal interest in their wellbeing. As a result, team members stay engaged to handle tasks efficiently and solve problems quickly.
For example, a team leader can build strong bonds at the workplace by communicating project goals. That way, team members stay on the same page and work together towards achieving the company’s objectives. Furthermore, employees should learn how to show gratitude and remain open to other people’s perspectives and apologize when they are wrong.
Practice Emotional Intelligence Through Expression
Failure to speak up at the workplace can have a significant impact on career development. When employees don’t express their emotions, it shows a lack of innovative ideas. Many employees even miss promotion opportunities despite having the required skill sets. So, how can workers express themselves at work?
Steps to express emotions responsibly
Learning how to practice mindfulness at the workplace is vital. Workers who are aware of what’s happening around them or living in the moment express emotions positively when speaking. Everyone at the workplace should not be harsh, critical, or negative when giving opinions. Expressing emotions responsibly also entails understanding factors that motivate certain reactions.
When employees recognize factors that boost their motivation, they can express their emotions and needs in a way others understand them. For example, let’s say a manager is evaluating the effectiveness of a training program through a post-training survey.
Teams need to evaluate what they’ve learned during the training and areas they think need improvement. Then, they need to provide feedback by rating the training as effective, not effective, or neutral. This trick helps one to express their feelings and expectations with a sense of positivity.
Leverage Criticism To Build Emotional Intelligence
Handling criticism is a common issue employees need to consider when improving their emotional intelligence. Typically, people react negatively when criticized, and this can cause problems in personal relationships. But instead of getting upset, workers should learn to embrace criticism positively.
Ways emotionally intelligent employees handle criticism
When criticized, employees need to step back and ask how they could have done better. It’s also critical to determine the reason behind the anger after receiving negative feedback and how to avoid it in the future. Other ways to handle criticism in the office include not dwelling on the criticism, apologizing conservatively, and showing appreciation.
Encourage Emotional Intelligence In Teams
Apart from improving personal emotional quotient, employees should strive to build group emotional intelligence. Group EI revolves around small actions that make a huge difference. It’s about promoting teamwork and collaboration in the workplace by showing empathy.
Building Emotional Intelligence among team members
To build group emotional intelligence, team members should acknowledge unexpressed tension and false harmony. Treat coworkers with respect and create room for everyone to share opinions. Emotionally intelligent groups also recognize that it’s not about team members working long hours to beat project deadlines. It’s about showing gratitude for their commitment. Doing so helps facilitate a healthy working environment, which promotes employee happiness at work.
Conclusion
Having a stronghold of emotional intelligence is crucial in today’s professional world. In simple terms, emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, assess, understand, and manage personal emotions and those of others.
To boost emotional intelligence employees need to build self-awareness, use criticism to their advantage, develop team norms, know how to express themselves, show empathy, and communicate effectively.
