EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE at work

Intelligence has been defined in various ways, such as a capacity for logic, understanding, learning, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, abstract thinking, self-awareness and resolution of problems. These definitions are not far from addressing the issue, since they are characteristics with which human beings are endowed and it is what often distinguishes them from the rest of the animal world.

Although it is known that animals of different species also possess some of these capacities, they are also recognizes that they do not have all of them or manifest them at a very high level of phylogenetic evolution. primitive. It is known that intelligence has facilitated the integration of individual subjects into groups, that is, that through the use of any of these capacities could be offered to the service, acceptance or admiration of others (a job). In Psychology-Online we explain how a type of intelligence can contribute positively to the working life of each one: a emotional intelligence at work.

Index

1. What is emotional intelligence and its importance
2. How it affects emotional intelligence at work
3. How to apply emotional intelligence at work
4. How to develop intelligence in the workplace

The emotional intelligence It has been described and proposed by different authors for many decades and also for more than a century by Charles Darwin. This type of intelligence refers to the ability to understand one's own emotional or affective process and that of other people. It is necessary to describe that the emotional intelligence It is not opposed to those previously described with unconscious intentions to homogenize the particular characteristics of each subject: rational-logical-deductive intelligence.

The second intelligence described was often used as a reference to people's success (for example, if someone had an effective understanding of mathematical problems or in memorizing data for long periods of time. weather). The emotional part was thus degraded to something animalistic, childish and superfluous.

As Charles Darwin (1872) mentioned that intelligence is based on how efficient species become in doing the things they need to survive, and doing at a On the other hand, our rational or cognitive source by creating an apology to the world of our emotions would not make us the most efficient species to survive, nor vice versa: no we would be the fittest species surviving if we avoid the importance of our emotions in the decisions we make daily by generalizing to relative reason as the only source of success.

Emotional intelligence requires the ability to rationally understand data that we ignore about the emotional world, for example, they could be the following:

• What is an emotion for?
• Where does an emotion come from?
• How an emotion is manifested.
• What emotions exist.
• How an emotion manifests itself in the body.
• At the neurological level, what areas are involved in emotions.

Rationalizing does not imply justifying and answering "just because" all the time, in that case we would be believing our own lies. Rationalizing implies understanding. The emotional reaction is not thought, but it is understood; understanding that emotional world is what constitutes emotional intelligence.

Learn that an emotion is an impulse for action as described by Goleman (1995) and that is the case, through these impulses how we have managed to survive as a species (for example, if we feel fear of our own physiology is put in place to fight / flee or paralyze ourselves before any threat), but if we do not understand that fear has a function in our life it we will label with the aim of justifying our ignorance as if it were an invention, as something harmful and so many more pejoratives for the emotion in particular. Understanding how fear manifests itself will facilitate adaptation, evolution, until we reach what the German philosopher Nietzsche called "ubermensch" or superman. We will be people not only with emotional intelligence, but also people who have reached spiritual, psychological and physical maturity.

Daniel Goleman (1995): For better or for worse, our evaluations and our reactions to any interpersonal encounter are not the fruit exclusive of an exclusively rational judgment or of our personal history, but also seem to be rooted in our remote past ancestral.

As described, emotional intelligence allows us to understand our own emotions and those of others, something resembling what the Greeks called sofrosyne (the virtue of care and intelligence in governing one's own life); what Christians call temperance, that ability to contain emotional excess. That virtue of self-care, self-knowledge, government and temperance that facilitates emotional intelligence is evidence in the work we do in relationships with clients, collaborators (employees) and with employers (bosses), in the way problems that arise at work are dealt with or solved and in the determination and passion that is dedicated to labor actions.

Be slaves of our nature

Little control over how our limbic system responds to stimuli, the absence of the art of restraining or deferring passions (emotions), the inability to self-regulate (balancing or calming down), emotional illiteracy (not being able to describe what you feel or what others feel) may lead to difficulties in learning, concentrating, remembering and especially in taking decision making. The stress that a normal response of the body to the threats of survival, can become a factor of labor conflicts or problems in the performance of work tasks by not being able to express it and guide it to a target.

Stress is necessary, as well as happiness, sadness and anger, but it must be known with great intelligence how to express them in healthy ways.

Here we share some of the characteristics of the effects of emotional intelligence at work:

• Employees with a higher tolerance for frustration.
• Employers with the capacity for discernment and leadership.
• Employers capable of understanding and empathizing with the needs of their collaborators and their clients or users.
• Employees who usually set goals, offering their skills for the development of the company or institution.
• Relationships between fellow collaborators and employers with empathy.
• Reduction of mental pathologies (depression, anxiety, sleep-wake problems, eating behavior problems).
• Higher productivity.

The advance towards a strategic conception of labor relations is based on the use of collaborators (employees and employers) as tools for organizing and participating in knowledge (contribution and collaboration of the human intelligence of the employees) and the response to the concerns of the human resource (management of the emotional intelligence of the relationships labor). The restructuring of the work environment inevitably occurs, employees play a role within the organization as individual subjects who differentiate in the most visceral and original sense of the concept (different training profiles, origins, remuneration concerns, personal concerns and expectations of developing). The prosperity of organizations is based on improve the health of your workers; a counterproductive act is to deduce that health needs will always be the same for each employee. The development expectations in which each one works may not fully adjust to the organization's offerings; the profiles and training experiences may not be used or taken advantage of by the organizations.

To achieve healthy working relationships from this subjective direction of the employees, the sensation must be created for each one that their professional expectations are not compromised or compelled to remain stagnant within the organization, but that, focus on prospects for growth and improvement. This approach augurs personal growth by empathizing and recognizing that each employee contributes his abilities to the collective benefit, but who also lives and socializes with another environment, and therefore lives other experiences that must be addressed.

Here we share eight strategies to develop emotional intelligence at work:

1. Training: emotional intelligence training processes.
2. Support for: offer psychological support to collaborators.
3. Self-knowledge: offer opportunities for each of the collaborators to know themselves (their abilities, their difficulties and the expression of their emotions at the physiological level).
4. Motivation for the achievement of objectives, goals and new challenges.
5. Knowledge of the environment (collaborators), know the subjective expression of their emotions.
6. Training about nonverbal language. This will make it easier to read the emotions of the interlocutors.
7. Learning social skills, such as develop active listening, listen to the ideas and objectives of each collaborator.
8. Closeness and empathy, implies understanding beyond the ideas and emotions of others. This allows the recognition and assessment of the personal history of each collaborator, so we understand many why of their reactions.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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• Daniel Goleman. (1995). Emotional intelligence. Bantam Books.
• Charles Darwin. (1872). The expression of emotions in man and animals. John Murray. United Kingdom