IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE A REAL CONCEPT.....OR JUST A FAD

Effective leadership is accomplished with the incorporation of many variables such as knowledge, business acumen, and emotional intelligence.  All of these variables are important, however emotional intelligence the least discussed in many companies.  Emotional Intelligence is described by Salovey and Mayer as "a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and use this information to guide one's thinking and action." To effectively benefit from emotional intelligence an understanding of these four concepts is important.

1. Perceive emotions: You must first recognize emotions to understand them.  This involves acknowledging verbal or nonverbal signals such as facial expressions, body language and tone of voice.  This also requires you to drop personal defenses and sincerely reach out to others and realize they are dealing with the same emotional challenges you face daily.
2. Prioritize thinking with emotions: Use emotions to help reason and prioritize thinking.  Our responses to life's challenges are often steeped in emotion. Understand that all behaviour good and bad is a response to some some emotion.  Consider this idea when thinking about assigning tasks and opportunities.
3. Understand emotions: Clearly understand the expressed emotion.  If your friend is speaking and behaving aggressively with you it may be because you said something offensive or it may be because she just finished having a difficult conversation with her spouse.
4. Manage emotions.  Responding appropriately to emotions is a key aspect of effectively managing emotions.  Understanding and responding to the emotions of others is equally important.  Patience and understanding goes along way.

Managers are called upon to guide employees with differing personalities. In order to be effective, a manager must first understand that emotional intelligence is part of the management process.  Understanding what motivates employees is a key component of good management.  Unfortunately, not all managers acknowledge the importance of emotional intelligence and these same managers probably have unhappy employees.