Emotional Intelligence & Mindfulness

Emotional Intelligence is what distinguishes superior performance from run-of-the-mill performance both in individuals and in teams.

It is made up of two parts:

Intrapersonal Intelligence  – being intelligent in picking up what is going on inside us and doing what we need to do about it.

Interpersonal Intelligence  – being intelligent in picking up what is going on in other people and between people and doing what we need to do about that.

Intrapersonal intelligence is what we need for effective self-management, something we all require, both in life as a whole and at work.

Interpersonal intelligence is what we need for effective relationship management which, since human beings are social animals, we also all of us need, both in life as a whole and at work.

The elements of emotional intelligence are related like this:

Indeed, we define emotional intelligence as not so much the ability to do something (it’s no use having the ability if you don’t put it to use) as “the practice of integrating feeling and thinking, of using thinking about feeling (and feeling about thinking) to guide behaviour”. We most of us have the necessary capacity to do this to a significant extent, but often we don’t, because of underlying beliefs we have, or of fears of doing so, or of habits of behaving in ways which ignore feeling.

As our work pace speeds up and global competition puts extra pressure on most employees from the MD down, the requirement for staff to be stress tolerant, self-motivated and creative is increasing. It is more crucial than ever to ensure that your employees have the necessary skills and attitude to perform their jobs well. Technical skills, experience and intellect are important parts of the ‘high performance’ equation, but so too is emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence in teams

Recent research has shown that teams that act with more emotional intelligence, outperform teams that act with less. The degree to which team members behave with emotional intelligence is determined not just by their capacity for this, but by whether the climate or culture of the team favours or inhibits it: we all of us tend to behave differently in different contexts.