What is emotional intelligence? The greatest quality of a successful leader!

Emotional intelligence is the key to sales conversion and negotiations. It enables better decision-making during the contact between the company and its customer, even in challenging situations.

In the professional job market, soft skills - such as emotional intelligence - are more valued than technical skills, also known as hard skills, due to the impact they bring to results.

Emotional intelligence enables personal and professional development and is an essential characteristic for a successful leader. Continue in this article and check out its importance through the following topics:

• What is emotional intelligence?
• Work by Daniel Goleman
• What are the main skills of emotional intelligence?
• How to use emotional intelligence in business?
• Develop your emotional intelligence!

Are you ready? Let 's go!

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to pay attention and understand your emotions, using them to your advantage for better personal and professional relationships.

We are talking about controlling impulsive feelings and behaviors and adapting to changing circumstances in the search for success in life.

This competence impacts performance at work, studies and affective relationships with family and friends.

From the point of view of a leader, having emotional skills means having the ability to manage conflicts, communicate effectively and deal with stressful negotiations.

In this way, having a high degree of emotional intelligence directly impacts our professional growth, due to the skills that are improved.

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Work by Daniel Goleman

Psychologist Daniel Goleman's book Emotional Intelligence was released in 1995 and was the first bestseller to sell over five million copies.

Goleman defends in the work that interpersonal skills are more important than cognitive skills in advancing your career.

Empathy, feedback, openness, and emotional sensitivity are some of the characteristics that the author sees as essential for the success of individuals and organizations.

The author divides emotional intelligence into five aspects: “the emotional brain”, “the nature of emotional intelligence”, “applied emotional intelligence”, “opportune moments” and “emotional literacy”.

Check out the main ideas of each one:

Emotional brain

At times, emotion overrides reason in our decisions. While the rational mind allows for reflection, the emotional mind carries out intuition.

Emotions are so strong that they interfere with attention and critical thinking. In this way, it is ideal to find the balance between reason and emotion.

The nature of emotional intelligence

IQ (intelligence quotient) contributes only 20% to success. The other 80% result from soft skills, which can be measured by EQ (emotional quotient).

Emotional intelligence can be broken down into self-awareness, emotion management, motivation, empathy, and relationships.

Applied emotional intelligence

Our emotions are directly linked to our health. In this way, having good relationships in family and work results in an improvement in your emotional state and mental health.

One of the best attitudes for good relationships at work is the culture of feedback. It results in harmony among co-workers and greater motivation to perform their duties.

Opportune moments

Emotional intelligence should be carried out from childhood, as its absence can lead to psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, and attention disorders.

The good news is that emotional intelligence can be learned, but it is important to develop those skills from childhood for the formation of conscious adults.

Emotional literacy

Emotional literacy consists of the constant development of emotional intelligence, using empathy, self-understanding, and self-control.

This increases your motivation and consequently improves external relationships as well, by working the ability to recognize others’ feelings.

What are the main skills of emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is divided into five main pillars: self-knowledge, self-management, self-motivation, empathy and sociability.

Self awareness

Self-knowledge or self-awareness consists of knowing what we’re feeling, why we are feeling it, which is a basis of, good intuition and good decision-making.

Self-control is only possible when real emotions are identified.

Self-management

Emotional self-management means handling your distressing emotions in effective ways, so that they don’t get in the way of what you’re doing.

This self-control results in decisions made assertively and rationally.

Self motivation

The third pillar has to do with developing motivation to carry out your activities regardless of the negative feelings you may be feeling.

Self-motivation is directly related to dealing with strong emotions and marshaling positive thoughts, getting ourselves involved and enthused about what we are doing.

Empathy

Empathy is directly linked to reacting well to the emotions of others and putting yourself in the other's shoes in decision-making and relationships.

This ability makes it possible to see the world from another perspective, understand others’ attitudes and solve problems that may have been caused by them.

To be empathetic is to understand the pains and joys of the other and, through this, establish non-violent communication to solve problems.

Sociability

A person who is socially skilled is usually easy to talk to, they can put together all those pillars, enabling different interpersonal relationships.

Through it, it is possible to live better with the people around them and create a pleasant and harmonious environment.

How to use emotional intelligence in business?

A good leader has emotional intelligence as one of his main skills.

Emotional intelligence is responsible for the balance between the two parts of a negotiation, in addition to improving communication and the relationship between the work team.

In this way, the use of the five pillars above is essential to know how to defuse conflicts and maintain healthy long term relationships in a company.

In sales, self-control and self-awareness is used to monitor your emotions, resilience, and empathy to understand the customer and harmony to enable a good relationship at the moment and after the sale.

Some experts have to conclude that buyers follow emotion to purchase a product or service. Thus, the seller must be responsible for providing that feeling to the customer.

In addition, putting yourself in your potential client's shoes, trying to understand their feelings and emotions, is essential to seek a solution to their pain. This will give the customer real reasons to accept and do business.

Finally, for the salesperson to improve their leadership and entrepreneurship skills, they must seek continuous improvement, to train, learn and reduce crucial mistakes.

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Do you know the importance of self-knowledge in shaping a true leader? Knowing your options and weaknesses is fundamental for you to be ahead of a team and be prepared for the most adverse situations.