The score I got from the Emotional Intelligence quiz was 75, which means that I am quite savvy in this area. My results mean that I am capable of perceiving, understanding and managing emotions of others. I am able to recognize another person’s emotions from his or her behavior and address them in an empathic way, offering a solution, as well as recognize and attend to my own feelings. These abilities can make me potentially a strong leader capable of organizing successful teamwork and managing individuals.
At the same time, I have also learned that I can sometimes take actions based on strong emotions that are overwhelming me, which can be detrimental to me and others, especially in the working environment. I can also misinterpret and mismanage the emotions of others, which can lead to frustration and reduced productivity. There is still room for improvement, and I believe that through increasing my awareness and understanding of emotions, different social situations and the way to manage them, I can increase my chances of success.
After learning more about emotional and social intelligence in general and about my personal abilities in this area, I believe that being emotionally intelligent is one of the most needed skills of an excellent leader. Well-developed emotional intelligence can help a manager perceive, understand and handle one’s own and other’s emotions in a way that can increase mutual understanding of the team members, as well as improve teamwork, cooperation and general morale in the company that, in turn, can greatly influence productivity. According to John D. Mayer and David Caruso (2002), having strong emotional intelligence can help build stronger, deeper, more supportive and more trusting relationships with the coworkers, which, in turn, can help establish a stronger team and have better communication with other people; meanwhile, low scores in emotional intelligence can prevent one from being a good problem-solver and communicator (Mayer & Caruso, 2002). For this reason, strong emotional intelligence skills are crucial to success because they not only give a possibility to establish strong relationships with one’s colleagues and partners and solve various problems successfully with individual approach, but also to control and attend to one’s own emotions that can be on one’s way of becoming a strong leader.
References
Mayer, J., & Caruso, D. (2002). The effective leader: Understanding and applying emotional intelligence. Ivey Business Journal. Retrieved July 27, 2015, from http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/the-effective-leader-understanding-and-applying-emotional-intelligence/
