EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Learning emotional intelligence was quite an enlightening session for me, even though the faculty did not portray the virtue of emotional intelligence on a full scale; on the basis that he was not totally patient with me and my classmates. YES! He should have.

In the course of learning, I got to understand that there are different types of intelligence which are;

Social Intelligence – the ability to tune into people’s emotions and read the subtle behavioral cues

Emotional Intelligence – managing emotions (self and others)

Cultural Intelligence – the ability to work effectively across cultures

For one to be emotionally intelligent, one should be able to possess two components of emotional intelligence; personal competence, that is, self-awareness and self-management, and social competence which are social awareness and relationship management. I got to realize that I had not known for sure, of my competencies in the various components mentioned above when a self-assessment test was given to us by the faculty. Of course, I had scored myself what I thought I knew about myself. This assessment was further done by close friends and folks, and it was somewhat different from what I had scored myself. Overall, after the scoring, I got a low mark for relationship management. Then I knew I had lots of work to do in terms of relating with people.

It is believed that for one to have a good relationship with others, one must be emotionally intelligent because people differ, people act differently when triggered and this could be likened to factors like environment, background, culture, education etc. Narrowing this to my relationship with my classmates in school, having in mind that we will be working as teams and in groups. I understand that I must take this seriously, knowing that it takes a high EQ (Emotional Quotient) which is the ability and the capacity to perceive and express one’s emotions, to decode and to respond appropriately to the emotions of others.

Now, I can say for sure that I have intentionally and deliberately put into consideration these components and let myself be guided by them. This decision was borne out of the need and importance to be able to understand why people think the way they think and to be able to understand people’s perspective irrespective of educational and cultural background both at Lagos Business School and the outside world.

So far, we have been shared into groups in class and I have been able to manage myself and others and also respond appropriately to the emotions of others, although still in the process of learning and getting better as the day comes.