Emotional Intelligence – just a fad?

As an accredited facilitator of the Baron Emotional Intelligence Inventory, I have often been told at dinner parties and the like that Emotional Intelligence (EQ) or at least the application of it to work life, is just a fad and will be replaced by something else shortly.

I have thought on this as I have been accredited in the use of many different tools and attended a plethora of professional and business development courses during my career. I have come to the conclusion that Emotional Intelligence is just a label for something that we have all seen in action over and over again. We all have worked for organisations where there is a manager that all the staff love, a cricket club president that just seems to be able to keep everyone happy, even those who have missed out on being selected for the “firsts” for the third week in a row. I have come to recognise that these people have natural emotional intelligence and are likely to score particularly high on the interpersonal subscale. The wonderful thing about the recent activity in EQ is that anyone can learn the skills associated with its major components. Now that we have a definition for what it is that is required to manage our own emotional state, help others’ to manage theirs and also to develop fantastic relationships and cope with an ever changing work environment, we can focus on those key actions that are required to develop strategies to manage all these things.

So even though there might be people with natural talents in relation to managing their own and other’s emotional states, we can all implement strategies to help improve our skills in these areas.

Now would you like to hear why that would be worthwhile? For starters, you might well increase the productivity of your staff, enjoy your work-life so much more and be able to foster better relationships in all parts of your life.

If you would like to chat more about your own EQ profile or perhaps a program for your leadership team contact me at roz@neuralnetworks.com.au or call 03 9555 7955. Maybe you will get something out of this “fad” – something remarkable.

Rosalinda Batson