Emotional Intelligence: Improving Efficiency and Engagement

Successful businesses know the value of Emotional Intelligence (E.I). Here we share with you what the four key components of E.I are. Followed by three key wins that can drive productivity and engagement with your people.

E.I can be learnt and developed by most people. By working on E.I, businesses can improve communication and gain a genuine sense of engagement. In turn, efficiency will inevitably improve. But what is E.I?

Daniel Goleman Ph.D. is considered one of the leading experts in the field and author of the best-selling book ‘Emotional Intelligence.’ defines it as: “the capacity for recognising your own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves and for managing emotions well in ourselves and our relationships. 

The Four Key Components of E.I:

    1. Self-Awareness – The ability to recognise your own emotions, and how they affect your thoughts and behaviour. This involves having a genuine knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses and an appropriate level of self-belief.
    2. Self-Management – This domain is about choosing how to respond to your own emotions. It is about taking control and being responsible for yourself, your emotions and how they impact yourself and others. It also involves ability to be flexible, and to adapt to change.
    3. Social Awareness – In this domain you are able to tune into others, their emotions, needs and perspectives. Consequently, you can pick up on subtle emotional cues and have the ability to empathise. Above all, you will gain stronger interpersonal skills.
    4. Relationship Management – You know how to combine points one to three to develop and maintain good relationships. This helps you to communicate clearly, inspire and influence others. It also helps you to work well in a team and manage conflict.

Unlike your Intelligence Quotient level (I.Q.) which is said to be fixed from the age of 20, your Emotional Quotient or E.Q. (The measure of Emotional Intelligence) can be developed. How then can developing your E.I. be useful in business?

Three Measures of Success

    1. Performance
      Your decision making and problem solving skills will improve. As a result, you can harness employee potential and increase performance by working on E.Q. Leading to people feeling empowered, which ensures high morale.
    2. Communication
      Those who have developed or have naturally high E.Q. will take feedback well. Therefore, they are able to deliver it in a way that will be productive. Therefore, they can improve ability to empathise, and recognise their own and other’s emotions. Allowing them to adjust their own communication methods to best effect.
    3. Efficiency
      With greater E.I. comes motivation and awareness and therefore success. Notably emotionally intelligent people are more optimistic. Increasing ability to rise to challenges and remain positive in challenging times, essential qualities for all staff but fundamentally important for leaders and managers. But those who lack it may find their staff increasingly dissatisfied at work. As the saying goes – people do not leave bad jobs, they leave bad managers.

 

                           

Closing Thoughts

There are plenty of studies and research which say that developing Emotional Intelligence in the workplace is certainly a wise choice for most organisations who want to be productive and efficient. Supported by Daniel Goleman when he says: “By teaching people to tune in to their emotions with intelligence and to expand their circles of caring, we can transform organisations from the inside out and make a positive difference in our world.”

Further Reading

Have a look at how to increase your own Emotional Intelligence here: How to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence at Work (stl-training.co.uk)

How Soft Skills Make an Organisation Effective

The drive for organisations to be more productive is a never-ending challenge, and here we will show you why soft skills are vital in making any organisation more efficient.

Having technical skills are no doubt important but equally what employers need are the interpersonal and people abilities too.

Soft skills are the people and interpersonal skills required in most jobs. Both technical and soft skills are necessary, but they are quite different. Technical skills are easy to measure and can be learnt, the softer skills can also be developed but require practice and are not as easy to measure – but matter hugely.

Improved Communication

An employee may have the most incredible technical abilities and knowledge, but if they cannot communicate effectively then their company will struggle to succeed. We all communicate slightly differently. Being able to adapt your style of communication to different people so that your message is clearly understood by all, will help you to influence and persuade others, improve the sense of team engagement, and lead to higher performance.

Team Building

Creating a cohesive team comes from great open communication, explaining and getting buy in from people about how their role fits into the grander scheme is essential and hugely important. It often releases discretionary effort and sense of direction and pride. An effective team resolves disputes with speed, fairness, and trust. Effective teams are far more accountable and understand a business’s priorities, this can all come from a good leader and/or from qualities of the team itself.

Change

Any organisation that wants to successfully thrive through change will need people with interpersonal skills to help navigate to the end goal. Leaders and staff who are able to communicate regularly and honestly with their employees is imperative; especially as many handle the complexities and disturbance of change in very different ways. Celebrating and recognising successful milestones in a change journey and the efforts of people is just one way to make the journey smoother.

 

 

Improved Decision Making

Having the ability and skills to make efficient and effective decisions some find easy, whilst others with training, experience, confidence and sometimes bravery can learn. Without these skills decisions are often either not made or made in haste. Learning how to problem solve, using intuition, leadership and assertiveness all play a part in decision making. Also as with many observed positive behaviours, others see our decisiveness and therefore often become more confident decision makers themselves – Behaviour breeds behaviour!

 

Reduced turnover of staff

Hiring staff takes time and is an expensive process, keeping great staff is what most businesses strive for. The skills of motivation, staff development, praise, encouragement, emotional intelligence, leadership, conflict management, compassion, collaboration and managing staff welfare all count hugely to people. Those who possess and have learnt excellent interpersonal skills will find that navigating these subjects and issues well will not go unnoticed by others. The morale of those working in a supported and challenging environment is clearly a bonus to all resulting in productive, motivated, and valued people who stay.

Final thoughts

We hope you have found that these attributes of soft skills can help your organisation be more effective. It’s all about people – our most valuable asset.

As Richard Branson said, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”