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Emotional intelligence and empathy in the workplace: a deep dive

Wednesday 03 May 2023
You might be book-smart, but are you emotionally intelligent? EQ is vital for building and managing relationships at work – and improving it is possible
Illustrations of different emotions

Contents:

  1. What is emotional intelligence?
  2. Self-awareness: how do I feel and why?
  3. Self-management (also called self-regulation)
  4. Social awareness, or empathy
  5. Developing emotional intelligence in your team

What is emotional intelligence?

EQ, emotional intelligence, is a particularly useful element in a manager’s toolbox. The essence of emotional intelligence is your capacity to recognise the emotional state that you or another person is in, and then manage the emotions appropriately. 

Why is it so important for managers?

Psychological research shows that managers with greater levels of emotional sensitivity are more successful: 

  • They perform better and have better conflict resolution skills.
  • With their enhanced interpersonal and communication skills, they build stronger long-term relationships, both within their own teams and with external clients/customers.
  • They manage stress better and have healthier staff. 
  • Emotional intelligence is also important for resilience and making logical, ethical decisions.

Emotional intelligence is the habitual practice of using emotional information from ourselves or from other people, integrating this with our thinking, using these to inform our decision making to help us get what we want from the immediate situation and from life in general

Tim Sparrow and Amanda Knight, Centre for Applied Emotional Intelligence

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