Mains Marathon

• Start your answer by defining emotional intelligence and mention how it is based on feelings.
• Mention the significance of emotional intelligence in the life of an individual.
• Mention how it can be improved.
• Conclude your answer by highlighting the importance of emotional Intelligence.

Answer:

Emotional intelligence refers to ‘the ability to identify one’s own emotions and those of others, harness and apply them to tasks, and to regulate and manage them’.

Emotional Quotient (EQ) is a measure of one’s EI i.e. through a standardized test, one’s awareness of emotions in relation to self and others is known.

As emotions are based on the feelings of the individuals, emotional intelligence is basically also based on feelings.

Significance of Emotional Intelligence

• Self-Awareness: It is the skill of being aware of and understanding one’s emotions as they occur and as they evolve.
• Self-Regulation: It is about controlling one’s emotions i.e. instead of reacting quickly; one can reign in one’s emotions and thus will think before responding.
• Internal Motivation: It includes one’s personal drive to improve and achieve commitment to one’s goals, initiative, or readiness to act on opportunities, and optimism and resilience.
• Empathy: It is an awareness of the needs and feelings of others both individually and in groups, and being able to see things from the point of view of others.
• Social Skills: It is applying empathy and balancing the wants and requirements of others with one’s. It includes building good rapport with others.

Emotional Quotient (EQ) vs. Intelligent Quotient (IQ)

• EQ is a measure of a person's level of emotional intelligence. It refers to a person's ability to perceive, control, evaluate, and express emotions.
• IQ is a score derived from sone of several standardized tests designed to assess an individual's intelligence. It is used to determine academic abilities and identify individuals with off-the-chart intelligence or mental challenges.
• EQ is centred on abilities such as identifying emotions, evaluating how others feel, controlling one's own emotions, perceiving how others feel, using emotions to facilitate social communication and relating to others.
• IQ represents abilities such as visual and spatial processing, knowledge of the world, fluid reasoning, working memory and short-term memory and quantitative reasoning.

Emotional Intelligence can be Improved through:

• By self-evaluating oneself, one can know one’s emotions and reactions to different situations.
• By observing others, one can comprehend feelings of others.
• By improving one’s expression, one can communicate better.
• By analyzing the impact of one’s action over others, one can fine tune the actions.

Now-a-days, organizations take initiative to improve Emotional Intelligence among its employees through different group activities, exercises, seminars and tests. However, EI also improves with age (maturity) due to one’s experiences in life.