Has emotional intelligence become the next buzzword? If we aren’t careful… it will.
Along with words like bias, self-awareness, leadership and the like. What’s a buzzword?
BUZZWORD
A word that has become fashionable to use for a particular time. Over time the true meaning of the word becomes skewed, lost or irrelevant.
I have witnessed organizations hiring Coaches or Consultants like myself to come in and teach their teams emotional intelligence. The thing is, I can’t teach anyone who doesn’t want to be taught. Thankfully, about 98% of the people I work with actually want to grow and learn. The issue isn’t that people don’t want to grow – it is more that we are unclear on what to expect during the growth period. We seem to be confused about what is and what is not emotional intelligence. So… let’s talk about it.
Emotional intelligence is a process not a destination. There are three main aspects of our journey through this process. And the pathway is not linear. We visit and revisit them as needed to support our growth in emotional intelligence. So let’s consider the three aspects of emotional intelligence as I explore them with my clients:
SELF-AWARENESS
This is the biggest culprit of the buzzwords. People claim to be self-aware or perhaps they desire to expand their self-awareness. Self-awareness is simply recognizing and being able to name and understand who and how you are. Knowing yourself is for sure, step one. However, although many believe this to be the end of the journey into emotional intelligence, it is only the first step.
Knowing your areas of growth and doing nothing about it, is pretty common and also pretty disappointing for those of us who desire to grow, improve and level up.
SELF-REGULATION
This is when we identify those parts of ourselves that are not serving us or our community and we apply internal strategies to challenge those behaviors. You see, having self-awareness is great but only when we are self-regulating as well.
In other words, what’s the point of knowing you need to change without actually doing the inside work to change anything?
INTENTIONAL ACTION
This is only possible when you see the parts of you that you want to change, are able to apply the strategies you’ve learned to challenge them and then make a new decision about what action you want to take. Intentional action is not impulsive or reactive. It is thoughtful, contemplative and considerate. Getting to this level of the transformational work of emotional intelligence takes practice.
Emotional intelligence is a practice.
My hope is that leaders of every level would recognize that investing in this journey for themselves and their teams is invaluable. It pays back in droves by increasing individual leadership ability, producing innovativeness, lengthening time of service with companies and decreasing conflict at work.
I invite all of us to stop throwing around buzzwords like emotional intelligence, self-awareness and the like. And instead, get busy doing the work that these words require without wearing it on our chests like a medal. Rather than talking about it, let’s be about it and actually GET TO WORK.
