By now, many of us are familiar with the idea of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) – or at the very least, have heard EQ is often a better indicator of success than intelligence. We may even be familiar with the common definition: Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways.
But how are we using that ability? How are we communicating better, empathizing more, or accepting responsibility more?
In this webinar, we will take an instant assessment to see where our personal EQ score falls. Then, we’ll lay the foundation of EQ, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
Along the way, we’ll assign green lights or red lights to our own behaviors.
Christina Butler transitions 20 years of covering breaking news as a reporter and anchor into professional coaching on presentation skills, development, and media management. Fascinated by behavioral styles, she’s trained on Emotional Intelligence and DiSC certified. running programs for both individuals and groups. As a speaker, she uses her expertise in impression management, relationship building, and media coaching to help our clients in a variety of industries.
Virtually, Christina enjoys connecting with clients and audiences on best practices for virtual engagement and presence. She is a contributing author for Best in Class: Etiquette and People Skills for Your Career (2018) and Making the Grade: Presentation Success from Classroom to Conference Room (2019). When she is not speaking or on television, Christina enjoys spending time outside with her husband and two children.
Connect with Christina on Facebook, Twitter, and at www.theprofessionaledgeinc.com.
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One Response
Q&A from the webinar.
Question: It was really hard to choose things to stop, do you have any commentary on that, Christina?
Answer: I do, it’s always so much easier to say “Yep I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna absolutely do this.” It’s so much easier plan to do things that actually confront things we do, but that goes back to self-awareness. We have to take the time to be self-aware of what we’re doing, that’s hurting us negatively, and when I say hurting us, what are we doing? What, where do we lack discipline? How are we letting our moods and emotions control us? We have to be aware of that. And then we have to make those hard choices and devote the time to doing those things.
Question: How long should you wait before you respond to a difficult email?
Answer: I think, emails first of all, tend to be easier to control ourselves with than maybe an in person face-to-face confrontation, but is an email that you are self-aware enough to know that it immediately fired you up, right? And you did the bang out a response and realized okay wait I shouldn’t send this. You need to be practicing that self-awareness to be in check with when have our emotions calmed down. Hey, it’s not as simple as saying, you should wait 47 minutes, or you should wait three hours and 32 minutes. It’s not that simple. It has more to do with being self-aware enough to know that your emotions are back down, and you’re back in control and you can respond.
Question: How do you tell a co-worker that they need to communicate differently with you?
Answer: You know, without knowing all the details of that, and unfortunately every workplace, especially larger ones, there might be somebody who is difficult. But without knowing the specifics of that, I would advise somebody to first, check back in with yourself, okay, are they difficult to everyone, or just to you? You know, is it just you and this person who have personalities that don’t match, or is this a bigger problem? First do that self-check in. And then, once you check-in and you realize, okay, this isn’t me, I’ve done everything possible to try and communicate in a way that works, you know, I’ve used all my social awareness charm and all my relationship management. Every tool in my toolbox and I still can’t communicate professionally with this person, then, at that point, maybe have an open-ended question, or have an open-ended conversation. Conversation with open-ended questions, okay, how can I best communicate with you? Maybe it’s as simple as that. If this person, if you use your social awareness to pick up on their cues. And then can sense that they might at least, to be open to also wanting to improve communication, sit down and have a conversation with them, and use those open-ended questions to focus on that active listening.
Question: Do you think emotional intelligence can be taught?
Answer: I think it can be taught, and it can be spoken. You can make people aware of it, but it’s not like reading, where if you read it, it’s in your brain, you know. There’s another step to it. You can teach people what’s involved in it. You can teach people how you can give them tricks to improve it. But the real learning and development comes when people made the choice to devote time to it, right? It’s professional athletes, professional musicians, they all have extensive training in controlling their emotions, because the last thing that they want to happen is to be on the court or onstage and have their emotions take over and overshadow their skill. That’s something they have to work on. So, can it be taught? Awareness can be taught awareness, and here’s this idea of EQ and here are things you can do, but the actual work and success comes from people doing it themselves.
Question: When working with difficult people, let’s say they are upset, how do you help them de-escalate while addressing their behavior is not okay?
Answer: We’re combining a lot, all the different quadrants in that situation, and we’re understanding that’s a big goal to that’s a good goal to communicate with somebody who is heated, you’re using that social awareness to realize, okay, there, I can’t remember the exact term Kelly just used there, but just acting inappropriate or their heated. First, you’re social aware enough that they are, but you have to be aware in that moment of how are they responding, really reading between the lines. What are they upset about? Are they upset about the topic of this meeting, or are they upset about something else that’s going on? Really reading them. Reading their body language, trying to figure out what’s really happening with them, because that’s going to tell you whether you can actually handle that issue or not. Then the second part of that is time.