Mains Practice Questions

Approach

• Briefly define emotional intelligence (EI).
• Identify the role of EI for an administrator.
• Enumerate the key attributes that an emotionally intelligent administrator should imbibe.
• Give a conclusion.

Introduction

Emotional intelligence refers to the capability of a person to manage and control his or her emotions and possess the ability to control the emotions of others as well.

Body

Emotional intelligence is a very important skill in leadership. Daniel Goleman has given 5 elements of emotional intelligence, which also form the basis of core attributes an emotionally intelligent administrator should have:-

• Self-Awareness: Self-awareness is the ability to honestly reflect on and understand one’s emotions, strengths, challenges, motives, values, goals, and dreams.
• Self-Regulation: It is about controlling one’s emotions i.e. instead of reacting quickly; one can rein in one’s emotions and 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 refers to applying empathy and balancing the wants and requirements of others with one’s own. It includes building a good rapport with others.

Application of EI by an administrator

• EI enables a leader to be conscious of personal limitations and use personal strengths to further the work of achieving organizational goals.
• It allows mental clarity that leadership demands for taking right decisions and deal with conflicting situations rationally.
• It helps in developing healthy working relationships by better understanding the strengths and weaknesses of co-workers and maintaining a healthy rapport with people.
• An empathetic individual can read emotional currents, picking up on nonverbal cues such as tone of voice or facial expression, thereby better understanding the needs and demands of other people and acting accordingly.
• It helps an administrator to persuade, convince, or impact others in order to get them to support a specific agenda or course of action.

Conclusion

The civil servant as an administrator has the responsibility to act as the vanguard of society. In this context, utilization of emotional intelligence skills can assist him\ her in the attainment of this goal and enhance the quality of decision-making, deal with complex situations effectively.