In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman writes and argues that emotional intelligence is not detrimental to rational thinking and is a natural part of our thought process. He believes that emotional awareness implies being fully aware of self, impulse, control, self-motivation, empathy, social deftness and persistence. He says these are in fact the qualities that characterize highly successful people and lead them to have flourishing relationships and to excel in life. He delves into the theoretical aspect of the fact that emotional intelligence is not something which one is born with or something that is a constant, and that making efforts in the right direction can develop the same. To prove his point he has cited neurological research results conducted on men and women who have had a disturbed emotional pattern in their lives and experienced impairment in daily emotional functioning. It was proved by him that such people, without access to their own emotional knowledge, were able to make decisions that superficially used rational patterns. On the whole, he urges society in balanced criticism that we must nurture our emotional competencies for the benefit of not only ourselves but also for those around us. He also urges society to rethink about the pattern of education that today’s children are going through and to make them alive to emotional intelligence by way of brainstorming in the daily grind so that they are able to regulate their lives to achieve better results for themselves. He has gone to the extent of saying that the ideal solution for combating emotional hardships is to go for preventive medicine by way of placing so much importance on teaching children the important skills of emotional intelligence as much as is done to improve their IQ and GPA.
The Emotional Intelligence (EI) Model as introduced by Goleman primarily asserts that there are a wide array of competency levels and skills that lead to leadership and excellent performance levels by way of adopting a self-regulated policy to achieve happiness and success in life. His model emphasized on five main EI skills that are essential to combat emotional hardships and to make one’s way towards the happiness and satisfaction levels that we all strive for. These skills and competencies are essential to imbibe in order to develop the skill of self-regulation, and relate primarily to the following:
- Self Awareness
- Self Management
- Self Motivation
- Social Awareness
- Managing relationships
Self-awareness is the capability to read one’s own thought process and ascertain its impact on using discretion to facilitate good and positive decision-making. The basic idea is that when we know our emotions, we recognize the feelings that follow and hence can differentiate between them to take appropriate decisions. Self management relates to our inherent ability to control our emotions and reflexes in adapting ourselves to the constant changes that keep happening around us in our every day lives and in changing circumstances. This also amounts to managing our moods so that we can handle our feelings to make them relevant to the prevailing situations in order that we react in an appropriate manner. Self-motivation implies gathering our feelings in a way that they become directed towards our self for a specific goal despite the doubts and inertia that we may have along with impulsive behavior at any given time. Social awareness is essential because there has to be ability in people to understand and sense situations so that they can react appropriately in social gatherings and in interacting with different groups of people. This can also be considered as a feeling of empathy for others in recognizing their feelings and in being in tune with their verbal and non-verbal behavior. Managing relationships effectively is a trait that is difficult to achieve because it requires the relentless ability to inspire others and to influence them in managing conflicts. It also implies the taking of selfless initiatives in developing others and in handling interpersonal interactions so as to resolve conflicts by entering into positive negotiations.
We need emotional intelligence as a pre requisite to successfully develop the skill of self-regulation. More over, research has proved that emotional health is essential for any learning to be effective and the most crucial aspect for a student to be successful is in mastering the art of how to learn. For this, a whole lot of emotional intelligence traits are required such as curiosity, self-control, confidence, communication effectiveness and the ability to cooperate. Emotional intelligence has now proved to be a more effective means of success with children than methods like IQ and GPA. It is in this context that interest has increased tremendously in emotional intelligence amongst corporate houses, schools and universities. One can practice self-regulation only if there is high level of emotional intelligence because then the person has the ability to understand one’s position from the point of view of emotional intelligence and is well equipped to successfully make use of all the methods and tools available in this regard. Self-regulation implies being in control and it is very effective with youngsters who fall into the trap of using drugs and alcohol due to depression and other discouragements. The study of emotional intelligence has now started to be incorporated in corporate training programs in view of the evidence that after attending such programs, employees behave and cooperate better, get motivated and thus increase productivity and profits.
References
A Short History of EI, 2008. Web.
Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Academic Publishers, 1995,