EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: MAKE YOUR EMOTIONS WORK FOR YOU

EQ for efficiency Anastasiia Starykova, HR Director For me, emotional intelligence (EQ) isn’t only about realizing your emotions and the emotions of others but also about using them to tackle problems. When people understand their emotions and their reasons, they begin to think whether a given emotion helps them or hinders them? If it helps, it should be used most efficiently, but if it hinders, they should learn to manage its state to switch it to another emotion. Not only positive emotions can be useful. For example, sadness is efficient when you work with documents: being sad, you pay attention to such nuances and details you’d never notice when you’re filled with joy or anger. Stress is your body’s response to new things. Short-term stress is useful: we mobilize our efforts, generate extraordinary ideas, and develop neural connections more actively. But you can’t afford to be stressed for a long time—you can emotional intelligence to fix your state. The following basic things help build your resistance to stress:

• Track your stressors.
• Maintain a decent work-life balance.
• Sort out priorities correctly.
• Look for satisfaction and meaning in your work.
• Take time to recharge.
• Relax (meditation, breathing exercises, and mindfulness).
• Think positively.
• Sleep well.

Building your resistance to stress takes a long time, so you’ll have to be patient and develop this skill. Fear is another example of a useful emotion. It shows us pictures of unpleasant surprises, obstacles, or failures. But it primarily aims to help us rather than hinder us: to warn of danger, to point out where pitfalls may be hidden, and to get us ready for difficulties. You should find a rational kernel in your emotions to change polarity, energize, and induce yourself to take action. People who have high emotional intelligence make decisions faster and achieve goals. But they don’t react spontaneously, they’re not controlled by the situation, and they choose their reactions. Emotions help them out rather than hinder them. This is an extremely powerful competitive advantage. EQ for progress An important element of emotional intelligence encompasses listening, thinking, and responding to constructive criticism. We have an employee who previously took any criticism painfully—it caused anger and sheer rejection. Thanks to the feedback, he realized that his reaction needed to be corrected and did a tremendous self-improvement job. For him, criticism is seen as an opportunity for self-reflection and progress, while other colleagues can openly share their feedback, which positively impacts teamwork as well. Reflection and feedback are the best tools to embrace personal evolution. Based on them, I create a personal development scheme, structure the experience, and sort out priorities. I use a reflection matrix that consists of 4 different classes of observations with different purposes and use frequency of use:

• Mountain View is an annual overview of your trail to make sure the direction of your future doings matches the destination. You analyze whether the core of your values matches ​​the life you live.
• Leadership Health Check is about collecting feedback from others on how you influence their condition, engagement, efficiency, and energy.
• Past Decisions Reflections means a weighted assessment of what happened when you achieve a milestone, complete a project, succeed, or fail. You’re looking for answers to questions about what you did right, what went wrong, what mistakes you made, and what experience you gained.
• Scanning the Horizon is about nourishing your curiosity by looking for something interesting in your profession, industry, and areas of personal interest.

You must make that a habit, add that to your Calendar, and practise that regularly. EQ in a team Olha Balaban, Consolidated Information Analyst: Emotional intelligence is super important for teamwork. This is the ability to listen and hear other people and their opinions as well as to feel the mood and intentions of your colleagues. Working in a team, you should adapt to colleagues sometimes. Therefore, if you figure out other people’s mood, you can choose the right approach to them. Also, emotional intelligence helps control yourself and not allow your own negative emotions to influence others, interfere with your workflow, and slacken communication with other people. Anastasiia Starykova According to RS’s corporate culture, it’s important not only that we achieve goals, but also HOW we achieve them. Emotional intelligence isn’t just a leaders’ trait. It’s important at every career level, no matter what position you hold—a trainee or an experienced leader. If you want to be successful at work and advance your career, emotional intelligence is a critical thing. We had a ‘delayed promotion’ case where we detected the employee’s risks associated with his level of emotional intelligence. An executive position he was running couldn’t tolerate excessive emotionality that would be extremely destructive. We provided feedback and a development plan to help that person improve himself. A year later, he was appointed to hold an executive position. Today, he efficiently manages his state and understands better what other people feel, while the team works harmoniously. A creative and productive team requires a high level of engagement, cooperation, and mutual assistance. The Board of Recycling Solutions is a striking example. All of its members meet three key criteria:

• Mutual trust among team members
• A sense of belonging
• A feeling of being certain about their efficiency

Each of these criteria is based on emotions and their manageability. EQ for conflict resolution Emotional intelligence allows you to ignore the excessive emotions of others and, if necessary, enable an inner observer. This helps keep calm, control emotions, and see behind-the-scenes aspects. EQ helps you understand that any non-constructive action can be a positive intention. Therefore, people who have high emotional intelligence deal with conflicts better. For example, if an external client yells at a sales support representative, this doesn’t mean that that representative is guilty of something. Most likely, that person is simply in a mood, while there are no reasons for any conflict. My team sticks to the following important rules: we show respect for each employee, no toxic relationship models, we create an atmosphere of trust and openness. Employees know that they can afford to propose alternative approaches to solving problems the right way, as this fosters open and efficient dialogue. If disputes do arise, EQ helps make them useful as well. Here are some steps to help you resolve your conflicts:

• The manager must bring conflicting parties together at the same table (or in Teams).
• All parties must express their points of view on the current situation and offer their own solutions. It’s important to set rules, such as not blaming each other.
• All parties must listen carefully to colleagues—without interrupting and making excuses.
• Major stumbling blocks must be recorded.
• Once everyone has expressed their opinions about the situation, you must choose the optimal solution, e.g. a majority opinion, a compromise, etc.
• Discuss the solution ideas and try to find common points—they’ll help reach an agreement.
• Outline a general action plan even if it’s about taking the next steps rather than solving the problem completely.

EQ for happiness Olha Balaban: The most important thing to me is optimism, a sense of humour, and a positive attitude towards everything. This helps me overcome stressful situations and joke about the situation and myself, even when it’s hard. When you laugh, it’s easier to work and fight against difficulties. Sometimes you have to say that this isn’t scary, that it could be worse, and even describe how. It helps tackle your problem and can smooth the situation. Also, it helps communicate with other people. Even if a person offers a negative attitude, sometimes you have to express good emotions to put that person in a constructive frame of mind. Anastasiia Starykova: Developing emotional intelligence dramatically enhances our ability to feel happy. Recently, the coach and author of the project ‘Happiness in Activity’ Filip Guzeniuk said, ‘The role of a leader and even an individual employee is to be the key person responsible for happiness in the segment he/she influences. It’s we who create a state of engagement, interest, vibe, and focus. This is the driving force. This is the principle of ‘The Little Prince’: wake up in the morning—take care of your planet. All of the cool top teams see happiness as inspiration, big meanings, working with cool people, and creating something important. It’s important to create meanings by answering the question, ‘Why are you doing what you’re doing?’ Here’s a bonus: check out a selection of books from Anastasiia Starykova about emotional intelligence and positive thinking.

1. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves
2. Emotional Flexibility. How to Learn to Rejoice in Change and Enjoy Work and Life by Susan David
3. The Emotional Intelligence of a Leader. How to Develop and Apply the Emotional Intelligence of a Leader by Peter Salaway and David Caruso
4. Emotional Intelligence by (HBR) Composite Authors
5. Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Viktor E. Frankl
6. Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman
7. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi