Emotional Intelligence: Getting The Most From Your Employees
When it comes to employment, emotional intelligence is a very relevant topic which most employers should have at least some grasp of in a business context. The term emotional intelligence refers to the individuals capacity to intuitively pick up on the emotions of others and to treat those emotions with an appropriate response. It also refers to the individuals ability to respond to their own emotions with self-awareness and caution.
Many employers now realise the importance that emotional intelligence plays in workplace performance. People used to believe that ability with logic and reasoning indicated someones intelligence - using IQ as a measurement - but in more recent years weve come to realise that emotional intelligence provides many equally useful skills at work.
An emotionally intelligent employee is an asset to their company because they are able to use their emotional intelligence to enhance team behaviour, build strong relationships with other businesses and provide an excellent service to the customer. Whatever it is that your business or organisation does, you are reliant on the emotional intelligence of your employees to work together to drive the business forward.
First and foremost, this is down to the fact that emotional intelligence is required in any form of customer service or customer relations. The employee needs to be able to meet the needs of the customer and the best way to do this is to anticipate their emotional responses. The emotionally intelligent employee is able to build a strong rapport with the customer, ensuring that your product or service is delivered in a way which is above and beyond expectations.
Your success is also dependant on your employees working together as a team; but any employer will realise that building a strong team can often be a difficult thing to achieve because of workplace conflicts like trust issues, lack of communication and personality clashes. However, a team with a high level of emotional intelligence is better equipped to bond. Those with strong levels of emotional intelligence take an interest in one another personally, for example, by discussing life outside of work. This helps to build trust and rapport. Through getting to know one another, emotionally intelligent employees are better able to understand their co-workers reactions to certain situations and to anticipate any conflict before it arises. This ability to anticipate negative situations makes the emotionally intelligent employee able to avoid them, or know how best to tackle them.
Of course there are always likely to be personality clashes, but if you remember to take a measured and emotionally intelligent approach, challenging relationships are much easier to deal with. Making the effort to perceive and understand the emotions of a co-worker and trying to relate to them through an emotionally intelligent approach can go a long way to diffusing conflict when it arises.
When training people in workplace behaviours, experts will often advise you with the simple phrase respond and not react. This is the intelligent approach to emotional situations and refers to the way you behave in relation to your own emotional responses. When we encounter pressures and stress at work, its very easy to neglect to use our emotional intelligence because of the pressure we feel. We can often slip into bad habits and let good practice slide. Which is why we should remember to take a considered approach and think about why we feel the way we do, before letting the emotions take over.
Emotional intelligence and leadership
Emotional intelligence is a very important quality for a leader to have. Often, someone will be promoted to a leadership position as recognition of their skill as a worker, but technical skill doesnt always translate to a leadership role. It is far more important that leaders relate to their colleagues and customers and to do this, they need to be emotionally intelligent.
The emotionally intelligent leader will be perceptive and able to understand the individual motivations of each of their employees. This means relating to them each on an individual level and not applying the same treatment to all, which of course takes emotional understanding. It is crucial for a leader to show adaptability; to know when to take an active approach and when to take a step back. To do this they must use their emotional intelligence to perceive which employees respond to each approach.
For employees to fully engage in their work, it is important that they feel they can trust not only one another, but also more senior members of staff. This is especially applicable in times of economic instability because employees want to feel that their job is safe. Leaders at times like this need to have the capacity to anticipate the reactions of their staff and to act in an accordingly sensitive manner.
Developing your emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is unlike IQ in that it can be developed and improved upon. As with anything, everyone starts at a different natural level of emotional intelligence and some have more natural ability than others. However, theres always room for improvement, no matter how emotionally intelligent you are.
The best way to improve your emotional intelligence begins with being more self-aware and considering your own emotional responses (respond and not react). Its also about using your emotional intelligence to be considerate of others and think about how certain situations are going to make them feel. Of course, this all sounds very simple, but is actually a lot harder to achieve on a day-to-day basis than you might think.
When making an effort to understand your own level of emotional intelligence and trying to identify your areas for improvement, it can also be very beneficial to understand how others perceive your behaviours and the way that you conduct yourself under pressure. The best way to do this is through feedback and discussion, but finding the time and the appropriate forum for this kind of discussion can be more difficult.
Behavioural training can help you to identify and develop areas for improvement in emotionally intelligent behaviours. Any good training programme will be able to offer you development which focuses on your needs and on applying what you learn to your personal situation at work, so that what you learn about emotional intelligence is relevant to you and produces real results.
Many experts believe that experiential training is the best way to really learn about emotional intelligence as this form of learning is capable of producing results which last. The learning through doing approach is used to make your coaching in emotional intelligence memorable.
Bristol based behavioural training experts Farscape Development believe in taking an experiential approach in order to turn your people into a highly developed, emotionally intelligent team. They are also pioneering an exciting new approach to experiential training by developing a series of opportunities to study emotional intelligence in an overseas learning experience. Upcoming locations for 2011 include India, Costa Rica, Italy and The Arctic.
Farscape have recognised that having the chance to explore emotionally intelligent behaviours in a wilderness environment makes the learning experience all the more powerful and memorable. The trips are designed to help you to bring your challenges into an environment where your decisions have real and immediate consequences.
Past delegates have recognised the value of having an out of comfort zone experience, away from workplace interruptions, but under expert guidance and facilitation which helps you to relate your experience back to your personal and professional life at home.
This is a fantastic opportunity to experience personal and professional development and improve your emotional intelligence beyond recognition. Delegates return feeling refreshed, re-energised and confident to confront their workplace challenges with a variety of emotionally intelligent behavioural approaches. If youd like to learn more about Farscapes Overseas Learning Experiences or if youre interested in discussing emotional intelligence further, get in touch by calling 0117 370 1800 or visit www.farscapedevelopment.co.uk.
Many employers now realise the importance that emotional intelligence plays in workplace performance. People used to believe that ability with logic and reasoning indicated someones intelligence - using IQ as a measurement - but in more recent years weve come to realise that emotional intelligence provides many equally useful skills at work.
An emotionally intelligent employee is an asset to their company because they are able to use their emotional intelligence to enhance team behaviour, build strong relationships with other businesses and provide an excellent service to the customer. Whatever it is that your business or organisation does, you are reliant on the emotional intelligence of your employees to work together to drive the business forward.
First and foremost, this is down to the fact that emotional intelligence is required in any form of customer service or customer relations. The employee needs to be able to meet the needs of the customer and the best way to do this is to anticipate their emotional responses. The emotionally intelligent employee is able to build a strong rapport with the customer, ensuring that your product or service is delivered in a way which is above and beyond expectations.
Your success is also dependant on your employees working together as a team; but any employer will realise that building a strong team can often be a difficult thing to achieve because of workplace conflicts like trust issues, lack of communication and personality clashes. However, a team with a high level of emotional intelligence is better equipped to bond. Those with strong levels of emotional intelligence take an interest in one another personally, for example, by discussing life outside of work. This helps to build trust and rapport. Through getting to know one another, emotionally intelligent employees are better able to understand their co-workers reactions to certain situations and to anticipate any conflict before it arises. This ability to anticipate negative situations makes the emotionally intelligent employee able to avoid them, or know how best to tackle them.
Of course there are always likely to be personality clashes, but if you remember to take a measured and emotionally intelligent approach, challenging relationships are much easier to deal with. Making the effort to perceive and understand the emotions of a co-worker and trying to relate to them through an emotionally intelligent approach can go a long way to diffusing conflict when it arises.
When training people in workplace behaviours, experts will often advise you with the simple phrase respond and not react. This is the intelligent approach to emotional situations and refers to the way you behave in relation to your own emotional responses. When we encounter pressures and stress at work, its very easy to neglect to use our emotional intelligence because of the pressure we feel. We can often slip into bad habits and let good practice slide. Which is why we should remember to take a considered approach and think about why we feel the way we do, before letting the emotions take over.
Emotional intelligence and leadership
Emotional intelligence is a very important quality for a leader to have. Often, someone will be promoted to a leadership position as recognition of their skill as a worker, but technical skill doesnt always translate to a leadership role. It is far more important that leaders relate to their colleagues and customers and to do this, they need to be emotionally intelligent.
The emotionally intelligent leader will be perceptive and able to understand the individual motivations of each of their employees. This means relating to them each on an individual level and not applying the same treatment to all, which of course takes emotional understanding. It is crucial for a leader to show adaptability; to know when to take an active approach and when to take a step back. To do this they must use their emotional intelligence to perceive which employees respond to each approach.
For employees to fully engage in their work, it is important that they feel they can trust not only one another, but also more senior members of staff. This is especially applicable in times of economic instability because employees want to feel that their job is safe. Leaders at times like this need to have the capacity to anticipate the reactions of their staff and to act in an accordingly sensitive manner.
Developing your emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is unlike IQ in that it can be developed and improved upon. As with anything, everyone starts at a different natural level of emotional intelligence and some have more natural ability than others. However, theres always room for improvement, no matter how emotionally intelligent you are.
The best way to improve your emotional intelligence begins with being more self-aware and considering your own emotional responses (respond and not react). Its also about using your emotional intelligence to be considerate of others and think about how certain situations are going to make them feel. Of course, this all sounds very simple, but is actually a lot harder to achieve on a day-to-day basis than you might think.
When making an effort to understand your own level of emotional intelligence and trying to identify your areas for improvement, it can also be very beneficial to understand how others perceive your behaviours and the way that you conduct yourself under pressure. The best way to do this is through feedback and discussion, but finding the time and the appropriate forum for this kind of discussion can be more difficult.
Behavioural training can help you to identify and develop areas for improvement in emotionally intelligent behaviours. Any good training programme will be able to offer you development which focuses on your needs and on applying what you learn to your personal situation at work, so that what you learn about emotional intelligence is relevant to you and produces real results.
Many experts believe that experiential training is the best way to really learn about emotional intelligence as this form of learning is capable of producing results which last. The learning through doing approach is used to make your coaching in emotional intelligence memorable.
Bristol based behavioural training experts Farscape Development believe in taking an experiential approach in order to turn your people into a highly developed, emotionally intelligent team. They are also pioneering an exciting new approach to experiential training by developing a series of opportunities to study emotional intelligence in an overseas learning experience. Upcoming locations for 2011 include India, Costa Rica, Italy and The Arctic.
Farscape have recognised that having the chance to explore emotionally intelligent behaviours in a wilderness environment makes the learning experience all the more powerful and memorable. The trips are designed to help you to bring your challenges into an environment where your decisions have real and immediate consequences.
Past delegates have recognised the value of having an out of comfort zone experience, away from workplace interruptions, but under expert guidance and facilitation which helps you to relate your experience back to your personal and professional life at home.
This is a fantastic opportunity to experience personal and professional development and improve your emotional intelligence beyond recognition. Delegates return feeling refreshed, re-energised and confident to confront their workplace challenges with a variety of emotionally intelligent behavioural approaches. If youd like to learn more about Farscapes Overseas Learning Experiences or if youre interested in discussing emotional intelligence further, get in touch by calling 0117 370 1800 or visit www.farscapedevelopment.co.uk.