What is emotional intelligence (EI) and how does it relate to work and leadership?

It's better to reframe "what is EI" and think of EI as a range of developable abilities rather than a single thing. Peter Salovey and John Mayer were the first major researchers in this area, and they defined it as:

"the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth."

In their view, it was about seeing emotions as sources of data, providing valuable information about:

• whether you are on track and moving toward your goals and living in a manner which is congruent with you your values and strengths
• whether to listen to your emotions - for example, poor sleep, heightened workloads or skipping meals might indicate one or more areas of your life are out of balance
• whether to discount your emotions - waking up and feeling grumpy doesn't necessarily reveal that something is wrong and needs to change. It could just be that you aren't a morning person without a slug of caffeine. In the words of Susan David, "you own your emotions; they don't own you."
• how to connect, incentivise and energise your colleagues – for example, how awareness of their emotions may reveal vital information about their intentions, goals, values and triggers at work

Dan Goleman took this idea of emotional data mining and created a model of measurable workplace behaviours with four main features: self-awareness, social awareness, self-management and relationship management. Under each of these quadrants was a set of workplace abilities. You can self-rate your abilities below.

A measure of EI abilities

Richard Boyatzis, Dan Goleman, and the Hay Group developed a survey measuring abilities called the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI). The following are their twelve areas of leadership abilities. You can take an assessment for yourself and your manager/leader below.

1. Emotional self-awareness
2. Emotional self-control
3. Achievement orientation – striving for excellence
4. Positive outlook
5. Adaptability
6. Empathy
7. Organisational awareness - tuning into the needs of the team
8. Influence on others
9. Coach and mentor
10. Conflict management
11. Inspirational leadership
12. Teamwork

Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI and its uses)

The ESCI inventory is a 360-degree questionnaire used to help evaluate the abilities of a leader in the twelve areas identified above. It’s best done in organisations where there is an open and honest flow of feedback between colleagues, where colleagues have deep knowledge of each other, there is an attitude of growth and leaning into tough conversations and where difference is celebrated, permeated by underlying respect. Without these things, any 360-degree feedback can descend into anger and pettiness. 

Despite the difficulties in assessing EI abilities and given the challenges of any 360-feedback process, researchers from consultancy Korn Ferry have found some interesting results from ESCI, which backs up research into MSCEIT.

According to their research, only 22% of 155,000 leaders have real strengths in EI - where people see them as often or consistently, showing at least nine of twelve of the EI competencies noted above. The remaining 88% of leaders showed moderate strength or less. In addition, 17% were not competent in any area.

A recent analysis confirmed a direct relationship between emotional self-awareness and the team's effectiveness and collaboration. For example, leaders with strong emotional self-awareness (the starting point of the ESCI model) are more likely to create an environment that their teams see as enabling excellence and high performance. And another study found that employees at poor-performing companies were 79% more likely to have low overall emotional self-awareness than those at firms with high levels.

To put it simply, the organisations where people tend to score highly in most or all the twelve areas experience positive impacts on their operations:

• More team engagement – greater understanding and alignment between personal goals and values and the organisation’s goals and values
• Less staff turnover
• Improved client relationships
• Increased productivity
• More interpersonal trust
• Positive wellbeing impacts for individuals - there is a link between healthy emotional awareness and expression and the endocrine system

A compassionate approach to EI development at work

There are two short surveys below. Both take about five minutes to complete. First, consider the EI abilities of your manager, team leader, sports coach or another leader. Then take a similar assessment for yourself. Use these surveys as a starting point to build a conversation about EI training and development in your team.

As you reflect on your leader and yourself, try removing some biases that may cloud your judgment. Leading is tough. The drain on our attention and the challenges of juggling the complexity of work life and family life in 2023 is tough. When we bring our best selves to work, most of us can honestly reflect on our EI strengths and weaknesses and strive for change and growth. However, when we feel time-poor, cornered, triggered and stressed, many of us find it hard to deploy our EI skills.

As you reflect on the twelve areas, avoid the self-defeating tendency to strive to be superhuman in all aspects of your job: we all drop the ball sometimes. Instead, develop self-kindness and kindness to your leader as you explore how to build EI abilities. And avoid using a survey as a battering ram to force change. Instead, these surveys can provide a starting point for an honest conversation about strengths, weaknesses, and growth.

Resources

Below are three links:

• Rating your manager or leaders’ abilities
• Rating your own EI abilities
• Information about the MSCEIT assessment and coaching program

Rating your leaders abilities 

Rating your own abilities 

Know thy self - rating your EI abilities at work

One of the challenges of rating your abilities in these areas is that we aren’t very good at it. Researchers Mayer, Salovey and Caruso found, not surprisingly, that the worse your overall EI abilities are, the less able you are to rate your own and other people’s abilities. And in particular, the worse your emotional self-awareness is, the worse you are at all the essential leadership abilities. So for most researchers in this field, the most important thing to develop is learning to observe, name and reflect on your own emotions more often - I’ll come to this below.

There is a brilliant way to rate your abilities using an online psychometric assessment called MSCEIT. This assessment measures people’s ability to recognise, use, understand and manage emotions. Unlike self-report evaluations, it’s tough to cheat! It tests people’s abilities to recognise emotions in others, what they mean and how they can drive behaviours. And it poses complex scenarios about emotions and their impact on colleagues and friends. The assessment results provide robust evidence-based information about abilities and enable people to focus on critical development areas. There’s more information about MSCEIT below.

MSCEIT information 

Mindfulness and emotional self-awareness

Try this simple technique. Before starting work, don't rush to your computer and to-do list.

Take a minute to reflect on how your body is feeling and notice the feeling. If you can start to put some labels in place, such as :

"Excitement is here", "anger is here", "uncertainty is here", "sadness is here", "jitteriness is here"….

Keep a journal of your emotions. Just a minute of reflection and labelling is a powerful tool to deepen your emotional self-awareness. And as you note and journal, avoid the temptation to fix it and make the feeling disappear. Sit with them, breathe into the space in your body calling for some attention, acknowledge them with self-compassion, let them be and gently let them go. The process of noticing and accurately labelling (if you can) is a powerful, simple, quick, and effective tool for building emotional intelligence abilities at work.

Sometimes it's hard to label accurately: but that's fine and perfectly normal. When it feels like that, notice the sensation in your body, perhaps a heaviness, flutteriness, heat or cold. Take a minute or so to give your body the attention it deserves. Your brain-body-mind system is asking you for care. Treat it as you would a best friend wanting some love and validation, and time.

Too much screen time - thriving, surviving or shrinking?

In this post we consider two ideas from the world of psychology which help identify some of the factors associated with thriving. The first is Banduras self-efficacy theory and the second is Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow theory.

The article takes about two minutes to read 

Bandura’s self-efficacy theory and screentime

Many of us feel we have too much to do and have too little time to do it in. And many of us have competing demands on our attention and conflicting priorities. Balancing the needs of our family, our own wellbeing, our values, our career, our organisations goals and values and the needs, goals and values of our colleagues is challenging. With so much going on we invariably drop the ball sometimes. Self-compassion and self-care is essential as we strive to perform this juggling act.

Sometimes we just have to act and deal with the consequences. But our ability to act as mindfully as possible is impacted by our stress levels, the level of data noise around us whether we have self-efficacy.

“how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with prospective situations”

People with high levels of self-efficacy tend to:

• see challenges as tasks to be mastered;
• become deeply engaged in activities;
• are committed; and
• bounce back from setbacks.

Bandura’s research points to these areas as being developable.  With self-awareness and practice we can learn more about our biases, strengths and emotional triggers. We can become better observers of our own internal narrative and become consciously aware of whether these help us or hinder us. 

We can learn to step back for a moment ( a few seconds) and consider how we wish to be in the world. What sort of a person do we want to be for our friends, colleagues and family? With greater awareness we can practice becoming the person we aspire to be.

All of these things require focus, energy, curiosity and diligence.  Too much online time, spent drifting, may rob us of these things.  We can develop greater self-efficacy through:

• Mastery (repetition with fine attention to doing things better each time)
• Social persuasion (modelling and enjoying group connection and encouragement)
• Recognition of our own emotional state and how this impacts our performance
• Finding ways to express ourselves emotionally
• Developing new emotional states (through healthy nutrition, connecting with positive people, exercising and so on)

Being online obviously doesn’t mean that this time is always drifting and wasted time. Probably far from it.

When we are driven to seek knowledge, we might have high energy levels, lots of purpose and lots of drive. When we are in this state it’s worth taking regular breaks to make sure energy levels stay high and to ensure we don’t become overly fixated on one goal. Disappearing down the rabbit hole is a risk and before you know it your energy levels might be depleted, your balanced world view skewed and your self-efficacy (ability to act purposefully) potentially undermined.

And purposeless, drifting time spent on the infinity scrolls of Netflix, facebook and tiktok drains energy, robs time and deepens biases.  We might move toward mastery in an online game but we need to consider balanced self efficacy ie to what extent does one activity (being online playing games) rob our ability to execute actions in other important areas of our life.

Being in flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, one of the godfathers of positive psychology, developed his “Flow theory” over the last thirty years. When we are in flow states we are:

“strong, alert, unselfconscious and at the peak of our current abilities.”

His research points to happiness being generated when we are in a state where we are gently striving. This is one where we are learning new things - slightly outside of our comfort zone and expanding our minds, connecting with people in new ways and learning new skills.  

This can often be the very opposite of closing into ourselves online, in a filter bubble, surrounded by a wall of mirrors, reflecting our conditioned likes and beliefs.

Being in a flow state has multiple benefits including:

• Enjoying positive emotions and optimism 
• How satisfied we are with our lives 
• Being more motivated 
• Performing well academically  
• Performing well at work 

To be in flow we need to be aware and not be mindlessly drifting. Being in flow means to be self-aware of our underlying strengths, goals, interests and motivations. It means to gently challenge ourselves and try new things. 

As with self-efficacy we need to consider the potential conflict between personal and organisational flow and consider whether our point of attention has value to us, our loved ones and our colleagues.   

We may be in a flow state online but to what purpose? 

Is our point of attention healthy for us? 

Does our version of flow online mean that we are less able to attend to helping our colleagues and loved ones achieve their own flow states?

Does social media improve or undermine our wellbeing? 

No, yes, maybe - it’s complicated

This is the seventh in my series of posts about the impact of social media and screen time in general on our wellbeing, ability to communicate and make decisions.  The posts have been inspired by the book “Offline”, written by Imran Rashid and Soren Kenner.

Quality counts

A 2017 study by Duke University found that it wasn’t necessarily the amount of online time, college students experienced, which had a positive or negative impact on their wellbeing, but whether that social media engagement led to more or less interactions with friends offline. People who used social media to connect with people offline tended to have elevated levels of wellbeing, regardless of the amount of time they spent online. Whereas, those who tended to rely on social media for friends and connection had lower levels of wellbeing. 

Distorting the way we see ourselves

Social media tends to condition and reinforce popular perceptions of desirability, attractiveness and what is an appropriate way of acting. In a 2012 study Chou and Edge found that the more time a person spent on Facebook, and the greater the percentage of strangers a person had as friends (vague awareness of how the friend contact was formed), the more likely the person is to perceive others as having better lives than their own. And in a 2015 study Vogel, Rose, Okdie and Franz found that people who had a greater tendency to compare themselves to others  were more likely to be heavy Facebook users and had lower levels of self-esteem. 

In other studies, self-reported self-esteem is correlated with the level of fight flight hormone cortisol. Elevated cortisol levels act to enable the fight/flight system by tensing the body up and enabling energy to be directed to movement and defence and away from higher reasoning.  It helps us react fast. The authors of the book “Offline” point to research which found that body shaming increases cortisol levels and that social media time effects the way we perceive our own bodies. A distorted self-view, that we are not beautiful enough or don’t fit in, may make people feel like awkward outliers from society. This may lead to increased social isolation, or perhaps unusual behaviours with friends or colleagues, as people try to preserve their sense of self.  Social media may increase the amount of comparison with other people we engage in.

Making us less resilient?

In a 2017 study, people who were given a stressful event to experience, had significantly higher levels of stress (cortisol levels) if after the stressor they spent some time browsing Facebook. Facebook browsing seemed to impair cortisol recovery. The research indicated that we may feel the impact of heightened cortisol levels for much longer if we browse Facebook when we are feeling stressed. For example, some of the physical effects of this could include tight neck and shoulders or lower back, shallow breathing or general discomfort. Some of the psychological and social impacts may mean we overly focus on weaknesses, deficits and dangers, feel anxious, experience low levels of self-esteem and be disinclined to meet up with friends and family. 

What happens to us when we experience a long, slow surge of dopamine as we flit from one image to the next on our infinity scrolls? It’s uncertain what the long-term impact of this is.  A survey by the Pew Centre in 2015 of 1,800 people indicated that more social media usage was correlated with more stress. The more usage, the more stress and the greater the negative body self-image.  In addition, the more social media platforms you use the greater the levels of anxiety and depression.

Research from the Sleep Research Society in 2017 on 1,700 young adults in the US indicated that using social media, within 30 minutes of going to sleep, had a negative impact on sleep quality. The heavier the usage, the worse the impact. 

Too early to tell about long term impacts

Smartphones were only introduced in 2007 (date of the iPhone launch). Less smart phones had been around for a little while prior to 2007 but the sharing and roaming technology, that we have come to rely on, only started to become popular with the iPhone launch. It’s still quite a new phenomenon and the long-term consequences of this technology is unknown. What we can do is look at longitudinal studies of behaviour and have an informed conversation about what may be happening.

Once such researcher is Larry Rosen.  He has been studying the impact of technology on children for the last thirty years and therefore we should pay attention to what he says. 

‘Our real and virtual worlds overlap, as many of our virtual friends are also our real friends. But time and effort spent on our virtual world limit the time to connect and communicate on a deeper level in our real world. We face a barrage of alerts, notifications and vibrations warning us that something important is about to happen”. 

Jean Twenge, from the University of San Diego has also noted sudden and massive changes in young people since 2012.

“Young people socialise in completely new ways, reject once sacred social taboos and want different things from their lives and careers.  They are obsessed with safety, focussed on tolerance and have no patience for inequality”.

In virtually all the studies mentioned in this series of articles, splitting out cause and effect is almost impossible. For example, do people who are more prone to depression tend to withdraw into social media and reduce real time friend interactions or does more time spent online, reduce meaningful friend interactions and lead to depression?  It cannot be concluded that A leads to B. Highly stressed people may be susceptible to being drawn in by social media, whilst some heavy users of social media may remain upbeat and energised and use social media to connect to more people in a positive way in real time. However, most of the research concludes that over time we are changing the way we behave and there is a positive correlation between spending more time online, particularly on social media, and significant negative psychological, physiological and social connectivity impacts. 

Takeaways from this post 

• Set aside specific times for checking social media during the day 
• Monitor your social media time and aim to reduce from the average of 2 hours per day
• If possible, turn your phone to airplane mode 30 minutes or more before you go to bed
• Make social media work positively for you – aim to organise at least one face to face meeting with friends through social media and stick to your meetups 
• Join a meetup group to practice your hobby or passion
• Before engaging in social media consider your mood state.  Reflect back on the things today that brought you joy, were meaningful or successful (or all three). Practice some gentle breathwork meditation exercises.

Is social media, online games and general screen time addictive?

This is the fifth in my series of posts about the impact of social media and screen time. The posts have been inspired by the book “Offline”, written by Imran Rashid and Soren Kenner.

If you spend a few minutes observing someone on Instagram or Facebook there are number of things that could happen; you might be perceived as a weird stalker (try doing it surreptitiously).  If you can maintain a non-stalky demeanour and think of it as a science experiment, rather than weird, that helps. If you do this, look at the speed of the fingers, the darting eyes and the deeply engrained focus. The infinity scroll looks like a job. People spend hours and hours ticking and liking and commenting. To what effect?  

• As you engage in social media imagine that you are being observed. 
• Are your movements soft, slow and measured?  
• Are you problem solving, and using your higher brain functions, when you’re online or merely liking and scrolling to satisfy old patterns of likes, dislikes and habitual patterns of thinking? 
• Are you endlessly scrolling to serve yourself a stream of dopamine? 
• Do your actions, in this moment, lead to a deeper connection with people? 
• Does your scrolling, at this moment, help you spend more real time with people? 
• What else could you be doing at this moment?

This what Sean Parker, the first CEO of Facebook, said about the importance of addictive design for their business model:

“How can we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible? That means that we need to give you a little dopamine hit. With the social media feedback loop you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology”.

What are addictive behaviours?

Addiction could include some or all of the following:

• Mental preoccupation
• Neglect of personal life
• Escapism
• Mood modification
• Modification of tolerance levels
• Concealment

(The international gaming research unit at Nottingham Trent University)

The widely used U.S DSM5 (diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders) added gambling and internet gaming to the list of disorders. However, if we can pathologize  gambling and internet disorders where does the line get drawn? 

“How can we conceptualise behavioural addiction without pathologizing common behaviours?” (Society for the study of addiction)

It is up to us as individuals and also in our friendship and work networks to decide which behaviours are useful and which are undermining. For example, a colleague told me about her sixteen-year-old son’s friend group who ban phone time when they catch up for coffee or dinner. Screen time is now an essential part of life. We just need to explore how it affects our relationships, quality of work and wellbeing.

Takeaways from this post

• Talk to family, friends and colleagues about this stuff! Create some soft rules for when we are with each other
• Where possible set aside some alone time for checking social media, playing games and so on. And monitor how much time you do these things each day
• Keep a simple journal of your online experience - After long sessions on social media, watching Netflix or playing games online, document your mood and energy levels. Compare these to mood and energy levels after you have met friends in person, played sport or received positive feedback at work
• Be mindful when you are on social media – For example, when you are Instagram continue to breathe slowly and steadily and consider how you would like to be perceived. Are your movements fast paced and frenetic as you like and comment or are your movements more measured?
• Before you post something consider whether you are adding value for others. Does your post add new information that helps others thrive? For example, does it share moments of joy with friends and family in different countries? 
• When you comment, consider whether you would say something similar if you were face to face with the person