HOW EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE HELPS IN YOUR BUSINESS GROWTH

Posted on February 06, 2024 by BJ Jhaveri, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.

In today’s volatile, uncertain, ambiguous, and complex world everyone is trying to achieve a lot within a limited time. Due to the lack of time, we often do not have enough empathy for ourselves, let alone for others. This can drastically affect the work environment and reduce productivity. That’s why lately there has been an emphasis on emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence (EI) is viewed today as an important element for businesses to grow, expand, and survive. Let us further explore this subject to understand how emotional intelligence can help to enhance your business growth.

Today, it is becoming obvious that interpersonal relationships and communication can greatly affect any business. The ability to learn how to behave in certain situations can be used to avoid unpleasantries. And, on a much greater scale, it will affect productivity. If successfully utilized in a company’s practice and training, EI can have various positive impacts on the business itself.

What is Emotional Intelligence(EI)?

There are many manifestations of emotional intelligence. Communication skills, leadership skills, and others are all part of these, often called, soft skills. By enhancing their emotional intelligence: managers and workers can demonstrate better individuality and greater functionality as a team. Generally speaking, it is the ability to recognize, manage, and understand the feelings and emotions of yourself and others.

There are several aspects of emotional intelligence:

● Self-awareness: the ability to perceive your current strengths, weaknesses, moods, behaviors, etc. and learning how they affect you and the people around you.

● Empathy – the ability to share the emotional experience of others. Recognizing, understanding, and feeling the same emotion as them.

● Self-regulation/Impulse control – being able to maturely control the way you react in situations, avoiding impulsive responses, and patiently sorting out the most appropriate response.

● Internal motivation – having a kind of subjective motivation that drives you toward accomplishments. A sort of passion, but not of the materialistic type.

● Resilience- maintaining a positive attitude in hard times, enduring challenges effectively with an optimistic view for a better outcome, and having a will to always push forward.

● Social-awareness and Interpersonal skills: being sensitive to the other person’s situation, collaborating, developing strong relationships, and knowing how to deal with others appropriately while simultaneously earning their respect and trust.

● Agility & Flexibility: assessing new conditions, being open to dynamically adapt to them, and accordingly adjusting your behavior.

Why is EI important in business?

The importance of EI in the business world lies in many factors. Let us try to explain some of them and how they influence business in general.

Identification

The ability to observe, identify and understand other people’s behavior, attitudes, and actions can help in a business environment. If a team member is experiencing some uncharacteristic struggles, recognizing the problem will help you find the solution.

Finding the right team members

Emotional intelligence also helps to find the right people to build the team. If you hire the wrong person, it can easily disrupt an otherwise healthy work environment. Also, not everyone can perform the same tasks equally, giving the right position to the right person will also demonstrate better results. For example, a manager needs to know how to hold a team together and how to solve delicate situations.

The effect on productivity

People with high EI will probably get along together. It leads to better communication, exchange of ideas, and constructive criticism. And the team where everyone respects and trusts each other and collectively builds rational ideas will show significantly better results. Such an overall positive culture is a great foundation for a stable and prospective business.

The ease of assessment

Since EI is quite important for a business to be successful, you need a proper expert to assess it and explain the relevant aspects that matter for you to grow. After all, large successful companies employ professionals to deal with this type of assessment for a reason.

Build relationships and a better working environment

The effect of emotional intelligence in various working environments can be tremendous. While many people claim to function well under the pressure and on tight schedules, the inner reality for themselves is not the same. With proper guidance, people can learn how to cope with increased pressure and reduce the amount of stress. It becomes especially important in a collective environment where one person’s behavior can easily affect that of others. If learned well, it can lead to increased collaboration and team coherence.

How to improve EI?

There are many ways to increase emotional intelligence. Let us name a few useful practices:

● Practice listening to what others have to say and try to avoid interrupting. Gradually, you will be able to better understand people.

● Try to understand the circumstances leading to various events. In reality, you cannot always control everything. Some situations happen out of anyone’s control.

● Think carefully before you act. Take some time to think before you say or act on something or respond to someone.

● Show appreciation. For example, if a manager knows how to praise and appreciate his or her team, it encourages and motivates people to do better. A small & timely compliment about their work, recognition at team events, awards, bonuses, etc. are all proven to increase productivity and overall atmosphere.

● Learn from criticism. Even though you may not like it at that exact moment, sometimes criticism is a perfect way to learn what to improve.

● Observe body language since it is an important part of communication. Without the full picture, you might misinterpret other people’s words.

● Learn to apologize when you are wrong. If you know how to admit and apologize for your mistakes, you will earn a lot of respect from others in the long run.

● Control impulsiveness and at the same time know how to express feelings. Always try to see things from another person’s perspective.

Conclusion

There are many ways in which emotional intelligence helps in your business growth. Understanding how it works is an important part of improving your business. When necessary, don’t hesitate to reach out to a professional EI advisor to help you grow and better understand your co-workers and employees.