Being subjected to all sorts of people in our daily lives, be it at our workplace or social settings, it becomes imperative for us to deal with them appropriately, both in the moral as well as practical aspect. Let’s take a small example here. Doug, a colleague of yours, is extremely opinionated and makes rude remarks against you.
What do you think is the best way to deal with a situation like this?
The answers would range from ignorance to blunt confrontation. However, there are other factors to be considered here, on which the appropriate response would be based. While this is just one small example, there are numerous other small as well as large level events in our lives that tend to stifle us.
Emotional Intelligence was introduced as a concept by Daniel Goleman. He vouched to improve the “people skills” in the general public by covering four aspects of the emotional system of human beings. And rightfully so, it has gained a lot of popularity, especially with the immense spread of corporate culture.
So, to help our readers with building this skill of theirs to succeed in various facets of life, here are the four key components of emotional intelligence and how to improve them.
4 Components Of Emotional Intelligence
1. Self-awareness
While we are quick to define ourselves when asked to during interviews, self-awareness as a term is something that’s grossly misunderstood at times. Every religious scripture and every knowledgeable person alike have emphasized on the significance of self-awareness. Self-awareness is the conscious comprehension and knowledge of one’s feelings, character, and reactions.
Self-awareness can be considered to be comprised of three components;
- Self-assessment: The ability of one to have a realistic realization of one’s abilities and strengths
- Emotional Self-awareness: The ability of one to identify one’s emotions and their impact on one’s life
- Self-confidence: The realization of one’s own self worth and trust in one’s abilities
In order to improve self-awareness, use the following methods
- Journal your feelings. Journaling has an immense capability to make one aware of what is going on inside of one’s mind.
- Slow things down, break down your decision making into smaller steps and be sure to make mental notes of the same
2. Self-management
Every one of us is responsible for managing something or the other in their lives, one of which is our lives themselves. But self-management is something that has again not gained the share of attention that it is supposed to.
It is comprised of five competencies;
- Self-control: Having a grip on the disruptive emotional impulses one exhibit.
- Transparency: One’s ability to communicate one’s point with honesty and integrity.
- Adaptability: One’s ability to adapt to the various changes that occur in our surroundings.
- Achievement Orientation: One’s internal drive to achieve a standard of excellence.
- Initiative: One’s inner orientation of taking the first step towards achieving a goal.
Self-control is developed and improved using the following methods;
- Know your values, and never compromise on any of them
- Self-accountability is another important method to incorporate to improve self-control. Having the ability to hold yourself accountable for something helps you be more efficient and achieve your goals with a higher level of excellence
3. Social Awareness
Social awareness has more to do with the organizational and professional aspects of the human emotional system. It is comprised of three components;
- Empathy: One’s ability to feel and understand other people’s emotions.
- Service Orientation: One’s ability to recognize and provide necessary services per customer needs.
- Organizational awareness: One’s ability to navigate relationships and connections in the organizational front.
In order to improve social awareness, the following tricks could help you;
- Learning conflict resolution.
- Noticing the body language of other people while interacting with them.
- Responding to the feelings of other people and not just the words.
4. Relationship Management
This is the ability of humans to manage and navigate the relationships one develops during their lives. Since maintaining a relationship requires effort from all parties involved, one’s ability can be safely measured through the five components of relationship management;
- Visionary leadership: The ability of one to inspire a vision in a group of people
- Developing others: One’s ability to impart a certain skill in the people one is involved with
- Influence: The level till which one has the ability to use persuasive strategies
- Change catalyst: Ability to up-bring change and sustain it
- Conflict management: One’s ability to manage the rift and differences amongst team-members for efficient functioning
For building relationship management capabilities, the following are key ways;
- Practice conflict management techniques and learn to find common ground when working in teams
- Improve your communication skills, master your body language and the ability to note others’ as well
We hope this article helps you bring radical change in your ability to deal with difficult situations by practicing emotional intelligence.
