what is emotional intelligence and how can we develop it emotional intelligence is the ability to identify comprehend manage and handle emotions this ability starts with recognizing and managing one's own emotions and then those of others emotional intelligence is also known as the emotional quotient or EQ the term has been around since the 1960s but was made popular in 1995 by Daniel Goldman and his bestselling book emotional intelligence Q or EI differs from IQ IQ stands for intelligence quotient and IQ is a score of a person's problem-solving ability measured through standardized psychometric tests iqss is a person's capacity for reasoning which is useful but what IQ does not assess is how a person interacts with others that is where EQ becomes important emotional intelligence is important as it is foundational to all relationships to relate to people we need to understand our emotions and relate to those of others but EQ is of particular importance for leaders leadership at its most basic level is influence and therefore if you want to influence people you need to know how they tick I've learned often the hard way that clear communication is not necessarily effective communication if you do not gauge the emotions of yourself or your audience then you are unlikely to get the result that you want or expect emotional intelligence gives you the capability to perceive the emotional content of what people are communicating and what they need that allows the manager or leader to interact effectively with an individual or team gauging how they are feeling and what they need in terms of support encouragement or help in order for them to develop and perform at high levels but EQ is more important than just that people with higher emotional intelligence no matter what their leadership responsibilities have better mental health more success at work and better relationships so how do you improve your EQ some people seem naturally more emotionally aware but we can all get better at reading our own emotions and those of others as with everything in life you can improve EQ through deliberate practice let's use the Goldman model to explore this skill and how we can develop and improve emotional intelligence Goldman's model also known as the mixed model has five components these are self-awareness self-regulation motivation empathy and social skills so let's quickly look at each one of those in turn 1. self-awareness self-awareness can be improved by a better understanding of our strengths and weaknesses and by undertaking reflective exercises such as journaling two self-regulation one very effective way to improve self-regulation of emotions is by using breathing techniques it's worth knowing and practicing a couple to see what works best for you and if you are unsure about where to start then there are some methods on the website for you to try out three motivation for understanding motivation it is important to understand our personal values priorities and Passions setting goals is another great way for building momentum you can add visualization to this goal setting to enhance the motivational effect as you try and see and feel what achieving your goal will be like 4. empathy if you want to improve your empathy then start by working on your listening skills there are lots of ways to do this but one simple way to start is to practice giving someone your full attention and not interrupting understanding body language will also help you with your empathy as you will be able to pick up on non-verbal signals too 5. social skills social skills are generally dependent upon building rapport building Rapport starts with being at ease with ourselves and then carrying that authenticity into our interactions you'll find here that as with empathy good listening will really help you build rapport we can also work on improving our verbal communication whether that is conversation or public speaking either way try to get honest feedback on how well you are communicating so you can improve each time those are just a few short ideas of things to help improve in each area you'll find further ideas in the full article available on the website and remember no matter how emotionally intelligent we might be there is always room for improvement remembering Goldman's model can help us work out where we want to develop most be that in self-awareness self-regulation motivation empathy or social skills so why not pick one of these areas to work on right now and make one small step today in having better emotional intelligence if you would like to find out more on this subject or about other leadership models and decision-making tools then click on the link or head over to the website at www dot therightquestions.com and if you found this helpful please do like and subscribe