Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to both understand and manage one’s emotions, and it’s a highly necessary component of true compassionate leadership. Whether in everyday life, or in the workplace, assessing where you are in your own emotional intelligence journey will tell you just how well you’re doing on your spiritual leadership journey as well. Some tell-tale signs of high emotional intelligence that you may see at home or at work include:
- You really think about your feelings and the feelings of others – We all feel, but how often do we really stop and think about those feelings? At Technalink, we encourage our teams to not just think but communicate openly about the feelings experienced in any situation. Working on how you think about feelings might look like asking yourself a few questions like “What are my emotional weaknesses?”, “Does my mood affect my decision making?”, “What feelings might be influencing what I or others do?”.
- You take a pause – Taking a pause helps you to stop yourself from reacting emotionally in both personal and professional situations. Decisions are permanent, emotions are temporary, and stopping for that pause allows you to save yourself from emotional repercussions. Being able to take this pause is a sign of high emotional intelligence. When learning to take pause, using mala prayer beads in your pocket lets you guide this pause using patient affirmations.
- You look at feedback as a benefit – With high emotional intelligence, you can recognize that criticism isn’t an attack, but a gift that helps you to improve in real and beneficial ways. While no one, even those with high emotional intelligence, particularly enjoys negative feedback in the moment, how quickly you can turn this into a learning experience shows you just where you are in developing your emotional intelligence skills.
- Empathy is natural – Empathy is the ability to understand and feel others’ thoughts and feelings, or your ability to “put yourself in their shoes”. As your emotional intelligence develops, it will become easier and even natural to think and feel from different perspectives.
Emotional intelligence is a skill that not only benefits one’s spiritual entrepreneurship journey, it benefits your entire life. By working on emotional intelligence any leader will gain the ability to connect better with those around them as well as themselves.
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