Guiding Question: “Which one guides and controls YOUR actions - your thinking mind or your emotional mind?”
Daniel Goleman, author of the best-selling book Emotional Intelligence, says we have two different minds that affect the way we act: Our emotional mind and our thinking mind. Our thinking mind helps us slow down and respond with thought, but sometimes we need to lead with our feelings and react with action using our emotional mind. Emotional intelligence is knowing which mind to use and how to use it in each situation.
In Emotional Intelligence, Goleman says there are four dimensions to Emotional Intelligence:
1 -Self-awareness: How well you recognize and understand your emotions.
2 - Self-Management: How well you manage your emotions.
3 - Social Awareness: How well you can recognize and understand the emotions of others.
4 - Social Management: How well you can manage the emotions of others, and how well you can help them manage their own emotions.
Becoming more emotionally intelligent begins with a better understanding of yourself, your emotions, and how your emotions either help you or hurt you.
Once you are aware of your emotions and how they impact you, the next step is learning how to manage those emotions so they are working for you, not against you.
The better you get at recognizing and understanding your emotions, the more you might start to recognize the emotions of others and how they impact themselves and everyone around them.
The most effective leaders are able to recognize, understand, and help manage and leverage the emotions of the people around them so that they all make better, more emotionally intelligent decisions.
DEFINE | MANAGE | MODEL
1 - Define: What are emotions, how many are there; and which ones affect you the most? Our emotions are impulses to act. The word emotions comes from the Latin word motere, which means to move or move away. In a study published in The Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, researchers identified 27 different categories of emotions, but we generally recognize 6 basic emotions that are universally experienced in all cultures: happiness, sadness, fear (and anxiety), disgust, anger, and surprise.
Now that you know what they are, how well do you manage them? What can you do better to manage them?
2 - Manage: Being able to manage your emotions can be a superpower. Sometimes you need to get out of your head, escalate, and have more emotion, and sometimes you have more emotions, and you need to de-escalate so you can think and respond instead of react so you can make the next, best decision. Managing your emotions means you know what you need, when, and how to make it happen.
When do you feel your emotions the strongest? When do you feel positive emotions the strongest and how can you leverage those feelings for good? When do you feel negative emotions and how can you control or manage them?
3 - Model: Emotions are contagious, so we can change the energy in the room by modeling emotional intelligence, and our energy and attitude can be influenced as well if we are not personally and socially aware. How do you want to show up every day? How do you want to show up emotionally when things are going well, and how do you want to show up and be seen when things aren’t?
We asked earlier, “Which one guides and controls YOUR actions - your thinking mind or your emotional mind?”
The goal is to ultimately say both. When you have strong emotional intelligence, you are able to make smart, practical decisions, and you are able to manage your emotions and the emotions of others to move and make things happen.
SOMETHING(s) TO THINK ABOUT
1 - What is your biggest takeaway from this post?
2 - Which one guides and controls YOUR actions - your thinking mind or your emotional mind?”
3 - In what areas do you do a good job of thinking things through but could better use your emotions to act?
4 - In what areas do you tend to react emotionally but could do a better job of thinking things through?
For a printable version of this post, click here: Emotional Intelligence
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