What's Your GiG?

Emotional Intelligence

Professors Peter Salovey, Yale University, and Jack Mayer, Yale University, coined the term, ‘emotional intelligence.’ The term and their research focused on a person’s ability to perceive others’ emotions accurately and manage our own emotions in such a way that relationships are enhanced not hindered.

Daniel Goleman is the better known researcher ( Emotional Intelligence and Working with Emotional Intelligence (1998) and his two new books, Primal Leadership (co-authored, 2002) and Social Intelligence (2006)) and psychologist who identified EQ competencies as “soft” skills, which play a huge role in our success or failure at work. Traditional IQ abilities, such as the ability to process data quickly or to learn a new procedure rapidly are valuable. However, because we must relate to others, participate in joint decisions, and be able to manage the stress and demands of our current business culture, several other capacities and competencies are critical for success. These critical abilities comprise what we now frequently refer to as EQ.

The Difference between Emotional Capacities & Emotional Competencies

Emotional capacities are the fundamental building blocks of emotional intelligence. They are the core mechanisms that allow us to adjust to change, maintain commitments to people, find satisfaction in relationships and create a balance in our emotional life. Emotional competencies are skills we develop from these building blocks or capacities. For example, one important competency/skill people develop out of the capacity for self-reflection is the ability to accurately assess situations, themselves and others.

So what are these building blocks? Self-soothing, self-reflection and empathy are the core capacities that enable us to develop a range of emotional competencies and specific workplace skills. These capacities are essential for growth in our ability to manage our emotions and our relationships.

Self-Reflection is the ability to...

Access your experience including your feelings, thoughts and wants

Observe yourself and your experience in the moment

Reflect on your current and past experience

Name your experience.

Self-Regulation or Self-Soothing

Experiencing varying levels of distress and pain is a natural part of life, which causes us to experience some disequilibrium. Self-Soothing is the capacity to experience our distress and manage it in ways that help us re-establish our equilibrium. A key dimension that is measured is the degree self-soothing strategies do no harm to you, the other person, or the relationship

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to identify what another person is experiencing and to have a sense for what that must be like; the ability to "get into another's shoes."