Incivility can ruin your relationships
I’m not sure the title is appropriate calling them “Jerks” but it is an interesting study on how being uncivil in the workplace can ruin it.
How would a simple “thank you” for doing your work but would be much better than tearing up the work in front of the employee may seem obvious but…
There are so many stories of toxic workplaces that somehow, companies are not getting the rules correct for workplace behaviour.
Leaders need to be spell out and follow the rules of correct workplace behaviour.
Work on Your Emotional Intelligence to Boost Your Self Confidence
Much has been written about gaining self-confidence to boost your success in career and relationships. Everyone knows that without self-confidence, you remain insecure and out of touch with others – and yourself.
Emotional intelligence breeds healthy emotions and, unlike IQ, can be developed and practiced over time. Practicing the EQ techniques will help you make better life choices and improve your relationships at work and home and become an exceptional leader of others.
To have self-confidence, you must become self-aware – that is, knowing what makes you tick. You are aware of why you have emotional responses and know how to manage them in the most effective manner possible.
For example, many people have triggers that take them from mild-mannered to angry in a second. With emotional intelligence, you’ll know where that anger comes from and be able to channel it in a way that is positive rather than negative.
The empathy you show for others is also a factor in developing self-confidence. When you understand why others are emotional and can mentally put yourself in their shoes, you are more able to relate to the causes of the emotions and respond more effectively.
You become a more self-confident person who is able to communicate with others and turn situations around from being awkward and unpleasant to understanding and connecting.
As a result of building your emotional intelligence, you’ll be able to build relationships with others. The process of navigating through emotions that factor in to all relationships takes all the elements that emotional intelligence provides.
Emotional intelligence must be understood and practiced to become skills that help you in your quest for success. You can build on these skills by focusing your intentions on developing and utilizing them to make you a better person.
Self-confidence can spur you on to become motivated in setting and achieving the goals you desire in life. With higher emotional intelligence, you become more willing to give up simple, short-term success for the vision you have for your entire life.
Better communication between the rational and emotional parts of your brain becomes easier with emotional intelligence and keeps you emotions from taking control and responding in a negative manner.
You’ll gain a self-confident perspective that lets you believe that you can be a success in life and let nothing stop you from reaching the goals you’ve set for yourself. The level of your emotional intelligence directly affects how you perform in life.
When you truly invest yourself in developing your emotional intelligence, it can transform your life – both personally and professionally – and ensure the self-confidence you need to reach the goals you’ve set for yourself.
Using Emotional Intelligence in the World of Social Media
The phrase – emotional intelligence – means exactly what the two words indicate – knowing how to channel your emotions in a mature and intelligent manner. It’s particularly important today to realize the importance of knowing how to react and respond to relationships on social media.
The original design and purpose of emotional intelligence was actually developed in 1920 by Edward Throndike who defined it as a way to manage and understand people so that you can make relationship decisions more wisely.
Although the theory of emotional intelligence was originally developed for people and personal relationships, it’s now used by organizations to improve relationships with clients and others within an organization – leading to an increase in sales and employee satisfaction.
By using techniques of emotional intelligence, you can become more aware of others’ needs and desires and meet expectations they may have. Emotional intelligence should help you become more empathetic by learning to acknowledging how others feel and how those feelings are affecting the person.
Getting in touch with your own emotions will help you be more aware of others and guide you along the path of meeting your networking concerns. When you learn how to be emotionally intelligent, you’ll be able to effectively communicate between the rational parts of your brain and what causes emotional reaction.
You’ll gather much empathy for others and understand their perspective better. Thoughtfulness and consideration on your part will be easier and so will making decisions about how to react to others’ emotions.
While social media is a great way to keep in touch with old friends and relatives who may be scattered throughout the world, it’s gained a reputation for foul language, jumping to conclusions and attacking others based on their politics or other factors.
As you develop emotional intelligence, you’ll begin to know others as you also begin to know yourself better. You’ll see how social attitudes and beliefs change over time and learn how to manage that change.
Quantitative intelligence is based on a person’s IQ and doesn’t change throughout your life, but emotional intelligence can be developed and you can score higher on the scale as you become more self-aware of your emotions.
Emotional intelligence also increases as you gain the ability to use that awareness of your emotions in a way that garners positive behavior and flexibility. While IQ has a set measurement, Emotional Intelligence can be learned.
That fact sets us apart from the animal kingdom as human beings. It can help you in your social media excursions to understand and react better to others and in turn, you will get what you want and need from this type of communication.
The First Step Toward Emotional Intelligence Is Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the foundation of achieving emotional intelligence. When you become self-aware you begin to know yourself, including your emotions, behaviors and in-depth feelings. You become are the focus of attention, but you don’t have to think about it constantly.
Your self-awareness will come into focus as you react to various situations in your life. Your personality plays an important part in this puzzle and you begin to realize how different you are than others.
Humans usually begin self-awareness at about a year of age. By 1 ½ years old they become much more developed and self-aware. One study had researchers place a red dot on a toddler’s nose and then held a mirror up so they could see it.
The children who recognized their own image in the mirror touched their noses rather than the mirror’s reflection, indicating that they were more aware of themselves. Later, humans learn to be self-aware when expressing emotions and the impact it has on others.
The frontal lobe area of the brain is most involved in developing self-awareness as studies of brain imaging indicate. But, even if that area of the brain is damaged, people can still become more self-aware through dealings and interactions with others.
There are levels of self-awareness as we grow into adults. As children approach adulthood, they become more acutely aware of themselves – from differentiation as a toddler knows that the dot in the mirror is actually part of him.
After differentiation, children become more aware of their movements and are able to identify that they are the reflection in the mirror rather than someone else. The level of permanence appears when children are able to identify themselves in pictures and videos.
The highest level of self-awareness is self-consciousness (meta self-awareness) where they can recognize how they may appear to others. As self-awareness emerges, there are two types that stand out for humans – public and private.
You have public self-awareness when you become aware of the image you present to others. Those who follow rules and social expectations have public self-awareness and may behave according to what is acceptable.
Private type of self-awareness is when you know certain things about yourself, but keep it private. You may have moments of anxiety about some types of situations – such as public speaking – but keep that emotion to yourself.
Self-consciousness is when you become acutely aware of yourself and feel awkward with others. Emotional intelligence helps you know the difference in private and public self-awareness.
When you’re more aware of which type of emotion is causing your discomfort, you can take control and become more appreciative of the things that set you apart from others. That ability to know yourself and accept yourself for who you are is emotional intelligence.
Sizing Up a Potential Employers Level of Empathy Before You Accept a Job
It may seem to be a trivial matter when looking for a job, but sizing up your potential employer’s level of empathy before you accept the job can keep you from many future regrets.
Empathy in an employer shows that he will take your welfare into consideration when making decisions that affect you within the company. Empathy is fundamental to good leadership. Without it, leaders have trouble gaining trust.
Any corporate or work setting needs leaders who are empathetic to those they lead. In the workplace, it means there is a cognitive understanding of the emotions and experiences of others that lead them toward appropriate actions.
Actions or decisions made by management must take everyone on various rungs of the ladder into consideration. Today, companies are beginning to realize the importance of empathy and are attempting to weave it into their company’s mode of operation.
While empathy may have been ignored by businesses in the past, social media and a change in the way workers think about their jobs have made it impossible for businesses to simply provide services or products without adding empathy to their strategy for success.
Empathy can be taught. It can be built upon just like physical exercise can build muscles. When people are taught to be empathetic and use that skill during interactions with others, business and relationships are vastly improved.
When customers and employees trust and see empathy in a company, they’re much more apt to display loyalty. Listening to others is one component of being empathetic. The companies that listen to their clients and employees rate higher in earnings and productivity than those companies that don’t.
Emotional intelligence also plays a part in a company’s leadership abilities. Leaders must be self-aware to gather the emotional intelligence it takes to be empathetic toward others.
During an interview with a prospective employer, pay attention to how closely the interviewer pays attention to what you’re saying or asking. If he doesn’t act interested and simply appears to want to finish the interview, you’ll leave unsure of the company’s fit for you.
Companies who manage without empathy usually will lack the skill to motivate employees – and an unmotivated employee won’t be as productive as one who is motivated.
Empathy is the critical skill needed to motivate and promote trust within a company. Employees tend to be more loyal to the company and elevate it to higher levels of productivity.
It’s doubtful that, without empathy, an employer will be interested in your opinions and needs. That could be an important part of your path to success, so be sure and consider that trait before you decide to sign on with a company.
Perfecting Your Communication Skills Using Emotional Intelligence
Good communication skills are essential in today’s world. You use these communication skills on an everyday basis in some capacity. It could be social media, communicating with your loved ones, on the job or even shopping.
Using emotional intelligence (EQ) can help you attain success in life, whatever you choose to do. In any profession, you should be able to maturely define the signals from other people. The correct definition is important to the way you react to them.
It could be in words on social media or face to face with a client. Whatever the venue, using your EQ will help to ensure a good outcome. Understanding, empathizing and negotiating effectively all depend on your emotional intelligence.
We now have the ability to communicate with others on a global basis – making it even more important to read and understand emotions rather than relying on your knowledge of language.
When you learn and practice your emotional intelligence you become more self-aware – able to connect with your true feelings and emotions and the effects they’re having on others you’re attempting to communicate with.
With self-awareness comes self-confidence. This helps you realize what you’re capable of achieving and be confident of your self-worth. Self-awareness and self-confidence are two of the most important building blocks of success in life.
After you achieve self-awareness and self-confidence you’ll be able to control your emotions by getting rid of anxiety, depression and anger. Using the techniques of emotional intelligence to regulate yourself keeps you from giving in to impulses that could hamper your success.
Motivation is another area of emotional intelligence that you can learn to control. It’s difficult to motivate yourself and remain motivated unless you have reachable goals and are thinking positively about them.
An improved emotional intelligence can help you catch those negative thoughts and emotions and re-invent them into a more positive thinking process. Empathy is also gained through emotional intelligence.
Business and personal relationships thrive when you’re able to recognize subtle (and not so subtle) feelings in others. They may be saying one thing – and meaning another. Empathy helps you to know what others are feeling and react to them with controlled signals and emotions.
Building your social skills through emotional intelligence techniques will help you remain connected with others and is essential to your success in today’s world. Social skills are necessary if you want to persuade and influence others.
You can better understand how to send precise messages that communicate exactly what you want to get across and build bonds with relationships in your business and personal life.
A high IQ isn’t a measure of how successful you can be. Your EQ determines how well you can negotiate, understand and empathize with others – and that is the true path to success in your daily life and career.
Is It Possible to Be a Leader and Have Empathy for Others?
Empathy is a trait that every great leader should have to be effective in their leadership role. Empathy requires self-awareness and without knowing your true self and what you value, you can’t be empathetic toward others.
Leaders who cultivate their emotional intelligence tend to have empathy for others. They don’t judge and are good listeners and totally focus on the person who is speaking and whom they are speaking to.
Great leaders also consider the perspective of others, even though it doesn’t sync with their own. Appreciation of another’s beliefs and an understanding of what they’re going through in their lives is a quality that makes leaders stand out.
When a leader leads with emotional intelligence and the empathy that comes with it, he or she builds trust among those they are leading. The employees or followers have faith that the leader will take his feelings into consideration and trust him to help them succeed.
A leader who cultivates empathy is emotionally intelligent and is able to disconnect from his beliefs and feelings and analyze those of others without letting his own feelings direct the outcome of a situation.
If employees or followers don’t trust their leader to take their feelings into consideration, they won’t trust his ability to help them succeed. When feelings are ignored among the workers, productivity suffers.
When a leader shows empathy it doesn’t mean that he or she is weak. On the contrary, it helps others trust and look up to their leader for guidance. Respect is necessary for any leader to succeed – empathy for others is an important tool to gain that respect.
A leader who shows empathy will also motivate others. When that happens, productivity increases and the morale of the workplace soars. Studies indicate that successful businesses are innovative and non-successful businesses become stagnant.
Research shows that harnessing that ability of a business to grow and remain innovative depends on the leadership and one intangible force – empathy. It’s the force that moves businesses to focus on the future and move forward to success.
It simply doesn’t work when leaders can’t relate to the people they lead. Each decision made for the company must involve true empathy and a logical rationale that comes from leaders with emotional intelligence.
Empathy is also the force behind how a business communicates within and with other businesses. When a business falters and fails, one of the causes is usually that their leaders haven’t focused on understanding the needs of others.
Empathy is a critical skill that all leaders must have to be effective. It comes from developing emotional intelligence and a self-awareness that transforms an ordinary person into a true leader.
How to Raise Kids with a Healthy Amount of Empathy
Unless you raise your kids with a good amount of empathy for others, they may turn out to be bullies or unable to make friendships easily. Later on, those traits might carry through to their career paths and personal relationships.
Empathetic children tend to have a better outlook on the world and able to empathize with others in parts of the world that are not nearly as advantaged. They’ll tend to want to make the world a better place and have a spirit of thankfulness.
Although toddlers aren’t fully capable of understanding empathy, those just a bit over that age does have the capacity for developing an empathetic personality. And, the earlier you begin to teach your child, the better opportunity he has of being empathetic.
The best way a child can learn about empathy is to be a good role model. Addressing your child’s needs appropriately let him know that you’re empathetic to his needs. For example, if your child expresses hunger, but you don’t have dinner ready, validate the fact that he’s hungry and explain that the dinner has to cook before he can eat it.
You can also help him see emotions in others. For example, if you pick up your child at school and one of his friends is crying or distressed, you might ask your child if he knows why his friend was sad. That gets him to talking about and understanding emotions.
Use non-verbal as well as verbal ways to let your child learn emotions. You could use various facial expressions and ask if he can guess how you’re feeling. Use your voice to demonstrate happy, sad or angry emotions and ask your child to tell which you’re using.
Talk to your child about including other children who may feel left out. If a child is sitting alone at the lunch table, encourage your child to sit with him and begin a conversation. He’ll remember the good reaction of the child who was left out.
Your behavior and encouragement for empathy are good teaching tools. Give the child praise when he shows caring for another child – or animal – and if he exhibits bad behavior toward someone, discuss how things could be different to produce a better outcome.
Pretend play is also a good teaching tool for empathy. For example, you might ask if a certain teddy bear could sleep with him because the bear feels lonely sitting in the corner of the room.
Unfortunately, in our broken world, your child won’t always be rewarded with the same amount of empathy he gives to others. Always discuss that type of situation with the child and help him think of why the other person might act in a hateful manner.
Teaching your child that, no matter what the circumstances, other people deserve understanding and respect will be the foundation of empathy that his life is built upon.
How to Practice Having Empathy When You’re Working on Emotional Intelligence
Empathy is another key to gaining emotional intelligence. Some people seem to be born empathetic while others spend all their time angry and always finding the negative in others.
Having empathy means you’re able to mentally put yourself on the opposite side of a situation and understand the other person’s emotions. It’s a skill that helps you connect with others in a positive way and also helps you feel good about yourself.
One way to make sure you add empathy to your quest for emotional intelligence is to listen – truly listen. That means you’re not looking off into the distance, checking your phone or thinking about something else when another person is talking to you.
Enter the conversation with another person by repeating what they said. This tells them that you were listening and understand their emotions about a situation. Practice withholding judgement about a person until you know more about them.
Look for ways that you and another person are similar rather than judging them on a first-time basis. That familiarity will help you become more open with the person and better able to understand where he’s coming from.
Take note if you’ve used catch phrases that show your prejudices. Phrases such as terrorists or gangsters come from your own prejudices and the only way to overcome them is to challenge yourself to see if the label is true or just a bias from your emotions on the subject.
Try to understand why you think that a single religion makes people terrorists or that all police officers have bad intentions. Know deep within that just because you think it’s a fact, doesn’t mean that it is.
Educate yourself about your prejudices and note the misinformation you might have that’s keeping you from being empathetic toward a group of people. Also, use your imagination to practice empathy toward others.
Try to imagine the suffering that others might be going through. The homeless on the street aren’t all mentally ill. Some have simply fallen on hard times and can’t pull themselves up for various reasons.
Imagine that you’re living on the streets and think about how you’d feel when you’re jeered at or have to sleep in the cold or eat from a garbage can. Your imagination can take you deep into your own psyche and help you to become more empathetic to others who live differently than you.
Practice treating people with respect, no matter how their philosophies differ from yours. Rather than stereotyping others, treat them as individuals and let them know that you recognize their importance.
Building empathy within your emotional intelligence works best if you’re able to be open with others. It’s a very difficult thing to do for some, but after you get the knack of it, you’ll find that your connection is deeper and you feel more satisfied with yourself.
Read. Research has found that people who read (especially fiction) have a better understanding and are more empathic towards others than those who seldom read. Building your emotional intelligence by practicing empathy is an important step in realizing your true potential.