Becoming emotionally intelligent In business

Daniel Goleman’s Four Components for Emotional Intelligence in Business

from NYT Education Life (7^th April 2015)

On 7^th April 2015 you could have read a short piece about Daniel Goleman’s criteria for emotional intelligence applied to business or the work environment. It gives a list of four recommended attributes for attending and behaving while at work.

In the article, these attributes are described briefly and attributed to those people in leadership positions who are thought to be particularly able. As is often the case with short pieces taken out of context on what you ‘should’ develop to enhance your success in something, there is no clear instruction given, though Goleman’s definitions are sufficiently descriptive to allow you to draw on your own experience to make meaning.

The four attributes are, and I quote:

1. “Self awareness
2. Self management
3. Empathy
4. Relationship skills”.

“The, four, attributes of Emotional Intelligence: Self awareness, Self management, Empathy, Relationship skills.”

Before we consider what these concepts mean and how to acquire or enhance them, there are questions worth raising.

The original article is based on the assumption that you want to demonstrate qualities associated with leadership, progress, and success and, by extension, reap social approval. You probably do, but not necessarily, so these are questions to bring you awareness of exercising your choice and agency.

Does the idea of embodying this class of quality appeal to you personally? Does it fit and enhance your own concept of who you are and who you want to become? Might you have been subscribing to assumed ideas about what is appropriate and useful in society and business without noticing? Would you like to be more aware of frames offered to you by others so you can choose the ones you want knowingly?

Whatever your answers, you might want to read on in case some of the qualities themselves appeal to you. They could assist your endeavours in contexts outside of work, too.

What We Have In Store For You

Over the coming days, we shall explore each of the four attributes with reference to the frames and assumptions that promote them. Then, for the ones you choose, you can learn how to acquire, enhance, and personalise them in keeping with your own values and preferences. If you find some of them worthwhile, you will derive far more utility from them when you know what you are choosing them for and how you anticipate their functioning in your own life.

Bringing new qualities to life and giving existing but previously unnoticed qualities some discerning attention, provides you with your own frames for applying them in the world and the capacity to notice what frames are being offered to you by others.

We live in a world of frames ranging from That is OK, that is not OK to This is how we behave and think at work to This is how we behave at a wedding. This is how we think about other people. This is how we are supposed to think about other people.

Start to notice what is being assumed in pieces of writing and in familiar contexts, and what is being assumed in different places in your world will begin to become more noticeable. How much of it can you influence with your choices when you have that awareness?

In the next article, we shall consider self-awareness as described by Goleman, what else it could be and how to develop and apply all or parts of it.

By Jules Collingwood, NLP Trainer at INSPIRITIVE.

Daniel Goleman’s Four Components for Emotional Intelligence in Business Articles Series

1. Goleman’s Four Components for Emotional Intelligence – Introduction
2. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
3. Self awareness and Emotional Intelligence
4. Self Management and Emotional Intelligence; Three attributes
5. Effective Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

(Note: If you would like to learn more about NLP and Emotional Intelligence you can get a copy of our latest Kindle book, ‘AEGIS: Patterns for extending your reach in life, work & leisure’ by Jules Collingwood, NLP Trainer. For only $4.99 here).

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