Emotional Intelligence
More recently business and school leaders and employers alike have begun to understand and measure Emotional Intelligence (EQ) with potential hires. Emotional Intelligence is a person’s capacity to reason about emotions and emotional information, and of emotions to enhance thought. (Mayer, 2009) EQ includes three primary skills. First, someone with high Emotional Intelligence has emotional awareness, which means the ability to identify your emotions and those of others. Secondly, the capacity to harness emotions and apply them to tasks likes thinking and problem-solving. Thirdly, the ability to manage your emotions and the emotions of others, and capacity to make someone happy or calm down another person. Simply put Emotional Intelligence is the ability to be smart about your feelings and the feeling of others.
Emotional Intelligence has inserted itself into interviews because individuals with high EQ make for great leaders. Ultimately, people with EQ make for great leaders, which is why it’s important to have people with EQ in your leadership pipeline. (Gimbel, 2017, para. 2) I believe it is imperative we have leaders with high EQ leading our schools considering the many different emotions a school day can bring about. School leaders are expected to handle the high emotions of scholars, parents, which can be interesting, and staff. An upset or emotionally unstable leader can be detrimental to the success of a school. For example, a leader with a negative attitude, who’s emotionally unstable, will be involved in more quarrels and provide a bad example for those looking to them as a role model.
Identifying leaders with high EQ can be difficult, but these three signs give employers an idea of the candidates' EQ level. First Emotionally intelligent people accept their failures and are honest and willing to express how they might have dropped the ball. Most importantly, they do not let pride get in the way of helping the company learn and grow. Secondly, people with EQ are natural leaders. They do not wait until they’re asked to help a co-worker; they just do it. Plus, because they understand how to work well with different personalities, they’re likable, and people naturally gravitate toward them (Gimbel, 2017, para. 5) Lastly, EQ people are great at resolving personnel issues and thrive on it. They don’t walk into the situation with an opinion but understand each side’s arguments and can help everyone come to a resolution as a completely unbiased third-party. (Gimbel, 2017, para. 7)
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Jamal,
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting. I wish I had read this sooner as we just finished interviewing for a new AP and I would have loved to incorporate these ideas into the formulation of our questions. It does give pause for self reflection, too, as I assess where I fall within the continuum.
Thank you for sharing!
Jamal,
ReplyDeleteThis very topic came up the other day with my team. Emotional intelligence is fascinates me. One of the thing my leader admitted to was having a conversation with his boss in regards to increasing his emotional intelligence. I believe emotional intelligence is important no matter what your role.
Hi Jamal!
ReplyDeleteI recently took a course on emotional intelligence. It was so interesting how many schools are attempting to teach emotional intelligence in pre-school! As leaders, it is very important to be self-aware and emotional intelligence is an aspect of that. However, I wonder if many school shy away from teaching EI because many adults may not feel familiar with EI or proficient in identifying emotions. This was a very interesting point you make.