What
is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional Intelligence encompasses abilities
such as self-motivation, persistence in the face of frustration, mood management
and the ability to empathize, think and hope. These factors are now considered
to have greater impact on individual and group performance than traditional
measures of intelligence.
It is the ability to sense, understand
and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human
energy, information and influence. Emotional Intelligence emerges not from
the musings of rarefied intellect, but from the workings of the human heart.
EQ is not about sales tricks or how
to work a room, it is not about putting a good face on things, or the psychology
of control, exploitation or manipulation. It requires that we learn to
acknowledge and value feelings in ourselves and others – that we appropriately
respond to them, effectively applying the information and energy of emotions
in our daily life and work.
The
Core Competencies of
team-based
EQ in
the New Economy
The arrival of the new
economy has made
companies realize what
they need from their staff
goes beyond hands, bodies,
and eight-hour days:
For Emotional
Intelligence within a team, we need different
personalities and their individual
EQ-qualities:
The Open
personality.
Has good and
overwhelming ideas and likes to try out new approaches. He or she can help
the team in utilising its creative resources and aligning them with the
company’s needs.
The Analytic
personality
is careful, precise, reasonable, questioning.
The contribution
of this person is to caution the team to set realistic targets and to be
task-orientated.
The Neutral
personality is patient, enduring, relaxed, mindful.
He or she
is both the harmonizer of the team when it comes to conflicts and the person
who might help when the mood is down to zero.
The
Relational personality is sociable, likes
to talk and negotiate, is liked by others.
The team benefit
of this person is to be the social-emotional leader and to represent
the team in the face of other teams and departments
The Decisive
personality is demanding, target-orientated, has a strong will.
Under productive
circumstances, this person will take risks and delegate responsibilities
and, by this, prevents the team from being paralyzed by nowhere leading
discussions.
In addition,
in combination with the LEONARD-test the team approach can be helpful in
several ways applicable for different HR-management-related matters:
Recruitment:
Minimizing the risk of employing expensive misfits by focusing systematically
on soft skills for pre-selection
Appraisal:
as a part of 360° feedback starting out with self-analysis and comparison
with analysis by colleagues, supervisors and subordinates
Team Building:
To set up a team according to tailor-made requirement profiles on requested
personalities
Team Development:
Even if roles have already been defined within existing teams, the test
can be used as a training tool to further its way from “pseudo-teams” to
“high-performing teams”.
A “real”
team is more than a number of people who should work together. Basically,
a team that is both effective and mature is the result of a painstaking
effort. Critical issues have been worked through actively, relationships
have been deepened creating a confidential atmosphere, and roles have been
clarified thoroughly. Successful high performing teams share all of these
attitudes.
Elements of
“real” teams are not easily to be found in traditional teams with many
team members complaining about problems like the following:
“We
have a bulk of prime rate single-workers – but indeed we are not yet a
true team in the proper sense of meaning.”
“We have introduced
team work within the whole company. But we could not, though, create an
atmosphere for the staff to work together successfully”.
“With our economic
results we could be satisfied on the whole. But, during the last period
of time, the tail wags the dog. We seem to go round in circles… We all
have the genuine feeling: we could achieve more, but we do not know how.”
Typical starting
points like these turn many modern teams out to act only as a weak team
or even a so-called “pseudo team”.
By two sorts
of scientifically grounded profiling it is possible to build or develop
a team:
-
The workshop bases
itself on the idea of the EQ-LEONARD Personality Inventory on individuals
to scrutinize modern teamwork from a practical team-oriented point of view.
Team members systematically become aware of actual interactive problems
often more concealed rather than revealed by traditional team meetings.
-
Moreover, the
workshop provides a situational approach and sheds light on typical issues
of particular teams by practical exercises. With real existing teams, it
finally will end up defining concrete agenda for practical work and focusing
on goal agreements to productively further the cooperation between its
members.
THE
END RESULT:
The company
becomes a great place to work and its members are successful, adaptive,
energetic, efficient and resilient.
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