It is said that EI has five characteristics which are self-awareness, mood management, self motivation, empathy and managing relationships. Self-awareness is recognising and understanding one’s own emotions and knowing the feelings as they happen. Mood management is knowing the feelings and to handle them so that they are relevant to the situation at hand in order to react appropriately. Self-motivation is directing ones self towards a goal, despite impulsiveness and self-doubt. Empathy is recognising feelings in other people and taking in their verbal and non-verbal emotions. Finally managing relationships is the interaction between people and knowing the situation, resolve conflict and negotiate.
The group I am going to talk about was one I was in around a month ago for a project I was in. There were four of us in the group and as I came in late into the group I felt that gave me a handicap and that I would need to prove that I was worthy to be a member within that group. I shall give call each individual A, B, C and D
Everyone discriminates consciously or subconsciously, whether it is age, race, and nationality etcetera. In our case age wasn’t an issue as we were all the same age but I believe our main discrimination was nationality. A and B were both from Eastern Europe, C and D were both British, so there was a clash straight away. Accents and lack of communication got in the way, which was our first battle to get over. Then there was the battle for leadership. Both B and D fought for leadership and when A tried to express opinions and take charge on a certain matter B would just oppress A and their opinions. B and D had different leadership styles, B was more forceful, and wanted to take charge and be right, D wanted to be fair, delegate jobs and listen to all possibilities. A way to have overcome the fight for leadership is to have decided between everyone to elect the leader of a group, rather than let the natural course happen and use the dog eat dog method.
Some discrimination can be turned around and be scrapped if the person who discriminates recognises that there is discrimination and overcomes it. But I believe some cannot overcome discriminating over certain issues as they may have been imposed on them from childhood or by peer groups. D tried to overcome the discrimination D had over the nationality of A and B, but found it extremely hard. But felt that B was discriminating against D because of their weight. As you may be wondering C has hardly been mentioned, C wasn’t involved much, in a way removed themselves from the situation but on the day of the presentation, threw themselves into the group and made it look like a close knit group. Person A had great ideas, but was oppressed by B and became into what looked like a follower of B.
The group may have only had 4 members but each with an important role and now after doing some research in EI I believe that our roles have been effected by our own Emotion Intelligence Quotient or EQ. EQ is the level of EI we have such as IQ is the level of intelligence one has. But according to my research, I gather that IQ can change over time, whereas EQ tends to stay the same, but as EI and EQ is a relatively new theory as it is just over 20 years old research and investigation into the subject matter is still taking place and some scientists and psychologists may beg to differ.
A way we could have monitored if everyone was being included is if we selected a leader first and then allotted roles for the rest of the people. As I have stated there were some problems with discrimination but I believe we could not have completely overcome them, especially in such a small time frame that was a week. Luckily this is university and not the work place, even though we should treat it as such, we are not forced to spend most of our days together or time. But if we were to have been in a workplace it would most likely have been more structured than it was, planned our time and roles correctly. If this would have taken place I trust that even though our discriminations of each other would still be in place but we would learn to put them aside and carry on with our work.
A high EQ makes a good leader too, that is if the correct personality traits accompany it. That maybe is why companies now a days use tests as a way to interview candidates, as well as the traditional interview as candidates cannot sweet talk or charm the tests. Hindsight is a powerful tool, and if I could go back in time I may have behaved differently within my group and since studying EI will pay more attention to other peoples emotions and how they react to decisions and opinions.
If the reports that I have read are indeed true, I then also full heartedly believe that a high EQ does make a good leader.