EQ Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

EQ - Essay Example Why? Introduction: Emotional intelligence (EI) has emerged as a highly significant and critical aspect of management after studies related to emotional intelligence gained pace in fields of psychology and management. Leading is an integral part of manager’s job, which requires the ability to influence others to achieve certain goals. In general, emotional intelligence may be referred to the ability of realising or understanding emotions of oneself and others coupled with the ability to put this understanding to use in managing self and others in a manner that produces desired outcomes. Emotions tend to have mental, social and physical impact on self and surroundings, which makes emotional intelligence a necessity in managing relationships and work. Though EI has received much attention from various researchers and scholars around the world, the most significant and renowned studies have been that of Daniel Goleman. Numerous models on EI and its application have been proposed; however, this paper briefly explores EI from Goleman’s (2003) perspective, which identifies four key components namely, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Further, a short argument about the most important component will be presented before concluding with findings and opinions. Self-awareness: Self-awareness is the first component discussed in EI model, which refers to the ability of recognizing feelings and their impact on outcomes or performance. Goleman (2003) asserts that self-awareness helps in identifying one’s own strengths and weaknesses, which will further assist the individual in taking right steps towards goal achievement or bringing an improvement in expected outcomes. Self-awareness also encourages the individual to introspect and seek feedback; such individuals strive to learn from the feedback and also from their mistakes. Goleman’s (2003) studies indicated that most of the high performing candidates we re high on self-awareness index. Self-awareness also instigates individuals to assess the impact of their emotions on situations and others as well as on the outcomes. Self-management: Self-management refers to the process of controlling oneself and not showing too much of distress or other extreme feelings (Goleman, 2003). Self-management ability helps the individual to build the focus and achieve desired goals. Such individuals possess flexibility to adapt to any situation without getting affected by the changes. Social awareness: This third component refers to the ability to empathize with others and understand their situation without affecting their emotions in a negative manner. Social awareness skills help in developing others by positively motivating them while understanding their negative or disruptive state of mind. Higher social awareness drives greater service-oriented behavior, which is a critical quality for effective leadership from customer, subordinate and situation perspectives. Social awareness also refers to the ability to understand organizational mood or emotion, which will help in understanding and building interpersonal relationships by exerting the right and/or positive influence on others (Lynn, 2000). Relationship management: The last component is relationship management, which refers to the ability to influence, motivate and lead others towards the right direction. As Goleman (2003) explains, Individuals with high social awareness will be able to manage relationships