February editorial: Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a skill set, that includes the ability to understand and manage one’s own behaviours, thoughts and emotions, as well as the ability to manage our relationships with empathy and compassion.

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Emotional intelligence is key to helping us achieve happiness and overall wellbeing, and for some, becoming effective leaders. The following are some of the key elements to emotional intelligence.

1. Self-awareness: knowledge of our internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions 
2. Self-management: management of our internal states, impulses and resources 
3. Motivation: emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate us in reaching our goals 
4. Empathy: awareness of others’ feelings, needs, and concerns 
5. Social skills: adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others.

In the workplace  

In the context of the workplace, emotional intelligence can enable key skill sets, including good work performance, effective leadership, and the ability to create the conditions for sustainable happiness. A study that focused on teams, found that when individual team members have a higher level of individual emotional intelligence this correlated with stronger team performance.  

Emotional intelligence is a crucial foundation to develop trusting and thriving teams. Even with the prevalence of hybrid work models, it is possible to support the wellbeing of individual team members and the success of the group. Here are a few tips to foster more emotional intelligence in the workplace: 

• Incorporate mindfulness 
  • Mindfulness can lead to greater self-awareness and help you identify how your thoughts, behaviours, and actions impact you. This was found to be the case for personal self-awareness and an important means of addressing workplace conflict according to a UBC study 
• Celebrate small wins and share your gratitude to someone at the start of meetings  
• Take care of some of your team member’s needs and support their wellbeing.

At home 

We can apply emotional intelligence in our personal relationships to help achieve greater wellbeing at home.  

• Resist the urge to solve problems as we support loved ones. Problem-solving has its place, but we may need to hold a space for emotions and experiences to be explored

• Taking responsibility for our "hot button" triggers is another way to use emotional intelligence to improve our relationships and find healthy ways to release those emotions
• Children benefit enormously from emotionally attuned parents and care providers in life  
  • You can help children develop emotional intelligence by showing acceptance of emotions (even the most difficult ones) and inviting children to explore those feelings in themselves and others  
  • You can also try to recognize negative emotions and help children name their feelings.  

Emotional intelligence competencies are not innate talents, but rather learned abilities, and can be acquired with practice. Take some time to discover what this means to you and how you can incorporate it into your work and in your personal life. 

Opportunities for increasing emotional intelligence 

Adaptive Resilience by the Search Inside Leadership program  

• Taking place on March 3, March 10, and March 17, 2022, this interactive program uses a mindfulness-based approach to build the behaviors, mental habits, and practices that promote personal resilience while growing a culture of resilience within teams and organizations. 

Incorporate mindfulness into your day-to-day 

• Discover how attention-training can help you at work and in your life with UBC’s free 30-Day Online Mindfulness Challenge. 

Emotional intelligence in caregiving 

• This recorded webinar -- Integrating Consent into Parenting and Caregiving with Karen B.K. Chan has some great tips and is available until February 28 

References 

• Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute: https://siyli.org/resources/category/blog/

• Elfenbein, Hillary. (2006). Team Emotional Intelligence: What it can mean and how it can impact performance. 

• Chade-Meng, Tan. (2015) Just 6 Seconds of Mindfulness Can Make You More Effective 

• Mindtools. Emotional Intelligence in Leadership Learning How to Be More Aware