Importance of Emotional Intelligence at Work

Emotional Intelligence (EI) goes a long way in developing a resilient organizational culture. Needless to say, organizational culture is the backbone of an organization. Amidst market volatility, tough competition, multifarious compliance issues, corporate social responsibility, and heightening customer expectancies, organizations need to be responsive, responsible, and robust. This is possible when an organization focuses on the organizational culture accepting people as the foundation of a resilient organizational culture.

With higher EI at the individual level, the organization can develop a stronger emotional intelligence at the group level and consequently at the organizational level. When the EI at the organizational level looks good and optimistic, the organization grows consistently.

The aspects of EI include several aspects of human life. Let’s have a look:

Self-awareness

One must know one’s basic traits. Self-awareness makes one more efficient and collaborative. If you know you get impatient quickly, you should admit it to the team. Self-awareness is like an internal audit of the books of accounts of a company. When you are self-aware, you know your strengths and weaknesses. You start living in the present moment. You try to find out your core competencies that become pivotal to your career. Self-awareness improves EI.

Self-care

One must know what is good for their personal life and professional career and they must act likewise to develop healthy practices that would help to develop their personal life and professional career. People who are concerned about self-care physically and psychologically healthy persons. They know the way to bring work-life balance. They are straightforward in demanding something or saying “no” to what they cannot. Self-care is not easy. It needs regular practice and self-awareness. Self-care enhanced EI and makes the workplace vibrant and enjoyable.

Self-regulation

One must have the ability to control their emotions – at least to some extent. Anger, hatred, or sadness arises out of an unexpected interaction or situation. Again, a situation can induce you to take an unethical step or push you to tough competition. All these are normal in personal or professional life. When some disturbance occurs in your personal life that inevitably interferes with your professional life and vice versa. The practice of self-regulation makes you more composed and organized. It can enhance your EI.

Reflective learning

One must be habituated to reflective learning, i.e. leveraging from one’s own experience. It makes an employee responsible and makes them updated in any environment. Reflective learning helps to develop a better version of yourself. You understand a challenge or the requirements in a crisis situation quickly. Reflective learning has many advantages in your professional or personal life, above all, it enhances EI.

Empathy

In simple words, empathy is the ability to psychologically connect with others. A team with high empathy is more prolific than a team with low empathy. Empathy at the individual level makes employees more connected to the team both at the individual level and as a whole. Empathy enhances the understanding with co-workers or team members. Understanding another person’s emotional state, helping a colleague to come out of a stressful situation, or supporting a team member who has a problem in understanding any new technology will make you an indispensable part of the organization. It develops a positive work environment where everyone becomes concerned about self-performance and team performance. The presence of empathy is a mark of high EI in employees or practicing empathy enhances EI.

Social skill

The human being is social by nature. When one nurtures the same social skill in an organizational environment, the organization becomes benefited in the long run. Ability to easily connect with others, concerned about co-workers’ health issues, helping a co-worker in clearing a doubt, informing the manager about any issue that can hamper the team performance, interact with team members smoothly, respect for senior members, resolving any issue with consensus, etc. are some social skills that make a workplace wonderful. Practicing social skills help to enhance EI.

For a vivacious EI at the organizational level, the organization should be careful in the recruitment and selection process. Hiring people with higher levels of EI eases people management and many other challenges at the later stage. Again, leaders can develop these positive qualities in the employees through constant training and interactions. In this matter, the contribution of effective leadership is enormous. Once people understand their leadership supports and nurture emotional intelligence, they start putting their efforts to strengthen all essential aspects of it.

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