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How often at our workplace do we stop to feel or manage our emotions? The majority of people will respond “rarely.” For several reasons, we go through our work routines without being mindful of our feelings; they come and go, not the way we wish them to.

Checking our sentiments and asking ourselves why we feel the way we do or what made us react to a situation is essential to healthy self-management.

The key elements that make our persona are how we think, the way we speak, and in what manner we act. Of the many possible factors, two major ones affect everything; how we feel and how we respond to situations.

These determinants of a person’s behavior may be mismanaged or not managed at all. This negligence leads to one ignoring everything they know and allowing their feelings to take rein. I’m sure you know how dangerous that can be.

That is why emotional intelligence training is essential. Learning Emotional Intelligence with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) skills is like understanding it from the root because emotional intelligence research exists in NLP, which is how humans feel, think, and conduct themselves. Thus, NLP is how emotional intelligence.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Also known as Emotional Quotient (EQ), Emotional Intelligence meaning is your ability to understand your emotions well enough to harness and manage them in ways that help us overcome challenges, empathize, and communicate effectively with others. EI helps in relieving the tension and stress that naturally arises from human interactions.

When humans come together, they come with their unique way of doing things. We all have a particular thinking pattern, a unique way of talking, and rooted programming that determines our actions. With all these differences in each person, it is understandable and indeed expected that misunderstandings will arise.

The challenge is not the resultant disagreements from our interactions with others; it is usually the mismanagement of emotions and the non-application of knowledge that lead to full-blown conflicts.

The workplace is one place with a high chance of misunderstanding. Let’s see how EI promotes a healthy workplace.

Emotional Intelligence at the Workplace

At the workplace, we see teams made up of unique individuals. These people are expected to work, create, sell, and make progress together. How do they manage the friction bound to happen?

Besides promoting personal well-being, emotional intelligence at the workplace improves decision-making, reduces staff turnover, boosts team performance, and decreases occupational stress. With these benefits, the need for emotional intelligence at the place of work is evident. But how can you practice EI where you work?

As with most changes, emotional intelligence at the workplace begins with you; it starts with Professional self-awareness.

Professional Self-Awareness:

Self-awareness involves recognizing our feelings and emotions and knowing our strengths and weaknesses. As a team member, professional self-awareness relates to how you behave and conduct yourself in the work environment, your mannerism, approach, and mode of communication with team members,  knowing your triggers and drives, and your team members.

We Distort information (that is, we change the narrative of the initial information). We also Delete information (that is, we erase selective information we don’t find relevant and sieve out the rest) and generalize the information based on experiences. So, we need to be aware of our communication style as well as of other people. This awareness will help us understand others better and improve our physiology and output behavior.

Furthermore, mastering our representational system and that of our team is very vital. Representational systems are those process words that people use in their communication to represent their experiences, either visually(See), Auditorily (Say/hear), or Kinaesthetically (Feel). Learning NLP will help us develop an understanding of our primary representational system to create a spellbound conversation.

Fine Blend of Heart and Mind

When we are Professionally self-aware, we have a solid knowledge of our values and how they affect our goals; we know our motivations and employ them to our advantage and our journey through life. But knowing is not enough. That’s why we need Professional self-management.

Professional Self-Management​

Self-management, also called Self-regulation, helps us make the best of our knowledge of ourselves. It is how we decide what we have to avoid, what we have to do, when we should speak, what we want to achieve and when and how we want to achieve it, etc.

We practice Professional Self-management by knowing and living our values. Having a code of ethics or a rule of life that guides us in being the best is crucial.

NLP trains us to use Anchoring techniques to assist in managing and regulating ourselves. Anchoring is a representation that helps us recognize and move to a more resourceful emotional state. We can install positive anchors and recall them when required to connect with that power state of mind. If you are outraged and need to listen to understand your team member carefully, you just need to trace that anchor you have created to bring you to a calm state.

Professional self-management is impossible without professional self-awareness. We need to be also socially self-aware to be able to conduct and control our behaviors.

Social Self-Awareness​

We all are born with emotional outbursts, but we can all learn to control our emotions, especially in public. Social self-awareness implies how we communicate, react, and respond in public.

As a celebrity, public figure, etc., your composure in public says a lot about you and determines the level of respect you command.  The former first lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama, is a perfect example of great social self-awareness through how she carries herself and communicates in public.

NLP Mindfulness and anchoring techniques increase our social self-awareness and improve how we respond or react, as the case may be.

Empathy

What does empathy means to You? Pause and reflect for a while. For us at NLP, Empathy is about others and our recognition of their feelings. We can’t be Emotionally Intelligent without understanding what the other person is going through. EI & empathy — these two go hand in hand. When we see things from another person’s perspective, it gives us a new insight into how the other person feels, thinks, and behaves.

You may not have all answers, but you listen to understand.

To have empathy for our colleagues and others, we need a higher level of listening and observation. It is essential to pay attention to minute details and body language and respond to their apparent feelings even though their lips might be saying something else.

As you might have figured, Emotional Intelligence plays a role in every area of our lives, from our homes to the different facets of society. If you successfully employ it at your workplace, you will see positive results, and work will become more rewarding.

Please feel free to write to Rajiv@NLPLimited.com to build an emotionally intelligent team. EI contributes directly to your business’s top line and bottom line.