EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE by Isiekwe Nneka

We all have emotions, and suffice me to say, but anyone without emotions is dead.

What is Emotion?

Emotion is a person’s internal state of being, it deals with how and what you feel on the inside. It is also the physiological response to an object or a situation.

Example of emotions: love, hatred, joy, sadness, anger, happiness etc.

What is Intelligence?

Intelligence is the capacity of a mind, especially to understand principles, truths, facts or meanings, acquire knowledge, and apply it to practice. Simply put it is the ability to learn and comprehend and then apply the knowledge gained.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE is the ability to comprehend or understand why we feel what we feel on the inside. This deals with issues such as understanding others, our relationships with other people as well as our ability to adapt and cope with our immediate surroundings and ourselves.

Emotional intelligence deals with inter and intrapersonal skills.

Interpersonal skills: this generally talks about our people skills, how well we can handle people, how we treat people, how we handle the various situations we find ourselves.

Intrapersonal skills: this examines the relationship we have with ourselves, the interaction that goes on within us, the conversations we share within ourselves. Having good interpersonal skills is highly needed, because poor intrapersonal skills results to bad interpersonal skills, which in turn leads to bad output, which in turn causes bad attitude, which ultimately leads to no success.

A person who is emotionally intelligent 

·         Self aware
·         Self regulated
·         Motivated
·         Empathy
·         Social skills

Self-Awareness: This is the ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions and drives as well as others. Self-awareness helps you to be realistic, confident and enables you set achievable goals.

Self-Regulated: The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods. It is the uncanny ability to think before acting. A self-regulated person is trustworthy and has self-control.

Motivated: This is the propensity to pursue dreams and goals with energy, without relenting. A motivated person is committed, has strong drive to achieve, is result oriented and success driven. He or she possess a never give up spirit.

Empathy: the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people. It is the ability to treat people according to their emotional reaction. An empathetic person is service oriented, sensitive, is able to discern feelings, can listen and understand, is able to build and retain talents.

Social skill: to ascertain that one possesses a good social skill, the person must possess all four of the listed traits; he/she must be: self-aware, self-regulated, motivated and empathetic. Good social skill is the bedrock for good success.