What is emotional intelligence? How to enhance it?

Meaning of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence refers to the capability of a person to manage and control their emotions.
It also refers to the ability to control the emotions of other people.
Emotional intelligence is the area of cognitive ability that facilitates interpersonal behavior.
Emotional intelligence also refers to the ability to combine intelligence, empathy and emotions to enhance thoughts and understanding of interpersonal dynamics.
People with a high degree of emotional intelligence perceive, control and evaluate emotions in oneself and others and use that information appropriately.

Self-awareness: Here you need to understand your own strengths and weaknesses. You should know how your emotions and your behavior can affect the people around you. You should aware of things which make you happy and sad. Writing down your thought and keeping a track of your activities in notepad will move you to a higher degree of self-awareness.
Self-regulation: You should be smart enough to respond according to the situation. A person with high emotional intelligence has the ability to restrain and control when expressing their emotions. You should be precise and consistent in your actions in challenging situations.
Motivation: A high degree of emotionally intelligent people are self-motivated. They are driven by an inner ambition rather than being influenced by outside forces, such as money or awards. Self-motivated people have a clear purpose in their doings. A person with high emotional intelligence is optimistic in attitude.
Empathy: It shows the ability of a person to put themselves in someone else situation. For leaders, empathy is very important in managing a team or organization. You should able to read body language to determine how someone really feels. By reading body language you will be able to respond appropriately.
Social skills: You should be able to build trust and gain respect with people you meet. You should be open to hearing good and bad feedback. You should be able to resolve a conflict between your team members.

Thinking in a positive way will change your perception towards the way of looking at things.
Surround yourself with positive people who can teach and appreciate you.
Emotionally intelligent people know what they need in order to stay positive and optimistic.
A negative attitude may arise misconception and conflict between team members. Hence you should be able to manage your negative emotions as well.

Don’t do anything just because of excitement. You need to be aware of every phase of your assigned task.
Do not allow your emotional behavior dominates over your rational thinking.
Always work on realistic constraints. Do not interrupt or change the subject.
If you don’t know about a task do not hesitate to say ‘no’.
Try to implement your learning in your daily life.

When you feel something that strikes you as an ordinary, try to connect your feeling with your thoughts. Try to put your feelings in words.
Listen to your body. Aware of your casual body language. Your body language is the best indicator of your feelings and emotion.
If your feelings seem extreme one day, take a minute or two to think about any ideas or associations that seem to be connected with the feeling.
Do not create a huge gap between your thoughts and feelings.
If you want to change your thinking about any particular topic, it takes less time in comparison with changing emotions related to it.

Having self-awareness is very important because you should know how your attitude and behavior affect your surrounding.
Practice mindfulness at work and notice how your perspective changes according to the situation.
Research has shown that writing down your thoughts and feeling can help profoundly.
Perform SWOT analysis to know your strengths and weaknesses.

Emotionally intelligent people tend to use specific words to become a strong and effective communicator.
Utilize an assertive style of communicating. This makes communication meaningful.
Emotionally intelligent people know how to give their opinion without disrespecting others.
Do not involve yourself in an irrelevant discussion. This will affect your productivity.
Sometimes you need to evaluate other’s emotions and body language and use that information to improve your communication skills.