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Emotional Intelligence

Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, as a measure of personal ability is either abbreviated as EQ or as he prefers, EI (Goleman, n.d.). It is a measure of ability which starkly differs from IQ in many aspects, the chief being that after substantial work in EQ it is not a measure of cognitive ability rather it focuses on four areas of one’s social and emotional ability namely of self-awareness,

empathy, self-management and social awareness and relationship management (Caruso, 2003). While these four concepts are sometimes mutually dependent they are in many ways exclusive because a person may possess one competency while completely lack in the other three. The main goal of Emotional Intelligence is to express one’s emotions while being aware of them, to be able to distinguish between different feelings and empathize with other people, which is why self-awareness and Empathy are the central aspects of Emotional Intelligence (Colman, 2008).

Self-awareness is in many ways the most important part of identifying Emotional Intelligence within a person; this is because only if a person knows his/her emotions can these be correctly gauged and controlled. “Socrates’s injunction ‘Know thyself’ speaks to the keystone of emotional intelligence:

awareness of one’s own feelings as they occur” (Goleman, 1995). Goleman (1995) shows the importance of being a good examiner of one’s feelings which can in turn help one control and express them. “Emotional self-control– delaying gratification and stifling impulsiveness- underlies accomplishment of every sort” where this can only be achieved by the awareness of feelings as they come, which in turn leads to self-management (p. 43 and 44)

Other than being a useful way of ‘stifling impulsiveness’, self-management leads to better response to new and different situations because of the ability to adapt with new people and surroundings. Revisiting Daniel Goleman’s theory, Empathy lies at the core of developing lasting relationships and generally heightened social awareness, it may help manage relationships to inspire confidence and become a leader other than being able to correctly assess other people’s needs,

feelings and problems. The last two aspects of emotional intelligence, social awareness and relationship management are linked because of the reliance on empathy, the major difference being that relationship management is about achieving one’s own needs in the society by being aware of the politics and needs within the social circle. Together the four aspects of emotional intelligence can help manage emotions, stifle impulsiveness and bad moods, and inspire others through leadership (Kankousky, n.d.)….