Emotional Intelligence

For sometime now, I have been reading one of Dr. Daniel Goleman's books on Emotional Intelligence and have found it to be rather interesting. This particular book focuses on how one can transform the art of leadership into the science of results. It talks in detail about how "emotionally intelligent leadership drives resonance, and thus performance" and how laughter and humour can lift moods in a working environment, consequently boosting cooperation, fairness, and, yes, business performance. At the end of the day, it is all about performance and understanding one's emotional intelligence can be a strong weapon in this regard. The book discusses how a leader can only manage, and not lead, without a "healthy dose of heart". Dissonance in a relationship leads to stonewalling, where one decides to evade the other, in a desperate attempt to maintain emotional sanity.

In the book, Dr. Goleman also discusses the four domains of emotional intelligence:
* Self-awareness - recognizing one's own emotions
* Self-management - keeping negative emotions and impulses under control
* Social awareness - empathy = understanding and being aware of how others around us feel
* Relationship Management - feeding back, guiding, helping and motivating others

Though the focus of the book is on business performance, there is a lot of relevance to our daily lives - how we act, bring up children, maintain relationships, deal with people we come across in our day-to-day affairs, and how we overcome pitfalls. EI is definitely something I will be thinking of more often in the future.

Having read the book, I went to www.youtube.com and did a search for EI expecting to find some business school lecture on the subject. But, I found the video below which summarises the "five rules of Business Emotional Intelligence":

1. don't suck up, suck down - the secretaries and admin staff are important
2. remember constanza - leave when hitting the high note
3. being nice beats being clever - be nice, enthusiastic, pleasant and friendly
4. being the first to arrive beats being the last to leave - early = dedication
5. do your own photocopying - life will be easier and it's good for the soul

Well, you enjoy the video as I can't wait to finish this book and move on to the next one, written again by Dr. Goleman, and which I picked up from the local bookstore while helping a friend find a book on gardening! :-)