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About this lesson
Emotional Intelligence is a framework for improving communication and team dynamics. These principles can be used by a project manager to understand how to harness their own emotions and the emotions of others to achieve project goals.
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Quick reference
Emotional Intelligence Principles
Emotional intelligence is a model or framework often used by project leaders and team members to understand how their own emotions and the emotions of others on the team are impacting behaviors.
When to use
An individual can, and should, use emotional intelligence at all times to improve their personal performance. Within the project team, emotional intelligence is very beneficial when dealing with conflict or high-stress situations.
Instructions
Emotional intelligence is a model for understanding how an individual’s emotions are impacting their work performance. It is primarily used by an individual to self-regulate or control themselves. However, it can also be used to understand why others are responding in a particular manner.
Emotional intelligence is based upon a book written by Dan Goleman. It has become widely accepted and there are numerous variations on the major concepts. Generally, an individual can determine their emotional intelligence score, known as Emotional Intelligence Quotient or EQ, by taking a survey.
The domains or competencies associated with emotional intelligence are:
- Self-awareness: the ability to recognize one’s own emotional response to situations
- Self-regulation: the ability to manage one’s personal emotions.
- Motivation: the ability to inspire oneself to interest and action.
- Empathy: the recognition of the emotional state of others
- Social Skills: personal characteristics and inter-action patterns that a person normally relies upon when dealing with others.
An individual with high emotional intelligence is able to perceive the emotional state of themselves and others. In addition, they are able to harness their own emotions to maintain control in any situation. Further, they are able to influence the emotional state of others.
Hints & tips
- Everyone has emotional responses to situations. Learn to recognize those responses to leverage positive emotions and quickly resolve issues causing negative emotions.
- Focus on your own personal emotions and regulate them before starting to try to influence others.
- Emotion can create physiological responses (high adrenalin – fight or flight response) that can enhance or impair other personal functions.
- 00:04 Hi, this is Ray Sheen, let's look at team interactions from another perspective.
- 00:08 And this time we'll start by considering the emotional intelligence principles.
- 00:13 Some of you may be asking, what is emotional intelligence?
- 00:16 Emotional intelligence is the term used for framework that analyzes personal and
- 00:21 team interactions based on emotions.
- 00:23 It's based upon a book by Dan Goleman that presents the model that's called emotional
- 00:27 intelligence.
- 00:28 This framework has become one of the dominant management frameworks used in
- 00:32 business today for analyzing and improving interpersonal and team performance.
- 00:37 Emotional intelligence represents the capability of an individual to recognize
- 00:42 when they're responding to a situation in an emotional manner and
- 00:46 the impact those emotions may have.
- 00:48 In addition, a person with good emotional intelligence skills can recognize when
- 00:52 others are responding to a situation in an emotional manner.
- 00:55 And the impact that that will have on their decision making.
- 00:59 Individuals with high levels of emotional intelligence can quickly tune into
- 01:03 the emotional aspects of the interactions.
- 01:06 And use this insight to guide the interaction process so
- 01:09 as to achieve their goals.
- 01:11 These goals may be organizational and project goals or may be personal goals.
- 01:15 Through their emotional intelligence, they can impact both
- 01:19 what people think about a situation and how they behave or react to the situation.
- 01:24 For example, when people are nervous and worried,
- 01:26 someone with high emotional intelligence will recognize that.
- 01:30 And provide a calming influence for the group if appropriate or
- 01:34 motivate that group to take immediate action if that is appropriate.
- 01:38 Emotional intelligence has been around for a number of years and
- 01:41 therefore there's several different flavors or variations.
- 01:45 I'll be discussing the basic version presented by Goleman.
- 01:48 But you may be familiar with some of the other variants.
- 01:51 A common approach for learning and
- 01:52 applying emotional intelligence principles is to take a survey that assesses
- 01:56 an individual's emotional intelligence strengths and weaknesses.
- 02:00 Giving you an Emotional Quotient or EQ score.
- 02:04 As I said, there are several variations of emotional intelligence.
- 02:07 But they all start from the same model.
- 02:10 In the model, every person has some level of competencies or
- 02:14 skills in each of five emotional intelligence domains.
- 02:17 The first of these domains or competencies is self awareness,
- 02:21 which is an understanding by an individual of how they personally
- 02:25 are responding to a situation.
- 02:27 It is a recognition that they may be angry, excited, worried, or whatever.
- 02:32 Then there is self regulation, which is the ability to control their emotions.
- 02:37 For instance, the individual can calm themselves when needed through
- 02:42 things like breathing control or focusing actions.
- 02:45 The next competency I want to discuss is motivation.
- 02:49 This is primarily concerned with self motivation.
- 02:52 The individual understands what triggers different responses they may have and
- 02:56 therefore takes ownership for how they react.
- 02:59 They choose whether to be positive and optimistic or just the opposite.
- 03:03 The next skill or competency is empathy, and unlike the previous ones we just
- 03:08 discussed, this competency is outwardly focused.
- 03:11 It is the ability to understand others and to be aware of their feelings and
- 03:15 their needs.
- 03:16 Individuals who are really good at this often anticipate the emotional response of
- 03:21 others to a situation.
- 03:22 And can help to influence the situation in order to guide the response of others.
- 03:27 The last domain is social skills.
- 03:29 This is a combination of both the internally focused and
- 03:32 externally focused skills.
- 03:33 It involves the interactions that impact emotions.
- 03:37 So it includes body language and tone of voice.
- 03:39 It includes the ability to read the situation and interact appropriately.
- 03:45 As you can see, these competencies create abilities to manage and
- 03:49 respond to both personal emotions and the emotions of others.
- 03:53 But I want to highlight most of these competencies are internally focused.
- 03:58 High emotional intelligence starts with understanding and managing yourself.
- 04:02 Let's look at a few of the abilities that someone with high EQ is likely to possess.
- 04:07 An obvious one is that they have the ability to perceive emotions.
- 04:10 They recognize when they're responding to a situation emotionally and
- 04:14 when others are doing the same.
- 04:16 But beyond perceiving emotions, they're able to use emotions to achieve a goal or
- 04:21 purpose.
- 04:22 They can use their emotions to focus their attention and to create and
- 04:26 sustain motivation.
- 04:28 A person with high EQ understands the emotions of those around them.
- 04:32 This can be very helpful when conducting conflict resolution on the team.
- 04:37 It can also be useful for
- 04:38 determining how best to interact with someone at any given moment within a day.
- 04:42 And finally, they know how to manage their emotions.
- 04:45 They can control their anger and their enthusiasm, they can also
- 04:49 create an emotional response in others in order to motivate or influence them.
- 04:54 When used well, this can inspire others to greatness.
- 04:57 However, it can also be used to manipulate others.
- 05:00 For that reason, a person with high EQ whereas devious or
- 05:04 evil intent can be very destructive on a project team.
- 05:07 All of us have emotions and they will impact our actions and reactions.
- 05:12 Emotional Intelligence gives us a framework to understand and
- 05:16 manage those emotions.
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