"On a scale from 0 to 10, where do you stand compared to the person you would like to be?"
Close your eyes and answer mentally.
Know that this question – not so unusual – was also asked to the Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, appointed in 1989 as the French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama.
Ricard replied: "Oh, maybe I'm at 4 out of 10."
Emotional intelligence can help us become more of what we want to be.
What is emotional intelligence?
Being the best possible version of ourselves.
Here’s how we could define – in a few words – emotional intelligence. Of course, it’s much more complex, just as complex as being able to apply it.
The definition of "emotional intelligence" was coined in 1990 by professors Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer:
“the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior”
Emotional intelligence can be seen as the ability to perceive, understand, and manage one's own moods and emotions, specifically: the ability to recognize one's own emotions and those of others, the ability to use and regulate one's own emotions and those of others, and finally, the ability to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, thus promoting emotional and intellectual growth.
Emotional intelligence is therefore the set of soft skills necessary to effectively manage social interactions that provoke emotions, thus fostering excellent communication exchange, increasing problem-solving ability, stimulating constructive thinking, and enabling the achievement of better results.
By "soft skills" we mean a particular ability and competence of an individual that is essential for effective and productive interaction with others.
Managing one's own emotions and being able to recognize those of others allows you to develop and train certain "soft" skills, highly valued in both professional and personal contexts, such as:
- communication skills;
- leadership skills;
- conflict resolution skills;
- problem-solving skills;
- decision-making skills.
All skills that enhance the ability to work in a team, to lead, and to cooperate in achieving goals, with an extraordinary impact on individual performance.
They are much more difficult to acquire, at least in a conventional way, and also harder to measure, compared to "hard skills," which, on the other hand, represent specific and transferable competencies that can be defined and measured.
The Strengths Coaching method
Emotional intelligence allows you to choose what to say and do, how to behave, how to control instinctive reactions, without "going on autopilot."
The talents of the people in your team, without the development of emotional intelligence, will not be used consciously; instead, they could be limited or, worse, exaggerated as an automatic and exaggerated expression of a need.
The psychologist Donald O. Clifton, who theorized the Strengths Coaching ® method, identified the 34 main types of talents that provide precise and personalized information on which ones each individual possesses to a greater or lesser degree.
And it is precisely through the development of emotional intelligence that it is possible to recognize our areas of talent and use them, fully leveraging our resources and becoming the best version of ourselves.
Talents are the thoughts, sensations, and behaviors that come to us spontaneously and naturally, and they represent our true potential. They are the ways in which we respond to situations. They are the behaviors that allow us to succeed and are the driving forces behind performance. They influence our agility, speed, attitude, self-confidence, and effectiveness, the way we make decisions, and how we build relationships.
10 soft skills to impart to your team
Ranked among the top 10 skills required by 2020 by the World Economic Forum, emotional intelligence is becoming increasingly important in the world of work.
According to Albert Bandura's social learning theory, people primarily learn through behaviors that are observable by others.
This is why "leading by example" can help your team develop emotional intelligence, grow, and become more united and effective.
These are the 10 most requested soft skills in the job market:
- Problem solving of complex situations: quickly finding effective solutions.
- Critical thinking: overcoming established habits and partial viewpoints.
- Creativity: alternative solutions, including unconventional ones, using lateral thinking as well.
- People management: knowing how to motivate, reward, or sanction collaborators.
- Coordinating with others: the ability to work in a team while managing priorities.
- Emotional intelligence: the ability to understand and manage one's own emotions and those of others, with the awareness that emotions influence behaviors and dynamics between people.
- Judgment and decision-making ability: knowing how to manage moments of uncertainty and provide solutions at the right time.
- Customer orientation: the ability to be collaborative.
- Negotiation: knowing how to manage both small and large negotiations.
- Cognitive flexibility: adapting one's behavior to different contexts.
Conclusions
The awareness of our talents, that unique combination of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors that has allowed us to achieve the results we have reached and that has accompanied us throughout our lives, is the key to our success.
Learning to recognize, develop, and use our talents to the fullest, consciously, is the only way to grow and achieve ambitious goals with satisfaction and authenticity, without trying to become something different from who we are, but simply becoming the best version of ourselves, for us and for those we lead.
