Speaker 1: What is emotional intelligence and how can we develop it? Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, comprehend, manage and handle emotions. This ability starts with recognising and managing one's own emotions and then those of others. Emotional intelligence is also known as the emotional quotient or EQ. The term has been around since the 1960s but was made popular in 1995 by Daniel Goleman and his best-selling book Emotional Intelligence. EQ or EI differs from IQ. IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient and IQ is a score of a person's problem-solving ability measured through standardised psychometric tests. IQ assesses a person's capacity for reasoning, which is useful, but what IQ does not assess is how a person interacts with others. That is where EQ becomes important. Emotional intelligence is important as it is foundational to all relationships. To relate to people we need to understand our emotions and relate to those of others. But EQ is of particular importance for leaders. Leadership at its most basic level is influence and therefore if you want to influence people you need to know how they tick. I've learned, often the hard way, that clear communication is not necessarily effective communication. If you do not gauge the emotions of yourself or your audience then you are unlikely to get the result that you want or expect. Emotional intelligence gives you the capability to perceive the emotional content of what people are communicating and what they need. That allows the manager or leader to interact effectively with an individual or team, gauging how they are feeling and what they need in terms of support, encouragement or help in order for them to develop and perform at high levels. But EQ is more important than just that. People with higher emotional intelligence, no matter what their leadership responsibilities, have better mental health, more success at work and better relationships. So how do you improve your EQ? Some people seem naturally more emotionally aware, but we can all get better at reading our own emotions and those of others. As with everything in life, you can improve EQ through deliberate practice. Let's use the Goldman model to explore this skill and how we can develop and improve emotional intelligence. Goldman's model, also known as the mixed model, has five components. These are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. So let's quickly look at each one of those in turn. 1. Self-awareness. Self-awareness can be improved by a better understanding of our strengths and weaknesses and by undertaking reflective exercises such as journaling. 2. Self-regulation. One very effective way to improve self-regulation of emotions is by using breathing techniques. It's worth knowing and practising a couple to see what works best for you and if you are unsure about where to start then there are some methods on the website for you to try out. 3. Motivation. For understanding motivation it is important to understand our personal values, priorities and passions. Setting goals is another great way for building momentum. You can add visualisation to this goal setting to enhance the motivational effect as you try and see and feel what achieving your goal will be like. 4. Empathy. If you want to improve your empathy then start by working on your listening skills. There are lots of ways to do this but one simple way to start is to practise giving someone your full attention and not interrupting. Understanding body language will also help you with your empathy as you will be able to pick up on non-verbal signals too. 5. Social skills. Social skills are generally dependent upon building rapport. Building rapport starts with being at ease with ourselves and then carrying that authenticity into our interactions. You'll find here that as with empathy, good listening will really help you build rapport. We can also work on improving our verbal communication, whether that is conversation or public speaking. Either way, try to get honest feedback on how well you are communicating so you can improve each time. Those are just a few short ideas of things to help improve in each area. You'll find further ideas in the full article available on the website. And remember, no matter how emotionally intelligent we might be, there is always room for improvement. Remembering Goldman's model can help us work out where we want to develop most, be that in self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy or social skills. So why not pick one of these areas to work on right now and make one small step today in having better emotional intelligence. If you would like to find out more on this subject or about other leadership models and decision-making tools, then click on the link or head over to the website at www.therightquestions.co. And if you found this helpful, please do like and subscribe.