Emotional Intelligence for Professionals and Leaders

For the last hundred years or so IQ (Intelligence Quotient) was the only criterion for the judgment/measurement of intelligence. It was believed that the more IQ you have more success you are supposed to be in your life. This myth was busted by Daniel Goleman in his book “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ” published in the mid-’90s. Recent studies show that EQ has a major role to play in the success of a professional. A research carried by The Carnegie Institute of Technology showed that 85% of our financial success was due to skills in “human engineering”, personality, and the ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. They found that only 15% was due to technical ability. No doubt IQ has its own importance while getting a job, but what is more important for professional success once you are on job, it’s not the IQ. EQ or EI is the key of success for professionals which means it does not matter how fast or slow your journey is, but EQ is a must either you know it or not.

An intelligence quotient (IQ) is an assessment of human intelligence by comparing mental age and chronological age on a standardized scale. The mental age is usually assessed with the memory, processing speed, comprehension/understanding, and reasoning abilities of a person. There are two other important Quotient i.e. PQ (Physical Quotient Ability to maintain physical health) and SQ (Spiritual Quotient) along with IQ and EQ.

As for as intelligence is concerned, mental intelligence is not the only type of intelligence. In fact, people have different kinds of "intelligence." as mentioned by Howard Gardner in his Theory of Multiple Intelligences published in his book “Frames of Mind” in 1983. These are multiple (nine) Intelligence highlighted by Gardner, Musical-Rhythmic, Visual-Spatial, Verbal-Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalistic, and existential/moral intelligence.

So what is EQ or EI (Emotional Intelligence)? EQ is the ability to not only understand your emotions and the reason of these emotions but also others emotions as well. An emotionally intelligent person is able to delay the reaction of emotion so that instant behavior jerks may be avoided and appropriate behavior may be demonstrated. The following five items are the essence of EQ.

1.      Self-awareness: knowing what we are feeling, why we are feeling, Self-awareness is the base.

2.      Self-Management: Handling your distressing (Sad, Stress, painful) emotions so that they don’t cripple you or prevent you from doing what you want to do.

3.      Empathy: Knowing what someone else is feeling.

4.      Motivation: A passion to work for reasons beyond money or status. Pursue goals with persistence.

5.      Handling relationships with social skills. Able to create rapport

There are more than 3000 words in literature to describe different emotions. Majority of the words about two third (2,086) are used for negative emotions whereas only one third are for positive. It's a fact most of us are more focused on unpleasant emotions as compared to pleasant ones in our daily lives, however, an average person usually experiences only dozens of experiences in a week. Life is an emotional experience, the quality of emotion you experience daily routine ultimately determines the quality of your life. The majority of People are unable to name their emotions and it very difficult for them to understand what they are feeling.

What are emotions? Emotions are the language of the subconscious mind. Whatever thoughts are being processed by your brain they are merely expressed by your emotions and then demonstrated by your behavior. Emotions are the shadows of thoughts. Emotions are calling for action.

Improving your emotional intelligence will allow you to become less reactive and more interactive with conversations. When you're in control of your emotions you're emotionally intelligent when emotions are controlling you you're acting irrationally and emotionally enslaved. Your ability to identify what you're feeling why you're feeling it and how your feelings not only affect you but all those around you is key. We’re aware of the messages behind our pleasant emotions but we're not well aware of the messages behind our unpleasant emotions when we do not understand our emotions they become unpleasant experiences to us. All negative emotions contain within them positive messages or instructions that can help us grow as better human beings.

It’s almost impossible to concentrate with you have high emotions does not matter positive or negative. When you emotionally neutral your ability to concentrate and understand touches its peaks.

"Never Make A Decision In Anger And Never Make A Promise In Happiness." — Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib.

The human Brain has two main sections i.e. rational (ability to reason) and emotional (instincts, impulses, and intuition). When you are angry distract yourself and never continue with negative thoughts.

Reframing

Life is a comedy for those who think and tragedy for those who feel. Horace Walpole

There are 37 facial muscles that make emotions or helps us to express our emotions for others. Feeling (cold, heat, etc.) are more of physical things whereas on the other hand emotion are more of mental things. There are more than 27 major emotions that can be categorized in the following four 4 (Conventional scientific wisdom recognizes six "classic" emotions) basic categories. Such as “Fear”,” Anger”, “Sad” and “Happy” along with “Surprise” and “Shame”.

Emotions flow in sequence and can be converted from one emotion to another such as “Hurt” can be converted into “Anger” and then “Frustration” and then “Disappointment” and ultimate “Depression”. Let’s see what emotions are and how can we understand them in a better way.

Hurt:

Hurt painful feelings arise when we experience loss, it could be a loss of trust or an expectation that is not being met by us or by others who are dear to us.

When we feel hurt? We're likely to feel hurt when we're betrayed, badly treated or ignored by people we care about. It hurts when they're insensitive to our needs and we feel bad and communicate the feeling of hurt through pain or anger. The message in hurt is that our expectations have not been met. Many times this feeling arises when we've expected somebody to keep their word and they didn’t, in this case, we feel a loss of intimacy with this person may be a loss of trust, this sense of loss is what creates the feeling of hurt.

The solution is to realize that in reality, we may not have lost anything, but what we should need to lose is a false perception that this person is trying to wound us or hurt us.

Anger:

We feel angry when we take offense at being hurt. Anger feelings arise when we feel helpless, threatened, deprived or unfairly treated. Anger is a physiological sensation due to the biochemical reaction in our body. It is created in the body as a Protective mechanism that prepares our body to fight against the attack. We may be choosing to react with anger in a dominating manner rather than feel hurt because we perceive hurt as a sign of vulnerability. Anger keeps people at a distance and this enables us to conceal our vulnerability. In fact anger is nothing but a shield that covers our underlying fears and hurts inside.

The hidden message in anger is that an important rule or standard that we hold for our life has been violated by someone else or maybe even by ourselves. Most of the time anger isn't happening in the actual context of what's going on, but it's an old story coming up, an old hurt, and an old wound and maybe an old concern. Am I respected enough? Am I scared for enough? How dare they?

 To overcome the anger enlarge the gap of time between stimulus and response. So impulsive mind will be converted to an intentional mind. Anger is no way of telling other people that you're right and others are wrong. Anger is not the display of superiority. In fact, it’s a loud cry of an unsettling hurt. Anger is a secondary emotion and frustration is the primary emotion.

Frustration:

Frustration is wanting something and not getting it. The emotion of frustration is due to our rigid beliefs and thinking. When frustrations hit us, remember to become more flexible and adaptive to change your viewpoints on something that is currently producing negative results. The message in frustration is that our brain believes we could be doing better than we are doing currently.

Disappointment:

Disappointment is very different from frustration. Disappointment is the feeling that there's something we want in our lives which we'll never get it. Constant frustration means that the solution to our problem is within range but what we are currently doing isn't working. We need to change our approach in order to achieve our goals.

Depression:

As frustration grows and continues for long times we begin to accept helplessness, as a result, another major emotional state strikes, that's called depression. If we suffer pain and loss and do not express and resolve our feelings of helplessness, hurt, anger, and grief we will eventually experience depression. When we're depressed we tend to focus on our losses, our inner emptiness, unfulfilled dreams, and problems we may experience a feeling of helplessness and worthlessness.

The hidden message in depression is to find a purpose in life.If anyone is paying more attention to minor things in life ignoring the majors then that is the primary reason to make someone feel depressed. Depression sends the message to prioritize what is important to us instead of feeling burdened and helpless those who lose sight of their priorities in life will always feel burdened and feel sick.

People who are depressed are the most ungrateful people on earth they don't focus on their blessings. We tend to experience depression when another emotion “Grief” is not well handled by us.

Grief: 

Grief occurs when we experience a major loss. Grief happens when we feel that there is no empowering meaning for something that has happened or when our life is being negatively impacted by such events that are outside our control. Pain of losing a loved one can be most severe suffering we ever endure. The answer to grief is acceptance, accept the things that can't be changed and change the things that can't be accepted.

Fear: 

What stops us from expressing the emotion of grieving is the emotion of fear. Fear is nature's way of protecting us from real and current danger it prepares us to escape from harm. Fearful emotions include everything from low levels of concern and apprehension to intense worry anxiety, flight, and even terror.

The message in fear is simply the anticipation that's something that's going to happen soon, needs to be prepared. Fear tells us to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.

Never permit the fear to control the life, absolutely refuse it. Eliminate fear through intelligent action. Face the thing you fear and fear will leave you. Fear is caused by the unknown if there's something you're afraid of go study up understand it talk to someone who's a professional in that particular area, but don’t let it control your life.

Loneliness:

A state of emotion that can disconnect us from the rest of the world is the emotion of loneliness. We all suffer the misery of loneliness at some time in our lives. Loneliness is an authentic sign of unfulfilled social and intimacy needs when we are emotionally unavailable to people we detach ourselves from people and as a result experience loneliness and boredom.

The message of loneliness is that it's time to connect with people. It means we really care about people and we love to be with them. We need to find out what kind of connection we need with somebody right now and then take action immediately to make that happen.

Envy:

When we stop focusing on our growth and start getting bothered about other people's growth, we will become envious. Envy is a self-destructive emotion. Envy results from feeling deprived not necessarily because you don't have enough but because someone has more.

When we feel envious we should ask ourselves some self-improvement questions, how can I make my life better than what it used to be? What are my new goals?

In a Hadith (Sayings of The Last Messenger), the envy has been condemned as following: “Beware of (malicious) envy, for verily it destroys good deeds the way fire destroys wood” (Sunan Abi Dawood-4903).

Guilt:

The emotion of guilt, regret can be healthy or unhealthy. Healthy guilt occurs when we wrongly hurt another person, we regret our actions and feel undeserving, wrong, ashamed, and sorry.

We feel regretful when we didn't take the action we should have or we took the wrong move violating our gut feelings. Guilt tells us that we have violated one of your own highest standards and that we must do something immediately to ensure that we're not going to violate that standard again in the future. When guilt is not handled properly it can turn into resentment.

Un-forgiveness:

Un-forgiveness is a toxic emotion because it does more harm to the person who is not willing to forgive. Forgiveness can be a very difficult step but one that may be essential for getting emotional closure. Forgiveness is a liberating experience. Forgiveness sets you free.

We haven't forgiven if we still have regrets when we're not on talking terms with someone when we still hold grudges towards someone when we still hold someone responsible for all our problems when we still have not accepted the reality when we hold negative energy towards someone or something or when we say I can't forget the things he or she has done to me.

Forgiveness really means letting go. Forgiveness it is a deliberate choice to free ourselves from the burden of bitterness anger and hatred when we forgive someone we're literally setting a prisoner free. The greatest human goal is peace of mind and the greatest obstacle to peace of mind is anger and blame aimed at other people.

Conclusion:

Take control of your emotions, name them, tame them and use them to direct your life to greater advantage. When you feel an unpleasant emotion, talk back to that emotion. When you feel angry, ask yourself a question what am I angry about? When you feel low, ask yourself what am I sad about? How can I be joyful at this very moment?

Make your primary focus internal, blaming others for your feelings is a waste of your energy. Always remember that people and situations can only trigger what is already inside you. When you get angry, people are triggering the existing anger inside you. When you feel sad, people and situations are triggering the sadness inside you. You laugh when your inner joy is turned on.

All negative emotions ask you to change your perceptions they tell you to change the meaning you associate with things, events, or people. Certain things if you continue to view them as painful they'll be painful to you. All through your life if you can change the meaning attached to almost anything then you can change the experience.