Emotional Intelligence and Self Reflection
Emotional intelligence has recently been arousing the interest of many psychologists and researchers. It has been associated with the kind of intelligence that plays a key role in our performance in various areas in life and serves as a tool to reach our goals more effectively.
According to Goleman, emotional intelligence is recognized as “the capacity of recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in us and in our relationships” (Goleman, 1998, Working with emotional intelligence).
For the purpose of today’s personal study, we are going to take a closer look at the results from the Global Emotional Intelligence Test, provided by the Global Leadership Foundation.
The scores are generated within four specific quadrants – self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness and relationship management. The first two traits focus on personal understanding and ability to manage our emotions, while the last two are related to the social knowledge how to manage emotions towards others. This assessment of emotional intelligence gives a proper guidance into the ability to predict one’s cognitive performance within the four separate domains.
The results that I received after answering all forty questions are as follows: self-awareness – 7, self-management – 6, social-awareness – 10 and relationship management – 8.
After analyzing the identified extent of emotional intelligence from the test, I can assure that the results are pretty close to being accurate regarding my personal emotional intelligence. According to Malle & Horowitz, individuals representing higher emotional self-awareness are able to experience positive perceptions about themselves (Malle & Horowitz, 1995, The puzzle of negative self-views).
Their overall performance is higher and have a better mental health. I shared the results of this test with my closest friend and my direct supervisor. Both of them agreed that my personality tends to perceive events in a very positive way, my mood is steady, without sudden changes and cheerful most of the time. I have been able to develop self-control mostly during my adulthood as I learned how to take control over my emotions and maintain a stable mood throughout different situations. My friend pointed out that I have definitely made a huge progress towards the ability to analyze my personal emotions and those of my surroundings in order to adapt to every change that happens and conquer many hardships.
My supervisor’s feedback emphasized on the fact that I show up to work with a smile every day and ready to tackle every task we have planned on finishing. Not only I have a positive attitude towards life, but I also find the biggest life satisfaction to make others happy and consider their emotions as valuable and worth paying attention to. My closest friend has been by my side for more than a decade now and she confirmed that it is very typical for me to recognize the importance of emotions in personal and work interactions with people and be truly confident about my worth and the value I’m able to bring into my relationships with individuals.
My highest scores in the emotional intelligence test happened to be in the “social-awareness” and “relationship management” domains. I find the results really accurate due to my individual ability to take people’s emotions and intentions into consideration, being able to adjust to responding emotionally and regulate my behavior respectfully according whatever others’ perspectives might be. The factors contributing to the development of these scores can be associated with my ability to cope with stress and steadily control the flow of my emotions, the problem-solving techniques I have developed, the use of social sensitivity and the adoption of the idea to treat others the way I would like to be treated. A proper self-reflection of my emotional intelligence score could be truly beneficial to my personal and professional relationships by developing and managing my problem-solving skills, carefully listening to others’ beliefs in my social interactions and always respecting people’s emotions in their decision-making process.
Even throughout the scripture, there is a lot of evidence that can support the importance of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationships. The way God expresses His emotions is through communication and work. The most powerful message of emotional intelligence we all could benefit from is what exactly we choose to believe in. Our emotions are influenced by our beliefs and perceptions. Letting those emotions take control over our behavior is not godly. The closer we get in our relationship with God, the easier it gets to manage them too. In Romans 12:1-2 it is stated: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” We should listen to our desire to seek God in what surrounds us and strengthen our relationship with Him through prayer. Emotional intelligence could be developed and improved by focusing our thoughts on the path God’s intentions are for us to follow.
From the emotional intelligence theory we understand that the cognitive, physiological and behavioral changes reflecting emotional reactions would eventually adapt and assist us to respond to the causing event (Lazarus, 1991, Emotion and Adaptation). These emotions serve as a tool to express people’s thoughts and inner behavior in the social environment. For an individual that would like to develop a highly-skilled emotional intelligence, it would be crucial to understand what causes an emotional reaction in people and how the consequences of a certain behavior might affect his or hers social interactions.
