Emotional intelligence indicates that someone is skilled in managing their own emotions and responding in a useful way to others’ emotions. This is extremely helpful when building strong work teams and important relationships, and defusing or preventing conflicts. When tensions are high, emotional intelligence is a crucial tool.
Developing good emotional intelligence starts with being aware of your own emotions and acting constructively in response to your emotions. This could mean expressing how you feel, or walking away from a tense situation if you are too upset to be constructive. The key is that you stop first and look inside, note your emotional state, and then make a conscious decision on how to best act.
Self-awareness and emotional intelligence
Self-awareness has many aspects. The T.E.A.M. Communication Styles® assessment helps you recognize situations and behaviors of others that may be uncomfortable for you. More importantly, it can help you reframe the behavior of others in a way that can reduce your discomfort, enabling you to act very effectively.
Emotional Intelligence also involves being aware of others’ emotions and acting constructively in response to that. The T.E.A.M. Communication Styles model is even more helpful here. With this perspective, you can more easily recognize situations or actions you take that may be uncomfortable for others and can alert you to their discomfort. Understanding these differences can also clue you in on how to best engage with others to be a successful change catalyst and effectively negotiate conflicts and disagreements.
Learning to read people
The T.E.A.M. model shows us that even well-intentioned behavior by one person can trigger very negative emotions in another. (See our previous article.) By understanding T.E.A.M. we first gain clarity about our own communication preferences. Then our customized T.E.A.M. report broadens this to help us understand how positive, well-intentioned actions we take can unintentionally make those with different styles very uncomfortable. Another key component of emotional intelligence is learning to “read” people and quickly get a sense of their style. The final step is to use this awareness to shift your own behavior to better align with their communication and work preferences. This is not easy, but with practice over time, you can build this skill and strengthen your emotional intelligence.
For example, if your style is thoughtful, deliberative, and analytical, you learn that while it works for you, others with a very different style will have different preferences and may see you as:
- Slow or even disruptive by looking at everything so carefully
- Critical or cold/uncaring since you focus primarily on work
- Uncertain because you ask a lot of questions
This may come as a shock! I’m sure you are a helpful, constructive person, but we each see the world through our own filters and as a result, often misperceive others, and are misread by them.
The challenge is to first look outside and recognize who you are talking with, assess their style, and try to engage in tune with them. If the other person is of one of the styles that focuses on making decisions more quickly, narrow your focus to highlight the few most important points. Ask only the most critical questions, and for the moment, let go of detailed discussion.
Similarly, if the other person is of one of the styles that values more interpersonal interaction and engagement, be sure to hold the “work” conversation and first engage with them as a person. In addition to whatever they may say about the task, be sure to listen carefully to what else they are saying.
People focus vs. task focus
The T.E.A.M. model identifies four core styles that vary on the two elements noted above:
- Some people are more “people” oriented while others are more “task” oriented. The former feel disrespected if the interpersonal relationship is skipped over. The latter feel frustrated by non-work-related discussions. Neither is wrong, just different preferences.
- The other element is the pace at which people make decisions or are ready to end a conversation. Some are ready to quickly move to a decision, while others want to study it more or gather the views of many others before deciding. Again, neither is wrong, just different. Quick decision makers move through work more quickly and adjust as needed if new things come to light. More deliberative decision makers may uncover hidden obstacles that could derail a project.