In his video,
Goleman (2012) introduced his four parts of Emotional Intelligence (EI) self-awareness,
self-management, social awareness, and social skills or relationship building. Goleman also brought up a fact, that in
general women have shown more empathy than men and that men are better at
managing distressing emotions. This
statement does really not surprise me, as I have been witness to both aspects
in action during any of the fights with my husband. What I did find interesting is that when it
comes to leaders there was little to no different in these fields between men
and women. In other words, somewhere
along the line leaders have learned how to control the aspects of EI at least
in the workplace.
It seems that the world today lacks
compassion; people are less likely to help others than in the past. According to Goleman (2007), people are
“wired” to help others in need, so why are they not helping? Goleman states it is because we are all too
busy in our own lives. We are also too
focused on us and not others, at least not those outside our immediate
family. In order for empathy to take
place, one must first be aware of the world around them, which is proving to be
a difficult task for many.
In order to address my own status within the
world of EI, I used Boyatzis and McKee (2005) Table 2-1 (p.
29). Under self-awareness, they
described three attributes, emotional self-awareness, accurate self-awareness,
and self-confidence. Of these three I
fell I perform well in the accurate self-awareness, and self-confidence. My self-confidence most likely comes from age
and experience with a little bit of not really caring what others think. After years of counseling to overcome a difficult
childhood, I have learned to be in touch with where I am emotionally, however,
I tend to struggle with how to overcome it.
I tend to become overly emotionally involved and that has gotten in my
way in the past. I am aware that I need
to work on it but it is sometimes too late before I catch myself.
Under self-management my strengthens are
transparency, adaptability, achievement, and initiative, my weaknesses are
emotional self-control and optimism. I
believe in being honest and having integrity at all times. I want people to know where they stand with
me at all times and I request the same in return. I have always been ambitious and I thrive on
achievement, sometimes this Type A personality can get the best of me and I
make things nearly impossible for myself.
As for adaptability, I do well with it in high-stress situations where
decisions need to be made quickly. I am
less open to change when it is slow or I have longer periods of time to think
it over. Optimism has always been
difficult for me, I believe it stems from my childhood, I learned early on that
if I expected the worse then I was prepared for it and if anything better came
about it was a nice relief. I have tried
to change my outlook and in some ways I have, when I married an even bigger
pessimist than myself I realized one of us needed to have a hopeful outlook or
things would go down hill fast.
I thrive in social situations; I am very
outgoing and like to meet new people. As
far as social awareness goes I am extremely empathetic and often cater to the
needs of the client, guest, customer.
While I try to represent the brand of the company I often question why
and how decisions were made. I have had
empathy for as long as I can remember, I like to make people feel better by
understanding how they feel. I also
believe that service is extremely important in life, and I have been in the
customer service industry for many years.
I always make sure I offer the best level of service possible.
Building relationship is an integral part of
not only business but also life, which ties very closely with the social aspect
of EI, one person cannot do it all alone.
While I feel strong in the areas of influence, developing others, change
catalyst, conflict management, building bonds, and teamwork I feel I need to
work on my inspirational leadership. I
am a very linear person and I tend to lead in the same way, which means I often
lay out the steps to the goal I want.
While this process works well for me it may not work well for others, I
need to find ways to reach others and meet them where they are and use a
motivation strategy that works for them.
Boyatzis, R. &
McKee, A. (2005). Resonant Leadership (5th ed.). Harvard Business
Press.
Goleman, D., (2012).
Daniel Goleman Introduces Emotional Intelligence. Retrieved
Goleman, D. (2007).
Why aren't we more compassionate? Retrieved January 25,
2017, from http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_goleman_on_compassion
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