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Emotional Intelligence Defined
Emotional intelligence (EI) plays a crucial role in how effectively you manage your emotions, navigate relationships, and tackle challenges. Research shows that EI accounts for 58% of performance across all job types and has a direct influence on business outcomes. The five key dimensions of EI are:
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1) Self-awareness – Do you recognize your emotions and their impact? This is considered the cornerstone of emotional intelligence. It involves being aware of your mood and how it affects your interactions with others. Self-awareness also means knowing your strengths and limitations, being open to ideas from all directions, and actively seeking feedback. People who are self-aware tend to be curious and demonstrate strong growth potential—a quality highly valued not only in new employees but also in leadership selection. ​
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2) Self-management – Can you control emotions and act strategically? This includes your ability to manage impulses, avoid procrastination, and consistently aim for quality over shortcuts. Self-management is seen when you thoughtfully consider decisions, act fairly as a manager, and maintain composure during stressful moments. Positive behaviours like effective stress coping and setting healthy boundaries are also hallmarks of strong self-management. It also applies to setting yourself high standards and expectations, challenging yourself to grow and consistently deliver your best work.
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3) Social awareness – Do you understand others’ emotions and perspectives? This dimension is about empathizing with others—both one-on-one and in teams. It’s evident in your ability to read the mood of a group, recognize when someone needs support, and value diverse perspectives during interactions.
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4) Relationship management – Can you inspire, influence, and lead? Do you build good relationships? Do people want to work with you? Will they make an effort to support you? Good relationship management involves building and maintaining trust, resolving conflicts diplomatically, motivating others, and being assertive when needed—but not overly so. Leaders strong in this area create environments where people want to contribute and feel safe collaborating. Are you too strong, too weak, or assertive?
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5) Motivation – Are you goal-driven and resilient under pressure? This is a multi-dimensional characteristic – it includes things like how persistent and determined you are. If your motivations will align well with your job, this forms a foundation for high performance. Resilience in the face of setbacks, keeping focus on objectives, and inspiring a shared sense of purpose are all signs of high motivation.
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Emotions include:
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Emotions Trigger Behaviour
Our emotional state can be positive, neutral, or negative.
It's important to recognize that our emotions impact the choices we make and the actions we take, affecting not only ourselves but also those around us.
For example, if you are calm and happy, you'll be able to focus and be highly productive. Conversely, if you're sad or confused, you'll struggle to concentrate.
In an excited state, you may act impulsively and say "Yes" to something you should decline—for instance, during a deal negotiation or when facing a deadline.
In a frustrated or angry state, you may lash out at others and risk damaging relationships.
Similarly, consider how it feels to be passed over for promotion or rejected for a job—how well do you manage that situation?
The more aware you are of your emotions and the better you regulate your responses, the more effective and resilient you will be in both work and life.
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Take note: emotional intelligence accounts for 58% of performance in all job types.
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It'ss shaped by five dimensions, read on and find out more.
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Let's now take a close look at each of these dimensions.
1) Self-Awareness
Guess what? 95% of people think they've got a good level of self-awareness.
But less than 15% do.
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Self-awareness manifests in many different ways.
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Being aware of how our emotional state impacts our behaviour.
One key aspect is simply understanding how you feel at any given moment and how your emotional state might influence your behaviour and work. This self-awareness is essential for making choices that support both personal effectiveness and positive outcomes for others.
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Curiosity and growth potential
Another key aspect is curiosity, which fuels your ability to learn and seek out what you don’t know, heavily influencing your growth potential.
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Continuous learning and the acquisition of new skills should not be underestimated. Developing or refining new approaches makes us stronger, drives higher performance, and sustains long-term career success. Growth potential is also a quality often evaluated when awarding promotions or making leadership appointments.
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It also means understanding your own emotions and how they shape your choices.
Being open to new ideas from all directions is important, as is handling feedback well - embracing and actively seeking it is critical for ongoing learning and staying tuned into what’s happening.
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Self-awareness also involves recognizing when we may place blame on others for setbacks and keeping ourselves accountable by acknowledging our own errors. To perform well at work, we need to be energized; self-awareness includes monitoring your mood and energy levels.
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Doing the right thing!
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It includes being responsible and aware of unethical behaviors—like bias, favoritism, bullying, or sharing confidential information.
Being self-aware includes the need to keep yourself in check. When appropriate, you’ll need to assess and evaluate your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions to determine whether they reflect reality, rather than being influenced by biases, assumptions, or strong emotions.
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Your emotional state impacts your confidence, positivity, and focus—it triggers your decision-making, preferences, and behaviors. It affects the choices you make and the actions you take or avoid, directly influencing your interactions with others and your overall performance. Self-awareness is about recognizing your strengths, shortcomings, blind spots, and emotional state in real time. With strong self-awareness, you can adapt, stay focused, and lead with greater credibility.
2) Self-Management
Self-Discipline!
There’s the knowing—and there’s the doing. Self-management is about the doing. You could call it self-discipline or self-regulation, but really it’s about doing the right thing—even when no one’s watching—and sticking with it. Consistently. Doing the right things, doing them well, and doing them consistently.
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Sometimes it’s about taking action. Sometimes it’s about inaction. Pausing. Waiting. Because sometimes doing nothing is exactly the right thing.
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The traps? Being impulsive. Procrastinating. Taking shortcuts. Each carries a cost—to you, potentially impacting other people and their own success, and to how others perceive you.
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Self-management means accountability.
It means taking responsibility for your actions, keeping yourself in check, staying adaptive, and maintaining focus. It’s showing up consistently, especially under pressure.
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It also means being responsible. We live in a world where standards and expectations become more exacting every year—ethics matter more and more, whether they’re formally written into compliance rules or not.
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Consistently Working At Your Best
The best people apply themselves well, and they do so consistently. They deliver things to a high standard. They could never be accused of having a “that’ll do, leave it to tomorrow, leave it to someone else” attitude. Self-management is about operating at your best, not your second-best
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Time Management
Time management is central to self-discipline and career success. If you don’t prioritize, you get stuck in reactive work—and real progress slips away.
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Ask yourself: Are you working on what matters most, or just reacting to whatever’s in front of you? Do you manage your schedule—or does it manage you? Self-management means choosing high‑impact tasks over distractions. Mastery lies in striking that balance: when to jump in fast, and when to step back and wait.
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Managing Your Mood & Energy Levels​
Do any of the following sound familiar? Have you observed people who lost their temper, blew up, or seemed beaten down? Someone who looked worn out? Someone who was calm and confident one moment, but short-tempered the next? Someone who was sharp or commanding? Someone who lit up a meeting with their energy? Someone who performed well for a period of days or weeks, but failed to sustain their level of performance? Someone who was effective until the environment became pressured, and then fell apart? Does this sound familiar?
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There’s a need for us all to manage our energy levels, mood and to be able to tolerate stress. To perform at our best, we need to manage our mood and energy levels.
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The best leaders bring energy into the room. And you can’t energize others if you are running flat. Self-management is also about managing your energy and your mood. The higher the responsibility, the more critical this becomes. That means sleep, hydration, diet, exercise, and building habits that keep you balanced and resilient.
3) Social Awareness
Social and Emotional Awareness
Your ability to read emotions, understand individuals and team dynamics, and recognize what drives people will define your leadership success.
This refers to understanding both people individually, as as groups of people i.e. on a one to one basis and for example understanding the sentiment of a team.
Social awareness is your ability to read the room—picking up on others’ emotions, needs, and dynamics. It helps you understand what motivates people, how they’re feeling, and how to respond with empathy. In the workplace, it’s key to building trust, navigating politics, and working well with diverse teams.
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Less than one-third (32%) of people score highly in social awareness (empathy and understanding others) .
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Recognizing Rapport and Buy-In
Notice if people are onboard with your plans, ideas, and whether they are fully bought in, partly so, or just paying lip service. Seek out their concerns and gauge how much of a bond or rapport you’ve established.
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Understanding Personality and Team Dynamics
Recognize different personality types and patterns: some highly co-operative, encouraging and supportive, others less expressive or more indifferent. Adjust how you approach people according to their type.
Understanding team sentiments is a foundation for recognising what drives people and how to respond productively.
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Empathy and Relationship Building
Empathy is the ability to understand and relate to others’ thoughts, feelings, or experiences, to view situations from their perspective. In leadership, empathy is widely considered the number one skill for interpersonal effectiveness.
Sentiment shapes how employees feel about company culture, leadership, and their roles—impacting engagement, well-being, and overall morale.
The easiest way to tune into others, build rapport and relationships is to simply listen to them. Listening creates deep bonds and builds trust. Listening isn’t just about hearing; it’s also about recognising nonverbal and verbal signals—body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and even digital gestures like likes and shares.
Body language and engagement levels matter—eye contact, distraction, posture—these are clues to someone’s mindset in any conversation or Zoom call.
A lot of people don’t go deep enough when listening. Active listening means engaging fully, picking up subtle cues, and letting people open up. It leads people to confide in you and builds trust.
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Communication and Presence Across Channels
One of the key strengths of people with strong social awareness is their ability to build meaningful relationships. While many people are polite and show some interest in others, they can leave interactions feeling transactional. In our Zoom-driven world, the lack of small talk or skipped moments of personal connection weaken trust and hinder relationship building. A watch out for people who are to a greater or lesser extent introverted and analytical personality types often demonstrate good manners, may even smile but fail to properly develop and maintain connection with people throughout, and at the end of the interaction.
Social awareness isn’t just determined in meetings or calls, but also in your emails, text messages, and how you present yourself online—not just postings and comments, but how you show up to the outside world.
Great leaders listen twice as much as they speak. Rather than jump to conclusions, ask open questions like, “What do you mean?” or “What prompts you to say that?”
Having good social awareness means not assuming you know everything, even if you’ve been closely involved in a task or project.
4) Social Management
Relationship and Social Management
Social management is your ability to manage relationships and influence others effectively.
It’s the ability to get things done with other people, to do so well and effectively—meaning that people like working with you, feel respected, feel good about themselves and the work that they do, and that the results achieved are the best possible.
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Relationship and social management is particularly important - there's the extremes of being too strong or too weak.​
It's possible for you or others to be seen as bullying or a pushover! Not nice labels.
In leadership, sales or influencing situations you don't want to come across as being overwhelming nor not being taken seriously.
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When what you do counts, being assertive is the key.
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Communication, Feedback, and Collaboration
It includes clear communication, giving feedback that lands well, resolving conflict, and inspiring action.
In the workplace, it’s essential for leadership, collaboration, and getting results through people.
One of the keys to this is manners—how are you, saying please and thank you.
Being open to receiving feedback makes people feel included, understood, involved, and makes what you do—and how you do it—more relevant. It also increases your chances of successful outcomes and mitigates risks.
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Building Trust and Psychological Safety
Actively work on building trust. Actively building trust means consistently demonstrating reliability, honesty, and transparency in interactions. It involves listening with empathy, following through on commitments, and creating a safe space where others feel respected and valued. Trust grows from small, consistent actions that align words with behavior.
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Emotional Discipline and Constructive Influence
Demonstrate emotional discipline by showing anger only when necessary; measured reactions highlight the significance of the issue and strengthen your influence. Criticize specific behaviors, not the individual, to preserve respect and maintain trust within the team. Excessive criticism can damage morale and create a negative environment, so ensure it is balanced with positive recognition and support at other times.
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Setting Boundaries and Sustaining Alignment
If you’re highly empathetic and often prioritize others over yourself, setting boundaries is likely essential.
It helps you avoid becoming a pushover, maintain your effectiveness, and prevent burnout. For leaders, managers, and anyone in demanding roles, strong boundaries are key to staying clear on goals, achieving them, maintaining others’ respect for you, and creating balance in all interactions.
Relationship management and alignment.
To set boundaries, begin by identifying your own needs and limits. Communicate these clearly and assertively, using “I” statements to express your feelings and requirements, and practice saying no without guilt. Consistency is important—uphold your boundaries reliably while showing compassion and respect for others. One effective approach is to offer choices that suit you, then stand firm on those agreements.
5) Motivations
Motivations are a catalyst for high performance.
Motivation in emotional intelligence refers to your inner drive to achieve goals, excel, and maintain performance. Highly motivated people stay focused, even when it's tough, push through setbacks, and inspire others with their energy and commitment.
Your ongoing engagement and focus—whether you’re fully invested or just going through the motions—shapes both your results and reputation.
Align motivations with jobs, tasks and challenges.
Alignment between your personal and career goals, and how well you understand your own motivations, is crucial for sustained performance and satisfaction.
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Motivational bias!
Your motivation impacts the decisions you make, including any biases you may hold, and it determines how you show up, how you perform, and how others perceive you.
How you show up—your level of energy, drive, optimism, and resilience—impacts not only your own success, but also how you inspire and influence those around you.
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Resilience is vital:
It means bouncing back from disappointments, learning from mistakes, and maintaining drive even when challenges persist. Those with strong resilience recover quickly and use setbacks as springboards to growth.
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Setting a high standard
The most successful executives have a clear purpose, set high standards, and continuously push for growth—both for themselves and their teams.
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If you want to perform at your best, ensure your work aligns with your motivations.