The importance of Emotional Intelligence
Youth/Emerging Adults need to develop the professional and personal skills required to participate in the job market of the 21st century fully. Succeeding in the Knowledge/Digital Economy will depend on a higher level of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills; there is a necessity for both IQ (academic performance) and emotional intelligence.
What is Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to recognize emotions within ourselves and others and be able to manage them. This is an essential characteristic needed for successful performance in professional environments. According to Daniel Goleman, a pioneer in this field, four categories compose EI: Self-Awareness, Social Awareness, Self-Management, and Relationship Management.
Self-Awareness
Being able to recognize and understand your own emotions and how they influence your actions and relationships. Self-awareness requires being critical about ones strengths and weaknesses and having a sense of self-confidence.
Self-Management
Self-management requires having self-control in order to control negative emotions and adaptability to deal with changing situations and obstacles. It also requires having a standard of honesty and integrity as well initiative and an achievement orientation to strive for personal excellence.
Social Awareness
Understanding others and their concerns as well as the intricacies of your organization in order to effectively navigate through it. Self awareness refers to being service oriented in order to recognize what the customer needs and being able to meet and exceed their expectations.
Relationship Management
Having good relationship management entitles being a leader who is capable of inspiring and influencing others. It also requires good conflict resolution skills while promoting teamwork and collaboration. Finally, taking initiative and leading others into change, growth and improvement
Levels of Emotional Health
The different levels of emotional health provide a conceptual framework that can help us understand our behaviors and those of others, as well as provide us with valuable insights about our well-being..
The best way to understand how to apply this model is to look in detail at each level of emotional health.
Level 1 – Presence
At this level, we are in a state of perpetual “presence’. We have a quiet mind and are fully in touch with the present moment or the “now”. We are happy. We have total behavioral freedom.
Level 2 – Wisdom
At this level we have long periods of being “present”, however we are still attached to the false perceptions that have driven our coping strategies and defense mechanisms. We are much more conscious of those detracting moments and are able to keep them under control, however, they still exist.
Level 3 – Social Value
At this level, we have a greater balance in our lives and start to move our concerns to more social interests. As we start to lose more of our self-centeredness, there is a natural tendency to embrace the social aspect of our community. We also start to increase the number of opportunities to be “present” and further understand how to use our inner observer to further raise our own consciousness.
Level 4 – Recognition
At this level, we start to recognize that we have choices about all of our behaviors and begin to observe our own behaviors on a more regular basis. The level of consciousness starts to rise as we begin to observe ourselves more. We also start to recognize that we can create moments of “presence” under certain circumstances.
Level 5 – Automated Response
At this level. we are dominated by a range of automated responses to what is occurring around us. These responses are mostly defensive and about controlling our environment (including the people in it) in trying to get our perceived needs met. There are still times when we do make decisions about our behaviors, however, the automated responses tend to take over the moment.
Level 6 – Exaggeration
At this level, we start to be more aggressive in our defenses, with our behaviors being exaggerated and
Level 7 – Survival
At this level, our internal feelings become intolerable as we start to realize that our defense mechanisms are not working. We now start to employ survival tactics as a self-protective response. We have started to lose all control over making reasonable choices and become fixated on the survival tactic we have chosen.
Level 8 – Preoccupation
At this
Level 9 – Delusional
At this level, we are delusional, and out of touch with reality and willing to destroy ourselves and others. This includes states of extreme psychosis where we are totally uncontrollable and unreasonable. Our obsessions take over our life completely.