Emotional Intelligence Work

1. After taking the emotional intelligence survey, please report your EI score.

My score is 85/100. I got full 10 marks in 7 questions and 5 marks in 3 questions.

2. Reflect upon the questions that you did not earn the full 10 points of emotional
   intelligence. Discuss one specific question/situation that challenged you, and
   detail your thought process on choosing your response and/or how you can
   recognize in hind sight what may be the most emotionally intelligent response.

There are three questions that I did not earn the full 10 points. One of the questions is the
fifth question. The question is about what my reaction would be as a manager in an
organization that is trying to encourage respect for racial and ethnic diversity if I overhear
someone telling a racist joke. I chose the “b” option, which advised calling the person into
my office and explaining to them that their behavior was inappropriate and could form
grounds for disciplinary action if repeated. The answer with full marks is “c”. It recommends
speaking up on the spot and telling the person making the joke that such jokes are
inappropriate and intolerable to the organization.

This question challenged me because I found both “b” and “c” to be correct. However, I
figured out that the “b” was the more polite option as it had the least potential of causing
embarrassment to the person making the racist jokes. To me “c” seemed a little bit harsh. In
hindsight, I think the correct answer was “c”. Pointing out the inappropriateness of the joke to
the person in front of everyone shows that you strongly believe that the joke is wrong and
want everyone else to understand that it is an inappropriate joke.

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3. After reviewing multiple articles on emotional intelligence, discuss specific
   strategies you can employ to improve your emotional intelligence, specifically
   related to the four clusters (1) self-awareness, (2) self-management, (3) social
   awareness, (4) social skills.

According to Serrat (2017), emotional intelligence describes a person’s ability, self-
perceived ability, skill, or capacity to identify, assess, and manage their emotions or those of
other people. Some of the domains of emotional intelligence include self-awareness, self-
management, social awareness, and social skills (Serrat, 2017). Even though some people are
naturally gifted with high emotional intelligence, Serrat (2017) states that emotional
intelligence can also be learned. The learning can be done through extensive practice of what
they learn about emotional intelligence, acting on feedback, and reinforcing new skills that
have been learned using different strategies (Serrat, 2017).

Social skills

As for social skills, I will mainly focus on improving my communication skills. For
instance, to improve my listening skills, I will train myself to pause, clearly listen to what
they have to say, and only reply after ensuring that I have understood what they are saying
(Goleman & Nevarez, 2018). Additionally, while listening, I will listen with the intent of
understanding rather than replying (Motivation2Study, 2019).

Self-management

With regards to self-management, I will seek to improve it through proper
management of stress. Stress can be managed through having adequate sleep and having
regular physical exercises. Through such strategies of stress management, I hope to have
better self-control over my emotions and actions.

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Social awareness

Under social awareness, I will mainly focus on improving empathy, a quality I am
weak at. I will improve empathy through seeking to understand the perspective of other
people and showing sensitivity to their emotions. By constantly seeking to understand the
needs and feelings of other people, I am hopeful that I will be able to develop empathy.

Self-awareness

With regards to self-awareness, I will focus my efforts in improving my emotional
awareness. To this end, I will keep a journal where I will be noting down my feelings and
thoughts, as well as successes and failures for the day. Such writings will help to get a clear
view of my emotional strengths and weaknesses.

4. Reflect on both the readings from this week (emotional intelligence) and last
   week (leadership). What is the relationship between emotional intelligence and
   leadership? Be sure to discuss this question from both a personal and
   organizational perspective.

Reflecting on what was learnt about emotional intelligence and leadership, there is clearly
a direct relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership. Having high emotional
intelligence is associated with effective leadership. According to Goleman (1998) one cannot
succeed as a leader if they have low emotional intelligence. According to Goleman, Boyatzis
& McKee (2021), leaders who have low emotional intelligence create dysfunctional
environment in workplace settings that does not support excellent performance. According to
Shults (2015), by failing to recognize and manage their emotions, they cause unhappiness,
conflicts, and misunderstandings which reduce motivation and performance of everyone
under them. Such leaders end up being fired. From my own personal experiences, I strongly

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believe this to be the case too. I have seen highly intelligent people miserably fail in
leadership because of, among others, poor relationship with their subordinates.

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References

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. & McKee, A. (2021). Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of
Great Performance. Harvard Business Review.

Goleman, D. & Nevarez, M. (2018, August 16). Boost Your Emotional Intelligence with
These Three Questions.

Goleman, D. (1998). What Makes a Leader. Harvard Business Review.

Motivation2Study (2019, October 18). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm-8CWIFkYc.

Serrat, O. (2017). Understanding and developing emotional intelligence. In Knowledge
solutions (pp. 329-339). Springer, Singapore. doi:10.1007/978-981-10-0983-9_37.

Shults, A. (2015). Learning Emotional Intelligence: Training & Assessment. Online
Submission.