Introduction
EI (Emotional Intelligence) is defined as the ability of a person to understand and interpret the feelings and emotions of one and that of others. Many psychologists in the recent years prefer it to Intelligence Quotient because it helps a person know and understand emotions. Emotional Intelligence is useful in encouraging ourselves. Emotional Intelligence deals with perceiving and reasoning emotions to enhance thinking. It also entails understanding emotions, for example, the degree of the emotion, and managing the emotions by taking necessary steps to deal with it (Stein, 2009). It helps people in coping up with the environment where they live in since they study other people’s emotions by learning their non-verbal language. Emotional Intelligence is very useful in determining the future of success of people. Most successful people in the society today possesses high Emotional Intelligence this is because they do not get upset easily and makes other people feel good around them because they empathize with the people around them.
EI Level and Effective Leadership In The Health Care Environment
Emotional Intelligence is important in effective leadership in the healthcare environment. It helps the leaders in the sector in understanding their team and knowing how to engage them in various activities, and how to motivate them. Workplace success should not only be attributed to knowledge but also emotional intelligence (Warren, 2013). Leaders should posses’ high emotional intelligence so that they can understand and make their teams feel good all the time; this increases the performance of the team. There are significant impacts for the patients care brought about by the emotional intelligence. Many healthcare organizations have been credited for delivering better patient -centered care (Birks & Watt, 2007). It is because they put emotional intelligence to work that promotes patient-physician relationship. Emotional intelligence also increases the performance of nurses in that it brings in a clear relationship between various fields for example stress adaptation and nurses’ performance.
The nurses are required easily to learn the emotions of patients and colleagues in order to get some information about their emotions and try to achieve a better outcome from it. They are required to evaluate the reaction of a patient towards them, and act in a responsible way. In this way, emotional intelligence helps in improving the patient-centered care (Fernandez, Peterson, Holmstrom, & Connolly, n.d.). Healthcare leaders impact more on patient-physician relationships, the morale boost for the staff and the staff relationship with one another through the use of emotional intelligence.
The leaders should apply their emotional intelligence well to avoid disruptive behaviors that may crop in the organizations. Organizations can be directly affected by these disruptive behaviors that might impact on the teamwork negatively. Many workers attribute better organizational performance to a good and caring manager than better pay and other benefits from the organization. Emotional intelligence helps the healthcare leaders in resolving conflicts arising within the staff and helping the staff to understand themselves and the environment they work. Emotional intelligence, therefore, should be used well to increase the performance of the organization and motivation of the staff (Fernandez et al., n.d.).
EI and Communication in the Work Environment.
Communication is important in organizations since it is a pillar of good staff relationship. Many people possess’ poor communication skills in the organizations. It normally affects the staff relationship negatively. Many performance-driven managers usually interrupt staffs during meetings when they feel whatever is said by a colleague is wrong (Birks & Watt, 2007). Some of them also walk out during meetings because they lose their patience. Emotional intelligence provides a basis of understanding such emotions and how to deal with them. Possessing high emotional intelligence as a leader may help one to understand others and listen carefully for a better communication in the organization (Nordstrom, 2010).
Conclusion
In summary, emotional intelligence is helpful in healthcare and other fields when successfully implemented in the organization. It enhances quick and better way of resolving conflicts in an organization, motivation of workers, patient-physician relationship among others. It is, therefore, recommended that emotional intelligence to be applied by all healthcare facilities worldwide to promote better performance and rendering good services to the clients.
References
Birks, Y. F., & Watt, I. S. (2007). Emotional intelligence and patient-centred care. Journal of The Royal Society of Medicine, 100(8), 368-374. doi:10.1258/jrsm.100.8.368
Fernandez, C. S., Peterson, H. B., Holmstrom, S. W., & Connolly, A. (n.d.). Developing Emotional Intelligence for Healthcare Leaders. Retrieved November 23, 2014, from http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/27249.pdf
Nordstrom, A. H. (2010). Effective Leadership Communications with Emotional Intelligence (EI) (Master's thesis, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark). Retrieved from http://pure.au.dk/portal/files/10221/THESISFINAL.pdf
Stein, S. (2009). Emotional intelligence for dummies. Mississauga: J. Wiley & Sons Canada.
Warren, B. (2013, May 1). Healthcare Emotional Intelligence: Its Role in Patient Outcomes and Organizational Success. Retrieved November 23, 2014, from http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/healthcare-emotional-intelligence-its-role-in-patient-outcomes-and-organizational-success.html
