Thursday, 1 October 2015

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

More and more companies are seeing that encouraging emotional intelligence skills is a vital component of any organization's management philosophy. 'You don't compete with products alone anymore, but how well you use your people,' a manager at Telia, the Swedish telecommunications company, put it to me. And Linda Keegan, vice president for executive development at Citibank, told me, 'Emotional intelligence is the underlying premise for all management training'...A 1997 survey of benchmark practices among major corporations, done by the American Society for Training and Development, found that four out of five companies are trying to promote emotional intelligence in their employees through training and development, when evaluating performance, and in hiring...If so, why write this book? Because many or most organizations' efforts to encourage emotional intelligence have been poor, wasting vast amounts of time, energy, and money...My mission in writing this book is to act as a guide to the scientific case for working with emotional intelligence-as individuals, in groups, as organizations. At every step I have sought to validate the science with the testimony of people in jobs and organizations of all kinds, and their voices will be heard all along the way" (pp.7-13).
In this context, Daniel Goleman firstly defines emotional competence as a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work, and emotional intelligence as a potential for learning the practical skills that are based on its elements. Thus, throughout this invaluable book, he discusses the relationship between the five dimensions of emotional intelligence and the twenty-five emotional competencies as listed below:
A. Personal Competence- These competencies determine how we manage ourselves.
I- Self-Awareness- Knowing one's internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions.
1. Emotional awareness: Recognizing one's emotions and their effects.
2. Accurate self-assessment: Knowing one's strengths and limits.
3. Self-confidence: A strong sense of one's self-worth and capabilities.
II- Self-Regulation- Managing one's internal states, impulses, and resources.
4. Self-control: Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses in check.
5. Trustworthiness: Maintaining standards of honesty and integrity.
6. Conscientiousness: Taking responsibility for personal performance.
7. Adaptability: Flexibility in handling change.
8. Innovation: Being comfortable with novel ideas, approaches, and new information.
III- Motivation- Emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals.
9. Achievement drive: Striving to improve or meet a standard of excellence.
10. Commitment: Aligning with the goals of the group or organization.
11. Initiative: Readiness to act on opportunities.
12. Optimism: Persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks.
B- Social Competence- These competencies determine how we handle relationships.
IV- Empathy- Awareness of others' feelings, needs, and concerns.
13. Understanding others: Sensing others' feelings, and perspectives, and taking an active interest in their concerns.
14. Developing others: Sensing others' development needs and bolstering their abilities.
15. Service orientation: Anticipating, recognizing, and meeting customers' needs.
16. Leveraging diversity: Cultivating opportunities through different kinds of people.
17. Political awareness: Reading a group's emotional currents and power relationships.
V- Social Skills- Adeptness of inducing desirable responses in others.
18. Influence: Wielding effective tactics for persuasion.
19. Communication: Listening openly and sending convincing messages.
20. Conflict management: Negotiating and resolving disagreements.
21. Leadership: Inspiring and guiding individuals and groups.
22. Change catalyst: Initiating or managing change.
23. Building bonds: Nurturing instrumental relationships.
24. Collaboration and cooperation: Working with others toward shared goals.
25. Team capabilities: Creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals.
Daniel Goleman writes that "this list offers a way to inventory our strengths and to pinpoint competencies we may want to bolster. Part 2 and 3 of the book give more detail and insight into each of the competencies, showing how they look when displayed in full power-or when they are lacking. Readers may want to turn directly to the competencies most relevant to their interests; the chapters describing them do build on one another to an extent (as do the competencies they describe), but they need not be read in a fixed order."
Strongly recommended.

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