Vedere Consulting

“Emotions . . . are at the root of everything we do, the unquenchable origin of every act more complicated that a reflex. . . In all cases, emotions are humanity’s motivator and its omnipresent guide.”

--Thomas Lewis,MD, Fari Amini, MD and Richard Lannon, MD, A General Theory of Love

If you want to motivate people to give you their best every day and inspire them to keep moving forward despite the inevitable obstacles that get in the way of achieving a goal, you have to know how to touch them on an emotional level. That requires emotional intelligence, the capacity to identify and understand one’s own and others emotions, and to manage oneself in relationships. There is a plethora of information on emotional intelligence, but when it comes to developing emotional intelligence, the material that appeals most to me comes from Learning in Action Technologies, www.learninginaction.com, a Seattle-based company specializing in EQ related assessments, workshops, teleclasses, and coaching.

Learning in Action focuses on the basic building blocks of emotional intelligence. The competencies and skills Daniel Goleman and others use to predict leadership performance flow from these capacities. If you want to improve your ability to use your emotions intelligently, it makes sense to work on these foundational capacities first. These are:

Self Reflection is the ability to recognize your own experience—your thoughts, feelings, wants, bodily sensations and actions. Self reflection is the capacity to observe yourself in the moment and to use your internal experience to inform what you do. Much of our internal experience is so automatic that we remain unconscious of it. As we build our capacity to observe our own reactions to a situation, we can consciously choose how to act instead of responding automatically (and often ineffectively).

Self Regulation and Self Soothing is the capacity to calm ourselves when we experience tension and to soothe ourselves when we experience emotional pain. By calming ourselves in healthy ways, we clear our brains so we can assess the situation more accurately, identify more possibilities for action, and choose more wisely. With this capacity, we are able to regain a sense of balance on our own, without requiring others to change.

Empathy is the ability to recognize what someone else is experiencing, to see something from their perspective, and to accept that perspective even if you don’t agree with it. It is being able to put yourself in someone’s shoes. Empathy is both the ability to accurately assess what someone else is feeling and to feel for them—to care about their experience.

Learning in Action has developed an assessment to measure these capacities, the EQ in Action Profile, and a handbook of practices for strengthening each area. The EQ in Action Profile uses videotaped scenarios to measure how you respond to stressful situations rather than self report or a 360 assessment. The handbook offers 150 suggestions for strengthening your EQ fitness, and is available to individuals who have taken the assessment.

Plum Cluverius, PCC is an executive coach with over 30 years experience in leadership development. She lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.

Labels: Emotional Intelligence Self Mastery

Click for more information on executive coaching with Vedere Consulting. You can also follow Plum on Twitter.