Emotional Intelligence, Part Two

In Part One, we examined self-awareness strategies to recognize and harness your individual emotional response. At a social level, building empathy for the emotions of others enables you to understand the point of view of another person and effectively collaborate, minimizing misinterpretations and useless conflict.

For example, imagine that you are working on a group project for your history class. You and another classmate are doing most of the work, while the third person is reluctant to participate, and the fourth person misses nearly every meeting.

What would you feel? How would you respond?

You may feel frustrated in your efforts to get the whole group involved and simply decide to do all the work for the non-participating students. While this may be, in the short term, an easier and more effective way to just get the project done, you're sense of self-righteousness may be leading to an emotional blindness on your part.

Alternatively, you may take a moment, pause, and assess the situation. As it turns out, the quiet student wants to participate, but is rather intimidated by your extroverted leadership style. The fourth student is frustrated because he has to work during the scheduled meetings, though he would wants to participate. By recognizing the emotions of others, you are able to respond more effectively.

To build empathy for the emotions of others, ask yourself:

#1 - What circumstances are shaping the emotional response of the other person? Your classmate may be short with you because they are a jerk, or because they are having a really bad day. Don't jump to conclusions based on how the world looks to you. Rather than snapping back, take a moment to pause and restart the conversation in a different vein. And even if the other person is being a jerk for no appropriate reason, simply returning the favor is not likely to help you reach your intended outcome. Sometimes you just need to be the bigger person.

#2 - How is your behavior impacting their emotions, and vice versa? Despite your good intentions, you may be doing things that frustrates, angers, or saddens the other person. Alternatively, your behavior may also be adding to the happiness, serenity, or excitement of the other person. Emotional intelligence requires that you take a moment, pause, and assess how you are affecting the other person, and vice versa. You may be able to make this assessment through observation, but dialogue is most effective.

For more on emotional intelligence, check out the interesting articles on TalentSmart.