Here's how you can enhance decision-making in a professional setting with Emotional Intelligence.

Empathy and emotional intelligence are crucial in enhancing decision-making in a professional setting. By understanding and considering the emotions and perspectives of others, you make more informed, inclusive decisions that resonate with your team and stakeholders. Emotional intelligence allows you to navigate complex interpersonal dynamics, reduce conflicts, and build stronger relationships. It also helps you manage your own emotions, maintaining clarity and composure under pressure. Integrating empathy into your decision-making process ensures that choices are not only logical but also considerate, leading to more effective and sustainable outcomes.

The definition of empathy is feeling the same as what the other person feels, for example: when they cry, you will cry with them. This phase is crucial in EI. When the other feels your empathy, this can be helpful to build a better communication and foster a stronger relationship. Empathy starts from the inside to the outside: it starts with self-empathy. A cup full of it can provide it comfortably. In the contrary case, it can end with a burn-out!

I'd add that similar to point #1, knowing thyself is key to communicating effectively. In other words, having the awareness to recognize one's emotional state (and thus their state of mind) - before communicating - is an essential ingredient to effective communication. Because speaking from a reactive state will likely elicit more reactivity, it's especially important to recognize when one is in this type of fear-based state. If it's necessary to communicate from this place, prefacing with an acknowledgment of these feelings is a powerful move not only in communicating effectively, but also supporting one to shift out of that state (noticing and naming supports shifting), and thereby supports the overall energy of the team as well.

The way I see it, a calm mind is reflective of a calm body. So, I'd add to also tune into one's body while taking a break and practicing mindfulness. This allows one to address any upset they're feeling (and reduce the symptoms of stress). Because our thoughts reflect our emotional state, going straight to the source - in the body - and clearing out upset there, is, in my opinion, the most powerful way to calm the mind.

With all the uncertainty around us, it's important to maintain flexibility and open mindset that allow us to listen actively to the team around us in order to make the right decision. A rigid mindset does not have the tools to build a strong team and does not have the abilities to take the right decisions in the benefit of the collective group.

Learning should never stop. "The day I stop learning is the day I start dying'' as Einstein said. After each decision making, it's important to focus on the impact of that decision and the lesson learned behind it. This will allow you to enhance the decision making process in the future.