How to train emotional intelligence. Why high levels of emotional intelligence are important for top managers

We want ourselves and our children to be successful and happy. But we often forget that it is impossible to put an equal sign between these concepts. You can be successful, but still feel unhappy all the time. Or you can constantly experience difficulties in your studies or career, but treat them not as a tragedy, but as a step forward.

Why are emotions so important?

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
Charles Swindoll, writer

The modern world is full stressful situations, which are difficult to cope with even for adults, not to mention children. They do not understand and do not know what emotions they experience at one time or another, or how to manage them, so they have a distorted idea of what is happening. This leads to neuroses, apathy and other depressive states.

The inflated demands of teachers, instilling in a small individual the importance of victory and superiority (many want to be the parents of winners) - all this is too heavy a load for fragile children's shoulders. The heavier this load, the more important it is to deal with the child’s feelings and experiences.

Already in adult life We see that people who cannot control their emotions have troubles in all areas of life, including in their careers.

When a person is overwhelmed by negative emotions and cannot objectively assess his feelings, desires and capabilities, a destructive effect is guaranteed.

Relationships with others deteriorate, a person withdraws into himself, loses faith in himself, his strengths or his professionalism, becomes irritable, and becomes even more confused in his feelings. And then the question arises: “What level of emotional intelligence does he have?”

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is responsible for recognizing and correctly interpreting emotions. It is he who gives a person psychological flexibility and the ability to effectively interact with the world around him.

That is why the concept " emotional intellect“was first voiced in relation to career building and self-realization. However, psychologists immediately caught the infantile subtext in this, because the fundamental development of personality occurs precisely in childhood.

For a child, the development of EQ is an opportunity to create an established and understandable system of perception that will allow you to effectively interact with people around you, correctly perceive criticism, recognize the feelings of adults and peers and adequately respond to them.

Aggression, apathy, bad dream, absent-mindedness, inability to establish contacts with peers and other alarming manifestations in a child’s behavior are obvious signals that indicate the need to develop emotional intelligence.

How to develop emotional intelligence from childhood?

The most important thing in the life of any child is parental love. Love your child, show him tenderness and care. Tactile communication between mother and child does not lose its significance for children older than infancy.

Love allows every person to feel protected and confident. This is a reliable foundation for the development of a successful personality.

In addition, it is very important to create the right associations with different emotions. Show your child the real example what is joy? Perhaps it's the smell of cake? Maybe the ringing of a bell? What about friendship? Do you associate friendship with hugs? If not, then what does it look like in your mind?

Create a colorful and bright world, in which every feeling and sensation has its own color, aroma and taste. This way you will not only open the doors to the world of emotions for your child, but also get closer to him and further strengthen the trust between you.

A similar method works with . Don't just read, but play fairy tales, tell them to children magical stories through the game or small performance. Act out a scene in front of them, use tactile sensations, aromatic oils, appropriate intonation - this will allow the child to feel the whole gamut of sincere emotions that a magical story evokes.

Each of these methods is well described in our book “Monsiki. What are emotions and how to be friends with them.” Ours, because we created it together with my son Gleb, based on our own experience. It can be safely called detailed instructions for parents, where one of the most effective methods EQ development is shown through interaction with fairy-tale characters Monsikami. Each one represents a specific emotion and has skills that will help children understand and cope with those emotions in a variety of ways. Monsies are kind fairy creatures, and a fairy tale is best perceived by a child.

Working on emotional intelligence in childhood is the key to successful development and well-being in the future.

Most likely, such a child, as an adult, will be able to avoid most of the psychological problems that modern society faces us with today.

Children are more receptive to everything new, their psyche is like plasticine - flexible and ingenuous. But what will be molded from this plasticine often depends only on the adults. So let's start with ourselves.

Simple exercises to develop EQ

The methodology for developing EQ is simple and straightforward, but requires care and regular implementation. Here are the simplest and most effective exercises.

Mindfulness Exercises

Emotional diary

To learn to be aware of yourself here and now, write down every three hours the emotion you experience in this moment. At the end of the day, identify the dominant emotion and think about what you need to work on.

In a couple of weeks you will learn to feel yourself in real time without any difficulties.

This exercise will be made more effective by a kind of checking - an analysis of the physical state when experiencing a certain emotion. This practice is also good for improving health.

Stop!

How often are our actions accompanied by ? We don’t think about what we are doing, but simply perform some familiar, regular manipulations. Exercise “Stop!” consists of abruptly interrupting any action in order to get rid of inertia and allow yourself to think about the situation. This is the only way to feel yourself here and now, to begin to control your reality.

Exercises to improve self-esteem

What a luck!

Teach yourself to think positively, reacting even to unpleasant events with the phrase: “What luck!” Such a reaction will be a surprise to others, but this fact will also benefit you, because then you will find even more advantages in the situation. To enhance the effect, you can use the phrase: “This is so great because...”. Why? Think about it.

Sell your weakness

An effective technique that allows you to interpret even negative sides personality in a positive way. Tell the audience about your shortcoming in other words, give it a different color. For example, can caution be considered cowardice, and courage - recklessness? But it all depends on which side you look at it from. The synthon approach is based on a positive approach to development. He says: you have no shortcomings, you have features.

It is necessary to develop your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

With this approach, you can sell any of your shortcomings. For example, sell uncertainty. Tell your audience honestly and truthfully how you have this quality before committing important step consider all options for events, look closely at various solutions, and only after that take the most beneficial step for you.

Exercises to develop motivation

Openness to new things

To develop this valuable quality, you can use a simple, but very effective exercise, which is to find as many possible applications as possible ordinary things. Let it be an ordinary towel, an old bucket or just a piece of cardboard. Come up with greatest number options for how to use these things. It's not only interesting, but also fun. Therefore, practice this exercise with your family and children. They will have a great time and work on their imagination and ingenuity.

Two random words

Open any book or magazine, randomly select two words from the text and try to find something in common between them. Compare them, analyze, reflect and make connections. It's effective and fun.

Exercise to increase adaptability

Finally - known method Elevator Pitch - presentation of your business project in 30–60 seconds. Imagine that you are your own business project. Start presenting yourself as brightly as possible, while remaining honest with yourself.

To get started, use this template:

Profession.
Hobby.
How am I changing the world for the better?

Each of these exercises will help you become a better person emotionally and psychological sense. However, emotional intelligence should not be perceived as a universal key to success. Life is quite multifaceted. So improve your mind, body, soul and love yourself. After all, the only thing we have control over in this world is ourselves.

Emotions can help or hinder you, but you won't know until you understand them. The book “Emotional Intelligence 2.0” will help you understand your emotional states and learn to cope with them.

We have chosen five tips for you that will help you perceive your own emotions correctly.

Stop perceiving feelings as good and bad

It is human nature to divide our emotions into two simple groups: good and bad. For example, most people automatically attribute feelings of guilt to bad emotions. You don’t want to experience this feeling and are ready to fight yourself with all your might, wanting to get rid of it. In other situations, you release your excitement. Sometimes you pump yourself with energy, and sometimes you spray it in all directions.

The downside to labeling emotions is that by labeling them you can't truly understand what you're feeling.

When you give yourself the opportunity to calmly deal with an emotion and understand what it is, you get a chance to find out what causes it. Relinquishing judgment about emotions will allow them to do their job and disappear without a trace. And constantly thinking about whether you should feel what you feel awakens new emotions to life and does not allow the original feeling to be realized.

Therefore, immediately pay attention to situations when you begin to develop certain emotions. Refrain from labeling your emotion as “good” or “bad,” and then you can understand something important.

Record your emotions

The main problem in developing self-perception is objectivity. It is quite difficult to gain perspective on your emotions and tendencies when you are trying to start climbing the mountain from the very bottom every day. By writing down your thoughts, you can document what events triggered your emotions and how you responded to them.

You can write about what happened to you at home or at work - there are no restrictions. In just a month, you will notice a consistent pattern in your behavior and emotions, and this will allow you to better understand your tendencies. You will begin to better understand which emotions make you depressed, what makes you feel uplifted, and which emotions are the most difficult for you to cope with.

Carefully observe the people and situations that push your buttons and release your strongest emotions.

Describe the emotions you experience every day. Don't forget to also describe the physical manifestations that accompany them. You gain the ability to see more clearly because putting your emotions on paper makes it easier to determine where your tendencies lie. Your journal can be a great resource to use when evaluating your self-perception.

Notice the presence of your emotions in books, films and music

If you find it difficult to look within yourself to understand your emotional patterns and tendencies, you can discover the same information through movies, music, and books that you feel intrinsically connected to. If the lyrics of a song or its mood resonate with your feelings, then this can say a lot about your inner feeling, and if you constantly remember a certain character from a book or movie, this may indicate that his thoughts and feelings parallel yours. Carefully studying these points can teach you a lot about yourself. Moreover, with this tool you can tell a lot about your feelings to other people.

Finding your emotions reflected in the performance of artists allows you to learn a lot about yourself and discover feelings within yourself that are difficult to express in words.

Sometimes you just can't find the right words in order to express the necessary emotions... and suddenly you hear exactly how the hero of the film pronounces them. Listening to music, reading books, watching movies, and even looking at an artist's painting can open the door to your deepest emotions. Next time a movie or book catches your attention, try digging deeper—you never know what you'll find in your search.

Don't let your bad mood fool you

We constantly succumb to a bad mood when it seems to us that the whole world is against us. This state covers our thoughts, feelings and everything that happens to us with a thick and dark fog. There is one focus in how your brain works. Once you fall into the grip of a bad mood, you lose all the good things in your life. Suddenly you begin to hate your job, your friends and family irritate you, you are dissatisfied with your achievements, and your optimism about the future goes up in smoke. Somewhere deep down you know that everything is not as bad as it seems now, but your brain remains deaf to it.

Part of our self-perception is recognizing what we're going through, even if we can't escape it. Admit to yourself that your Bad mood is a kind of cloud that covers everything you see. Remind yourself that your mood is temporary. Emotions change constantly, and a bad mood will pass - you just need to wait a little.

Bad mood - no best time to make important decisions.

You must constantly be aware of what mood you are in. If you think that you can make good decisions regardless of your mood, you will end up facing even more serious problems. It is important not only to reflect on what events led you to your current mood. Sometimes these thoughts themselves (if you don’t get too hung up on them) can be enough reason for a bad mood to go away on its own.

Understand how you behave under stress

If you learn to recognize the early signs of stress, you will be doing yourself a huge favor. The human mind and body speak to you in their own way own language(at least when stress is involved). They use emotional and psychological responses to let you know when it's time to slow down and take a break. For example, an upset stomach may indicate that you are feeling nervous and anxious. Indigestion and fatigue are your body's way of asking for time to rest. An upset stomach may indicate stress and anxiety, and symptoms such as headache, sore throat or back pain may be an expression of other internal problems.

Your self-perception during times of stress and tension should serve as a third ear, listening intently to your body's voice or cries for help.

When you push too hard, your body has a lot to say. Take the time to listen to these signals and recharge your emotional batteries before emotional stress causes permanent damage to your internal systems.

People began to write actively about emotional intelligence several years ago. There was even a common meme that “ good man“in the 21st century is quite a “profession”.

When your emotional intelligence is high, you perceive reality more adequately, respond to it more effectively and interact with others. Emotional intelligence has become one of the new tools for managing a business, building effective communications and finding happiness.

But the question immediately arises: is it possible to develop emotional competencies in the same way as ordinary intelligence, logic, thinking and creativity?

Do you feel that the business environment can be hostile to you? For example, does your boss not value you, or does your client treat you like nothing?

Regardless of what level career ladder Where you are right now, I’m sure you’ve encountered misunderstandings at least once. Feeling left out, not valued enough, not treated properly. And as a consequence of this, you experienced suffering.

Let's face it, business isn't always fun. Some might argue that “that’s just the way things work.” However, I am confident that we can improve our position by developing one useful skill– emotional intelligence (EI).

Darius Foroux
Entrepreneur, author of three books, podcast host https://soundcloud.com/dariusforoux. “I write about how to become more productive so you can build a better life, career, and business.”

What is emotional intelligence, how to increase it and how to use it in a business environment?

Term emotional intellect was popularized by John Mayer of the University of New Hampshire and Peter Salovey of Yale University.

Mayer defines EI (also called EQ) as:

In modern economic situation The skill of solving problems related to emotions is very important. Plus we often have to work together to find a solution. So success in business is not determined by your degree, IQ test scores, or any other assessment-based measure.

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If you want to achieve meaningful results, you will have to learn to work with other people. From this perspective, EI is a key skill that will bring you better results and greater success.

In addition, research shows that high EI is an indicator of mental health. Therefore, it not only affects your success rate, but also your happiness level.

Greater self-awareness leads to higher emotional intelligence, which in turn brings more happiness.

EI characterizes a person's ability to recognize emotions. And not only strangers, but also our own. I believe that before you can manage and guide others, you need to understand your emotions. Therefore, EI dough is associated with self-knowledge.

Thus, emotional intelligence is an important factor that determines our success in life and in business:

The result of high EI is knowledge of oneself.
The ability to understand yourself leads to greater happiness.
A high level of happiness is an indicator of job satisfaction.
When you find joy in your work, you perform at your best.
Good results lead to recognition.
Recognizing our successes makes us feel important.
This feeling leads us to greater happiness, better results, etc.

Step one. Recognize your emotions.

Daniel Goleman, another pioneer in emotional intelligence research, is the author of Emotional Intelligence. Why It May Matter More Than IQ" argues that we have two minds: "We literally have two minds. One thinks, the other feels.”

To develop the feeling part of the brain, I like to journal about my daily emotions. If you don't already journal, start for the sake of your emotional intelligence.

When taking the first step, it is important to determine what you feel, what is the trigger for your experiences. Don't think why. Ask yourself some helpful questions:

How do you feel in different situations?

Do you get angry when you are criticized?

Do you get upset when people ignore you?

Do you freeze when all the attention is on you?

Step two. Interpret your emotions

Once you have a better idea of how you react to different situations, it's time to figure out your reaction. Find answers to the following questions:

How do you respond to people when you're angry?

What do you really think about them?

What is the primary source of your feelings, what upsets you, makes you happy, sad, angry?

Don't judge yourself. Your goal is to understand your emotions. No more, no less.

Step three. Manage your emotions.

This is a big part of business success. A leader does not go with the flow or follow the energy of the group. The leader sets the atmosphere. But before you can determine the mood of the entire group, you need to learn how to maintain an internal mood. Answer yourself a series of questions:

Can you get out of sadness?

Can you cheer yourself up?

Can you control yourself if you get too excited?

If not, work on it. Before you can manage your emotions, you must learn to control them.

I used a three-step method to better identify my emotions. By trying these steps on yourself, you will learn to recognize your emotions and identify the emotions of other people. This is exactly what constitutes emotional intelligence.

it is essentially a type of brain injury that occurs from the moment you are born.
Socially active people are not more developed in terms of emotional intelligence compared to those who prefer to be most time alone.

Every day we are faced with the task of effectively managing our emotions - one of the most important for any person, since ours are designed in such a way that they always give priority to emotions. Here's how it works: everything you see, hear, smell and touch is transformed into electrical signals that travel throughout your body. These signals are transmitted from cell to cell until they reach end point travel - your brain. They enter the brain through an area near the spinal cord, but then travel to the frontal lobe (located just behind the forehead) before reaching the rational, rational part of the brain. logical thinking. However, the whole point is that on this path impulses pass through the limbic system - the zone in which our emotions are formed. Therefore, before your rational thinking comes into play, you evaluate what is happening from an emotional point of view.

It is the connection between your emotional and rational areas of the brain that is the physical source of emotional intelligence.

The next part of the article will give practical advice on the development of the 2 remaining social intelligence skills.

Emotional intelligence is the development of skills such as understanding both your own feelings and the emotions of those around you. Thanks to this, we can effectively manage our reactions to other people's feelings and thus do our work more productively. The main goal in developing emotional intelligence is not to suppress or ignore difficult emotions or feelings, but to manage them intelligently.

Emotional intelligence is what separates successful leaders from everyone else. are more productive in hiring new employees, better motivate colleagues, and are effective in the service sector. But emotional intelligence is important at any stage of your career, especially if you want to achieve a high level of responsibility for your work. And in other aspects of life, EI allows you to be happier, healthier and have stronger relationships. So how can you improve your emotional intelligence and make it work for you?

1. Develop emotional self-awareness

Emotions can cause a person to behave in unusual and often unproductive ways, and self-awareness will improve your ability to understand and interpret your own emotions, moods, and internal motivations. This practice will help you recognize emotional states other people and understand what is behind their words and actions. In short, if you don't understand your own motivation and behavior, you won't understand others.

What to do for this:

Say three phrases every day that begin with “I feel…” This technique will gradually help you to accurately identify your emotions and increase your self-awareness.
Take time every day to experience an emotion - articulate what you feel and why.
Remind yourself that emotions are fickle and short-lived, so they cannot be the basis for communication and decision-making.
Think about how negative emotions– disappointment, rejection, anger or jealousy – affect your colleagues and clients.
Identify your fears and desires. This will help you better understand what worries you and motivates you.
Check how you react to stress. Do you get upset every time something doesn't go as you planned?

2. Emotional self-control

It is important to develop the ability to control impulsive reactions and emotions that negatively impact your potential and leadership. This is the next step after developing self-awareness. In short, self-control is the ability to rise above petty explanations, jealousy, meltdowns and not allow your emotions to control you. Through self-control, you will think before you act and build a reputation as a reliable member of any team.

Self-control techniques:

Don't allow yourself to side with one side or the other during office dramas and conflicts.
If the situation is emotionally difficult and charged, step back for a while, do not make a decision right away. Analyze your emotions.
Accept the fact that life is changing and frustration and disappointment are part of any job. And the professional response to them is brainstorming and developing strategies, not complaints and suspension from work.
Don’t join the “find the culprit” game, don’t point your finger at everyone and everything around you. Except for yourself: learn and accept your mistakes.
Stay focused on yourself and the things you can control, rather than on the things outside of your control.
Find ways to respond to emotions that do not involve spontaneous reactions or inappropriate expressions.

3. Develop your ability to show empathy.

Empathy is a natural path to developing emotional self-awareness. It allows you to step away from your personal experience and see and understand the problem from another person's point of view. By developing empathy, you demonstrate your ability to treat people with respect, kindness, dignity and professionalism. Empathetic people are good at recognizing others' feelings, even if they are not obvious.

How to develop empathy:

Live by the golden rule - treat others the way you want to be treated.
It’s easy to maintain your point of view; guided by this feeling, put yourself in the place of another person and look at the situation from his position.
Develop the ability to listen and reflect on what your interlocutor said.
At least once a day, ask how a person is feeling, for example, on a scale from 0 to 10. This will encourage others to express their emotions and better understand them.
Acknowledge other people's concerns and feelings - let them know that you see their source and understand the value of their point of view.

4. Work on your motivation

Motivation is the passion and enthusiasm for your work and career that cannot be explained by money or status, it is what helps you realize your inner goals and do it with enviable persistence.

How to improve motivation:

At any difficult situation and even if you fail, try to find at least one good thing.
Record the moment when you think and speak in a negative way. Stop doing this, pause and once again “scroll” all your thoughts and words in your mind. Change them to positive ones, even if you have to pretend at first.
It's easy to forget what you really love about your job. Take time to remember and articulate this, and main reason, why you want to be successful in what you do.
Remember that people are attracted to people who are positive, energetic and inspiring. If you increase your motivation, you will receive more attention from colleagues, top managers and clients.
Set yourself goals that are inspiring and at the same time achievable. Make a list of what you need to do to achieve them. Reward yourself when you achieve key goals.

5. Improve your communication skills

An important aspect of emotional intelligence is the ability to interact well with other people, but this does not mean that introverts or shy people have low EI. Communication skills can take different shapes, because this is not only the ability to be friendly, but also the ability to listen, persuade, verbal and non-verbal communication skills. Leaders with high emotional intelligence are often very good at communicating, resolving conflict, and sharing their vision with the team—they set an example of behavior and values that others can follow.

How to improve your communication skills:

Study conflicts and their solutions, this will help in difficult situations with colleagues, clients or suppliers.
Learn to praise others, this will inspire your team and make them loyal.
Try to understand the person you are talking to. You can't have just one approach that works for everyone at work.