Reflecting On Your Emotional Intelligence

Let’s dig into what it means to be emotionally intelligent and how you can increase your score. There are six dimensions to emotional intelligence: emotional management, self-awareness, optimism, motivation, empathy, and social skills. 

Emotional management (Trait A): Emotional management is the ability to think before acting. It’s controlling our impulse behavior. Emotional management is at the heart of reflective thinking. It’s the ability to have an internal, open, and honest conversation with your feelings. 

People who can manage their emotions are adaptable and respond well to ambiguity and change. People who score low on this may wear their emotions on their sleeve more. 

Self-awareness (Trait B): Self-awareness is the ability to have a deep understanding of your emotions. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What motivates you? What are your goals? What are your values? 

People who score low have little appreciation of themselves or what drives them; this may lead to having a blind spot about the good or not so good elements that make them who they are. 

Optimism (Trait C): Optimism is the ability to view everything from a positive place. People who are optimistic are constantly positive and this gives them their energy. This optimism is their motivation and drive. 

People who score low on this may have an inclination to see the downside and always think things could be better. Their pessimistic attitude can lead to frustration and demotivation because nothing is ever perfect. 

Motivation (Trait D): Emotional intelligence requires motivation. People who have this internal motivation want to achieve, regardless of external incentives. They don’t need someone else to provide a reward for doing things. They’re rarely satisfied with the status quo; they believe there is always a better way. Motivated people are highly competitive, highly optimistic and often see the positive side in both the good and the bad. 

People who score low on this may have lower intrinsic motivation and may be more motivated by extrinsic factors such as compensation or grades. 

Empathy (Trait E): The ability to read other people’s emotions is central to emotional intelligence. This is the capacity to walk in the shoes of others and to reflect on this when making decisions that will impact these people. 

People who score low on this may have difficulty feeling what others feel, because their default lens only shows their own reality. 

Social skill (Trait F): The final component of emotional intelligence is social skill. Social skill is the ability to build and sustain relationships. Having good social skills doesn’t mean being the life of the party, rather it’s the view that relationships are important. It also factors in the ability to persuade and build consensus and bridges between people with diverse viewpoints. 

People who score low on this may be lacking in some of the key social skills. The nuances of interpersonal relationships aren’t obvious, and as a result, these people may not respond to social cues that others see. 

Prepare a Summary

Reflect on your emotional intelligence. Based on the results of your self-assessment, where are you strong? Where is there an opportunity for improvement? Based on your reflection, write a paragraph (a minimum of 250 words or so) to summarize the results of your emotional intelligence assessment. It’s important to remember that we all have areas of our emotional intelligence that we could improve upon. Here’s a sample:

My Emotional Intelligence