Top 10 Benefits of Emotional Intelligence

Hi, I’m Roberta Fernandez, your Ability Activator. And today I’m going to talk about why it’s important to develop emotional intelligence in yourself and in your organization.  So personally and professionally. And I want to remind you that emotional intelligence starts on the personal level. Being aware of your own feelings and your own motivations around those feelings, and then really looking critically about how you’re expressing those things and how you’re managing yourself. Because when you are first personally aware and emotionally intelligent, then you can take it into working with your relationships with others, either personally or professionally. You can put yourself in their shoes and understand them better and then manage those relationships in a much more productive way. So today we’re going to look at the top 10 benefits that you can have by being more emotionally intelligent. So we’ll start first with leadership because when as a leader you are emotionally intelligent, it’s much easier to inspire and to motivate the teams that work for you, subordinates,  your whole staff, all of your employees. Everybody’s going to work together more effectively when they feel that coming from the top. The second is conflict resolution. When two employees are having conflict between them, it will help you manage, help them manage that conflict better. And if you are involved in that conflict, obviously, you’ll know how to handle conflict much more constructively. And this, of course, promotes a much healthier work environment. The third benefit is decision making. When you are clearly aware of how you feel, how other people feel, and you know how to use those things to inspire and motivate people, it puts you in a position of clarity. And when you’re in a position of clarity, you have much better judgment, you’re much more thoughtful, especially in challenging situations. The fourth benefit of being emotionally intelligent is employee engagement. And this goes back a little bit to the leadership, but it takes it to a deeper level because when you create a positive climate in your work environment, this is going to lead to higher job satisfaction. You know, I don’t know, a lot of people think that most people leave a company because they don’t make enough money. But the research shows us over and over again that the reason why people leave a company has a lot to do with how they feel about the boss, about how boss relates to them. And so this creates higher job satisfaction and increased commitment by your employees to stay with you, create loyalty. And we all know how expensive turnover can be in an organization. The next way emotional intelligence can benefit your organization is adaptability. When you can understand how people are feeling and you can work with those feelings in a way that is beneficial to everybody, it helps you better navigate and adapt to new situations. And this is really important in modeling that to your employees and helping your employees work through their own levels of adaptability. The next way it helps is through customer relations, because when you’re doing these things internally that is going to relate to how they are working with customers and how you work with customer relationships. You can positively impact and foster these client relationships to create more loyal. tea and to get referrals. The next way it helps is through stress management and this this is a big one because everybody can better cope with stress when they’re in an environment that helps them improve their well-being. Stress is when we feel we cannot manage our life and today, in most businesses, in this fast-paced world that we live in at work and at home, it creates incredible opportunities for stress where people feel they’re out of control in their life. So as a leader or as a co-worker understanding that and working with each other will help promote better coping skills. Then we have creativity and innovation, which is also a huge thing. When you are emotionally intelligent and your team is functioning in that way, iut encourages the expression of diverse ideas and creative thinking. If people don’t feel safe expressing their ideas or their feelings in the workplace, they’re going to stay, they’re going to keep all that inside of them. You’re not going to be able to draw out the real potential of innovation and creativity in the people that you work with. The ninth way that it pays to be emotionally intelligent is just overall resilience. When you are emotionally intelligent, you’re better equipped to handle challenges and to be resilient against those tough times. When you feel that other people in your  organization are there with you, that they understand you,,that they’re supporting you.it automatically creates the resilience that you need individually and as an organization to get through challenging times. And then finally, teamwork, overall teamwork. When you are emotionally intelligent with each other, teamwork just flows. There’s better communication, better collaboration among the members of the team.  And you know when you have a well-functioning team, so much more as possible. So those are the 10 top benefits, why it pays to promote emotional intelligence within yourself and within your organization. I’m Roberta Fernandez, your Ability Activator.