Working Knowledge of EI

For us, coaches, emotion is the locus to carry out a coaching intervention.

 Who is exhibiting Emotional intelligence?

Examination days are on, and trust you me, it is not much different in anxiety, despair and pressure than it has been before. So, a video on WhatsApp caught my attention, wherein mother (with positive intention) is scolding her 8th grade son on not practicing by writing. Her scolding is as dreadful as one can possibly imagine, to the extent that she calls him names and slaps him hard. Yes, your visuals are absolutely bang on! And this child is apparently listening to her, not answering back, neither shedding tears, nor seeing his mom eye to eye, but only looking into the notebook. And after a few moments of her son's such behaviour-she starts crying and tells him that she is only bothered for his good results because that is the kind of education system, we are in. And that she has no complaints otherwise against him.

 My question-Who exhibited Emotional Intelligence? Mother by pouring/expressing herself or the son by being quiet?

Picked from source: linkedin Dr.Anju Chawla

Work of Paul Ekman

Emotions deserved as much attention as thought processes, drivers and behaviour, the first to understand this was Paul Ekman, who came to the subject through his research into nonverbal behaviour and facial expressions. His research across globe suggested that facial expressions are universal product of human evolution. Ekman came up with six basic emotions- FHASSD (Fear, Happiness, Anger, Sadness, Surprise, Disgust) and because of their ubiquity, concluded they must be important to our psychological make-up.

He noted that facial expressions linked to these emotions are involuntary-we react automatically to things that trigger these emotional responses-and that this reaction often happens before our conscious mind has time to register the causes of that emotion. These emotions are difficult to suppress and are very powerful.

Example- extreme sadness can override the will to live which is the basic desire of a being, similarly anger can land you in jail though self-esteem is one of our needs in Maslow’s hierarchy. A better understanding of emotions would help to overcome many unwanted and negative situations.

Ekman’s work is deeply inspired by Sigmund Freud.

This was to arise an emotion of curiosity in you about emotions and their working through Emotional Intelligence. Since the six basic identified emotions are so powerful, how effective it will be to be aware of these emotions both in self and others.

Talking of my coaching journey and learning from there-

In my journey of coaching leaders, I have found that if you’re looking to develop particular EI strengths, it helps to consider areas for improvement others have identified along with the goals you want to achieve — and then to actively build habits in those areas rather than simply relying on understanding them conceptually. To that end, start by asking yourself three questions:

1.      What are the differences between how you see yourself and how others see you?2.      What matters to you?

3.      Once you have identified the required changes, what will you do?

And now while you are doing this much of talking to yourself, why not as well introduce you to a very important rule- RAUPER (inspired by Yale’s RULER)