In recent years, success, leadership, and achieving outstanding results in a career have been associated with a developed emotional intelligence. It turns out that mental intelligence, deep knowledge, and effort are not enough to achieve significant results at work. Emotional intelligence is the reverse side of rational intelligence, the ability of a person to manage their emotions, understand the feelings and intentions of others, and, thanks to this, effectively solve any tasks (Gong et al., 2019). The inventory of my emotional intelligence showed that I need to work on my emotional intelligence to achieve success both in the workplace and in communicating with different people.
Q: What are some barriers that may interfere with emotional intelligence? How will you use your emotional intelligence to overcome these barriers?
A: Many barriers prevent interpersonal communication and, as a result, the development of emotional intelligence. The understanding of holding anchors will help people in their further development (Denhardt et al., 2020). One of the main barriers is fear in its various manifestations. For example, the fear of rejection often controls people and does not allow them to develop. People are afraid to get acquainted because of the fear of being rejected; employees fear their superiors and do not make requests precisely because they are scared of rejection. This barrier has a tremendous negative impact on people and their communication and relationship-building skills. Some self-confident people may also have fears, but they have a vital enough emotional intelligence and realize at what point it is worth contacting a friend or a supervisor to get a positive result. This example demonstrates how important it is to be able to overcome one’s fear and develop emotional intelligence.
Another barrier to emotional intelligence is a person’s disability to empathize with other people. Undoubtedly, this will not help build relationships with other people but also make them worse with those with whom a person already communicates. Often people need the support of those who are nearby in difficult or sad situations. The lack of empathy will play a negative role in any society or collective. People will automatically exclude a person who cannot empathize from their social circle because they realize that a person who cannot support and empathize with other people cannot be a good person and a friend.
I, like most people, have a fear of rejection, but I also realize that this problem needs to be solved. The development of emotional intelligence will help me in this because I will be able to determine how appropriate my question or suggestion will be based on another person’s emotions, their current mood. In addition, I will strive to develop empathy, to do this, I will often put myself in the other person’s place to understand how they feel and what kind of support would help me in their place. Moreover, to develop empathy, I will listen carefully to people and try to think about how I can help them so that they understand a reliable person next to them.
These skills are necessary at work and during non-working hours. Over time, a developed emotional intelligence, empathy, and the absence of fears will help me move up the career ladder, become a leader and teach people to manage their emotional intelligence. The development of emotional intelligence is an important part of each person’s self-development, which should be paid maximum attention to.
References
Denhardt, R.B., Denhardt, J.V., Aristigueta, M.P., & Rawlings, K.C. (2020). Managing human behavior in public and nonprofit organizations. Thousand Oaks CA: SAGE Publications, INC.
Gong, Z., Chen, Y. and Wang, Y. (2019). The influence of emotional intelligence on job burnout and job performance: Mediating effect of psychological capital. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(1), 1-11. Web.