Emotional Intelligence is a concept that continues to fascinate managers the world over. This popularity is understandable: after decades and decades spent being told that we should focus on IQ (Intelligence Quotient) as only “ceux qui ont de la matière grise réussissent dans la vie”, the EI concept comes across like a refreshing breeze from the Indian Ocean. Success is not only brains and more brains, we are told, but also our ability to connect emotionally with others. Psychologists John Mayer and Peter Salovey who originally coined the concept in the early 1990s, argued that EI consists of four dimensions: our ability to identify, use, understand and manage emotions. We become emotionally intelligent when we perceive accurately our own and others’ emotions; when we understand the signals that emotions send about relationships (“I hate you”, “I like him” – and so on); and when we are able to manage our own and others’ emotions.

Subsequently, Daniel Goleman in his 1995 bestseller, ‘Emotional Intelligence’, argued that these dimensions could be further broken down into 25 emotional competencies, ranging from self-awareness to self-confidence, self-control, trustworthiness, innovation, adaptability, achievement drive, empathy, influence and communication.

Following Goleman’s book, the corporate world was set aflame. Executives and managers immediately recognised its potential contributions to profits – here was indeed a concept that could be used to promote more productive working relationships and enhance personal satisfaction. And when employees, clients and managers have mutually rewarding personal relationships, it is a fact that productivity increases and profits follow!

The first key competence in Emotional Intelligence is ‘Self Awareness’– our ability to know how we are feeling and why, and the impact that our feelings have on our behaviours. Through self awareness, we arrive at a solid understanding of our strengths and weaknesses, purpose in life, values, needs, beliefs and motivations. Someone with high self-awareness knows immediately why he or she responded to a situation in a particular way. He or she experiences little difficulty in monitoring and controlling these strong, largely subconscious, biases that we all experience and which can skew our decision-making process.

<B>Developing Self-Awareness</B>

Psychologists agree that self-awareness is not a trait that we are born with, but something that we can develop throughout our lifetime. It requires a great deal of self-reflection and above all, the ability to internalize feedback from others. For example, if I am told regularly that I do not delegate to others around me and if next, I accept this feedback and am able to understand why I do not delegate (e.g. for fear of losing control, fear of a botched job by my subordinates, etc), I have then understood myself. I then know myself a bit more. And I can do something about my problem.

On a more practical basis, what can these organisations, where being constantly exposed to a wide range of people is a key requirement, do to develop self-awareness in their managers? First, they have to ensure that these managers undergo a candid and professional assessment of their strengths and limitations. Next, they need to put together a specific development plan and thirdly, they need to ensure that the managers concerned have a coach or mentor with whom they can exchange how they handled certain situations, what to do when they have blown it and how best to learn from it all.

Emotional Intelligence, and its Self-awareness component in particular, will in years to come become even more essential on our island. As we struggle to face the challenges of globalisation and regionalisation, it is clear that more than ever before, our ability to know our strengths and limitations, to keep disruptive emotions and impulses in check, to maintain standards of honesty and integrity, to pursue goals despite obstacles and setbacks, to initiate ideas and act on opportunities and to empathise with our clients and employees – all of these being the competencies of EI – will become critical.

<B>Prof E. Charoux

[email protected]</B>