Emotional Intelligence is one of the major factors that determine a person’s success in personal as well as professional life. People who are emotionally intelligent tend to make best out of a situation, thereby making their overall life smooth & successful.
These days, top level organizations are putting special emphasis on the quality of emotional intelligence in their employees. Especially while selecting candidates for leadership positions such as directors, executives, CEOs, etc.
Even in my executive coaching programs for leaders and other corporate training programs, I put special emphasis on emotions & intelligence. This factor is also important to understand if you are life coach in India.
What is emotional intelligence?
The dictionary meaning of emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, use and manage one’s own emotions. But if we go in detail, emotional intelligence means the quality of being aware of our own emotions in different situations of life. Often people believe that they feel because of the outer situations. But what they overlook is that their emotions constantly impact their overall perception. Emotions strongly influence the person’s ability to analyze a particular situation. Emotional Intelligence means the ability to understand the entire play of the emotions, the impact of emotions on our life and developing skills to channelize this energy of emotions.
In this article, we will focus on 7 personality traits that almost all emotionally intelligent people have in common. We will also see the impact these traits on life.
1) Less Reactive More Responsive
There are two types of action that we conduct daily, reaction & response. All of our actions come into these two categories. Reaction and response, both are different types of actions and both are necessary. Reaction is necessary whenever there is threatening situation. Response is important whenever the threat is at a distance.
In today’s time most of the situations that we face are generally less threatening. The decisions that we have to make on daily basis impact us in the long run. So, our daily life situation demands us to respond more and react less. But many of us choose to react in certain situations rather than responding.
People who are emotionally intelligent tend to take their time, before taking any decision. They think before speaking and before concluding to any judgments. In my books Life The Way You Design Part 2 – The Method, I have explained in detail about the science of reactions & response.
2) Empathy
A person who is not emotionally intelligent in general is always self-centered. He or she cannot understand what the other person is feeling, because he himself is so much entangled in his own emotional world. The person won’t be able to exactly understand what the other person is going through and will try to force his own ideas on the other person. This makes the person a weak leader. People, in the long run, do not like to share their emotions with such person.
On the other hand, an emotionally intelligent person will always have empathy for other people. He or she will understand how the other person is feeling and how much receptive the other person is. This quality gives the person an ability to understand and evaluate the potential of different people in different circumstances. Such people make very good leaders, business & executive coach or life coach.
3) Good Listeners
This is a quality that you can find in people who are best life coach or counselor or psychoanalyst. It is also a good sign if you are a parent, leader or teacher. Our Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi also share this trait and we all know how good leader he is.
7 out of 10 people are more interested in sharing their experience, emotions & knowledge. There are very less people who are interested in listening. Emotionally intelligent person will listen to other person. He or she will always be open to people who want to share with them.
This quality of good listening gives them an edge over other people. Because they get the opportunity to know what other people think and feel on various topics. They are not driven by the urge to speak. This way they get more knowledge. Knowledge is true power if one knows how to utilize in productive ways. This is the reason why most emotionally intelligent people are highly successful.
4) Immune To Criticism
“The man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind.”
Napoleon
Criticism is a very essential part of human society. It can help a person get better or it can make a person get worst, depending upon the way a person responds to it. Whoever gets defensive over any criticism tends to get more upset. This hinders the person’s ability to think and analyze. If the person is not good in handling criticism he or she will get more rigid and stubborn.
A person, who has developed high emotional quotient, is naturally immune to any type of criticism. If you look at most leaders of the history and even of current times, you will notice that they have this natural ability to stay unmoved when people are criticizing them. Because of this ability, the person can analyze and think clearly during tough times & situations. And this again gives them an extraordinary edge over their competitors.
5) Less Expectations
“Never think of the results, just do!”
George Gurdieff
An emotionally intelligent person will always focus on the process and not on the results. Once you increase your EQ, your perception gets clear. You then see that things don’t happen because of our expectations. To get a particular outcome many factors are involved but expectations is not one of them.
A person who is successful and emotionally intelligent will drop all the expectations and will work as per his or her responsibility in a given situation.
6) Patience
Patience is one of the 6 factors for success mentioned in Hatha Yoga Pradipika. We also have that saying, ‘Patience is a virtue’. When urges overpower our mind, we become restless and start losing patience. Because of this many time we quit or change our decision and that impacts our overall progress in life.
People who have certain grip over their emotions will never be driven by their urges. And so people with high level of EQ (Emotional Quotient) don’t generally tend to become impatient. This is the most essential quality when you go under transformational life & wellness coaching programs.
7) Meditate
Meditation is said to calm down our nervous system and stress response. Whoever has developed this quality of being emotionally stable either meditates deliberately or does some process that involves meditation.
For example, one may be involved in painting, one may be involved in writing or one may be involved in crafting or other such subtle arts that make us meditative. Such subtle activities take us to deeper state of mind.
However, mostly people who are emotionally intelligent will do some meditative practices on daily basis. This habit itself makes them highly emotionally intelligent.
So, these are certain common traits that are found in people who are emotionally intelligent. If you can develop such traits you too can increase your emotional quotient and be grounded even in the toughest situation.
Following are the 7 traits of highly successful people who emotionally intelligent:
- Less Reactive More Responsive
- Empathy
- Good Listeners
- Immune to Criticism
- Less Expectation
- Patience
- Meditate
