Most would agree that our primary job here on earth is to mature and grow as we walk our unique path through the life that we have chosen for ourselves. If so how then do we define what it is that we are attempting to achieve? How do we define maturity itself? For centuries men and women have held themselves up to this undefinable personality trait in an attempt to vaguely signify their arrival into adulthood. But what specifically is maturity and what does it do? Why is it that even today we continually use this unspecified term that we’ve label ‘maturity’ simply to distinguish differences in physical age? Especially when the reality is and the past has consistently proven, that it’s nothing more than an individual interpretation on the varying personality traits that each of us believe a mature man or woman should possess? However a much more important question should be, if we are each looking to evolve along the path of our individual journey and mature into the healthy positive influence on society that we are each capable of achieving, then where do we start in relation to our growth into maturity? What inner standards of excellence do we set for ourselves? What information are we attempting to assimilate? What goals are we aiming for? And how do we know that we have arrived successfully?
For anyone that has attempted to negotiate their way through life ‘on the fly’ hopefully you will have quickly realised that without a conscious, solid and significant goal every decision you make will eventually lead you down the wrong path and the result will always be the experience of a life plagued by constant reaction, frustration and continual adjustment (usually known as self proclaimed victims) rather than the deliberate constructive creation of the life that you have chosen to build. This is simply due to the fact that you cannot choose from the hundreds of alternatives open to you in today’s modern society without first setting a clear written goal.
A goal reveals a path. A goal sets a direction. A goal gives you the confidence to step into the woods. A goal brings to awareness possible challenges to be faced before you even face them. A goal puts a captain at the helm. However the best reason for setting a goal is to mature into the person or the identity that would be capable of eventually achieving that goal. So choose wisely, because in that choice will lie the challenges you have chosen to face, wether you are aware of what those challenges will be or not. These are the challenges that will help sharpen and refine you on your path to growth, maturity and the resulting goal attainment that you have chosen. So if, in your desire to develop and refine your growth and maturity, maturity itself seems to be a moving target, an unconfirmed personal interpretation or an individual ideal then where do we even begin to search for the answers we need in order to achieve our goals while maturing into our new chosen identity? In other words what is maturity and what does it do?
Fortunately for us with each generation the integration of past accumulated knowledge reflection and the resulting wisdom that these events create, someone comes along who spends a large proportion of their time reinventing the perfect mousetrap, clearing the haze, nailing down the moving targets and clearing up for the first time, the frustrating fuzzy logic left behind by past generations. The idea of maturity itself of course is a great one, but what is it? How do we contextualise it? How do we walk the path and face the challenges inherent in its achievement if we haven’t been able to clearly define what maturity specifically referrs to?
Emotional intelligence is currently recognised as the term that has replaced what in the past had been referred to as maturity, and like everything else in our fast paced, consumer based, throwaway society, it has been ripped apart, relabelled, simplified, clarified, put back together, wrapped up and sleekly packaged. The model of emotional intelligence that is being referred to in this article has been primarily developed and documented by a psychologist by the name of Daniel Goleman author of Emotional Intelligence
However it should be noted here that the research into emotional intelligence is still continuing the current definitions are so varied and the field itself growing so rapidly that researchers are constantly amending even their own definitions. The current arguments about the definition of EI are in regard to both the terminology and its practical operation. The first published attempt toward a definition was made by Salovey and Mayer (1990) who defined emotional intelligence as “the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions”. Despite this early definition, there has been confusion regarding the exact meaning of this model. The confusion seems to be currently focused around what actually defines this particular form of intelligence and how it interacts with the bodies other intelligence competencies.
We currently all have differing levels of emotional intelligence already playing out within our personality and in our relationships with others and this is always evident in the resulting quality of our life. However unless conscious awareness is brought to bear our growth will evolve independently, without influence or direction through the way we handle ourselves, our interaction with others and our reactions to the situations that arise in our life. Generally speaking you simply get better at it as you get older. This is because your emotional intelligence level is automatically updating in response to your past and present life experiences, where you have consistently applied your focus, where you have integrated wisdom and how you have handled those experiences. Wether you’ve handled them well or handled them poorly the resulting conditioning will now become integrated into your conditioning unless, once again, we adopt knowledge as potential power here and consciously bring our awareness to the aspects that are continually shaping and refining our emotional intelligence levels.
Decades of research has been clear in that the learned ability to identify, increase and refine your levels of emotional intelligence will show up as a direct reflection of the quality of the life that you lead and the level of success you will achieve throughout the course of that life.
So as you read through the four areas and associated subsections that currently comprise the Goleman model you will begin recognise that not one of the aspect of your personality in regards to these areas will come as a surprise, however its important to remember that these areas are directly linked to the resulting quality of your life and of the lives of those around you, which means that if you choose to put in the time and effort required to take control, refine, direct and enhance these areas of your personality the result will be an increase in the quality of life you lead, the level of success you achieve as well as the level of happiness automatically projected by you and reflectively of those around you. Research has also shown that your level of happiness is directly proportional to the sense of physical and emotional control that you believe yourself to have over your own life as well as the level of responsibility that you choose to accept throughout that life span.
It’s important that as you read through the four aspects of the Goleman model, you pause at each area and answer honestly, that means getting real no matter how uncomfortable it may become, each of the following questions, in respect to how these areas are currently playing out in your day to day life:
· Is it playing out as a constructive and positive influence?
· Is it, at any level, playing out as negative self sabotage?
· Is it well refined and do I have control of it?
· Or does it, in any way have control of me?
It’s also a good idea to rate each result on a scale from 1 – 10
01 - refers to an area that has developed without your attention and has created a negative form conditioning throughout your life.
05 - refers to an area that has developed without your attention yet into a positive and constructive reflection on your conditioning and resulting life
10 - refers to an area that has refined directly under your awareness, influence and direction creating the positive success conditioning responsible for a lifetime of conscious growth and achievement.
This will allow you to identifying any problem areas that may require your immediate attention as well as assisting you in estimating the amount of effort that may be required to refine your strengths while you sure up any potential weaknesses. However the important point to take into consideration here will be the reality that only you will truly know, if you get absolutely honest with yourself, how these negative areas if any are reflecting throughout your life. As I've previously indicated this will be a time in which a trusted friend or mentor will become invaluable, just prepare yourself however for an answer that you may not necessarily want to hear out loud as sometimes true honesty can be painfully confronting. If this occurs please remember everything being discussed here is for your long term benefit and not intended to create any form of negative self thought or conditioning. However you must know where you are in order set a goal and chart a course to where it is, and who it is that you want to be.
THE FOUR ASPECTS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
(GOLEMAN) MODEL
1) SELF AWARENESS often regarded as the foundation of EI
| Emotional self awareness | The ability to read & understand your emotions as well as recognise their impact on work performance, relationships and the like |
| Accurate self assessment | An honest and realistic evaluation of your own strengths, weaknesses and limitations |
| Self confidence | A strong and positive sense of self-worth |
This is an internal or personal competency requiring accurate self-recognition. Self aware leaders are attuned to their inner signals they recognise how their feelings affect themselves, others and their job performance in the moment, they have refined the skill of accurate self assessment and are generally signified by a self-deprecating sense of humour.
2) SELF MANAGEMENT
| Self control | The ability to keep disruptive emotions and impulses under control |
| Trustworthiness
| A consistent display of honesty and integrity |
| Conscientiousness
| The ability to manage yourself and your responsibilities |
| Adaptability
| Skill at adjusting to changing situations and overcoming obstacles |
| Achievement Orientation | The drive to achieve an internal standard of excellence |
| Initiative | A readiness to seize opportunities |
This is an internal or personal competency requiring consistent self-regulation. Self management requires a sure sense of one’s own direction, priorities, strengths and weaknesses. People that have acquired this skill have the propensity to suspend judgment, to tend to think before they act, and often show comfort with ambiguity.
3) SOCIAL AWARENESS
| Empathy
| Skill at sensing other people’s emotions, understanding their perspective, and taking an active interest in their concerns |
| Organizational awareness
| The ability to read the currents of organizational life, build decision networks, and navigate politics |
| Service orientation | The ability to recognise and meet customers needs |
This is an external or social competency requiring accurate self-recognition. Social awareness, particularly empathy, allows a leader to tune into how others feel in the moment, this attunement frees a sense of shared values and priorities essential to successfully guide others, and they are typically signified by cross cultural sensitivity.
4) RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
| Developing ohers
| The propensity to bolster the abilities of others through feedback and guidance |
| Influence | The ability to wield a wide range of persuasive tactics |
| Communication
| Skill at listening and sending clear, convincing and well tuned messages |
| Conflict management
| The ability to de-escalate disagreements and orchestrate resolutions |
| Visionary Leadership
| The ability to take charge and inspire with a compelling vision |
| Change catalyst
| Proficiency in initiating new ideas and leading people in a new direction |
| Building bonds
| Proficiency at cultivating and maintaining a web of relationships |
| Teamwork & collaboration
| Competence at promoting cooperation and building teams |
This is an external or social competency requiring consistent self-regulation. In today’s world the best of us lead not by virtue of power alone, but by excelling in the art of relationships, the creation, maintenance and development of. This is the singular expertise that the changing business environment makes indispensable. It’s well known that your ability to succeed in today’s business world is directly dependant on the quality of your network. However the quality of your network is directly dependant on the strength and refinement of your emotional intelligence aspects of relationship management.
Therefore it could be said that emotional intelligence can be ‘defined as the innate potential to feel, use, communicate, recognize, remember, learn from, manage and understand emotions and emotional states’. So as you can see by suring up any negative conditioning or weaknesses associated with any of these areas of your EI, the resulting enhancements will have an effect on your levels of happiness, self satisfaction and self esteem and will ultimately increase your consistency for success achievement in all areas of your life.
Our society has always had an interesting relationship with what it considers intellect, primarily because we have previously connected intellect with areas such as analysis, rationality, the cerebral capacities measured by IQ tests and the scholastic aptitude tests. However this is only a few of the 12 levels of intelligences (we are currently aware of) that the human body potentially carries and the research emerging today is indicating that these are actually a few of the least important fields of intelligence in regard to success achievement in today’s society. Some even argue that IQ is genetically predetermined and changes very little if at all throughout life. However it’s a neurological fact that the brain is pliable, the brains structure and its neurological pathways continually rewire itself in response to your past, present and future repeated influences and experiences. The neuroscientist’s term for this is self-directed neuroplasticity. Now of course not discounting that a certain degree of analytical and technical skill specific to any given career is an absolute minimum requirement for success, research is now showing that the learnable and refinable attributes associated with emotional intelligence refinement is accounting for 95% if not the entire key attribute that will distinguish outstanding performers from those who are merely mediocre.
It’s very common and everyone should know of a story of the highly educated, highly intelligent and highly skilled businessman who was promoted into a leadership role only to fail quickly and miserably. However just as common is the story of the person promoted in-house with solid, but not extraordinary intellectual and technical abilities that once promoted into a similar role proceeded to excel. Stories such as this have previously been used to support the outdated belief that identifying individuals with the ‘right stuff’ to be conditioned as leaders, has always been mostly trail and error, more art than science, this has now been proven false. Decades of practical research has proven that effective leaders are alike in one crucial way, they all have a high level of awareness of, and a consciously refined degree of emotional intelligence.
‘I would pay more for the skill of getting along with others than any other skill in the world’
Throughout history it’s been proven time and time again that great leaders have the ability to move us, they inspire us into massive action and have the ability to encourage us to stretch ourselves beyond our believed limitations and into the arena of pure and uniquely individual creation. They fire our passion for life and they have the ability to encourage us back on track by nothing more than their example. When we try to dissect why they are so successful we often lean towards aspects such as strategy, strength, ideas or a guiding vision, however the reality is far more simple, basically a product of evolution.
“Great leadership works through emotion.”
Humans are emotionally driven creatures emotions are our guidance system created and continually being refined throughout human evolution. Researchers have seen again and again how emotions spread like wild fire through groups of people. For example when three strangers sit facing each other in silence for a minute or two, the one who is the most emotionally expressive, transmits his or her mood to the other two, without ever speaking a word. The more cohesive the group, the stronger the transferral of emotion. What that means is, in human groups we each have the power to sway everyone’s emotional state. When people are encouraged towards enthusiasm then loyalty, effectiveness and performance will soar. Therefore recognising and using your emotional states as a tool for success through the refinement of these aspects of your emotional awareness is effective leadership in full flight.
So can you increase your EI levels?
Definitely yes, in fact it’s already happening from year to year without you.
The challenge begins when you attempt to take control and direct your emotional intelligence refinement, it is definitely not easy but it can certainly be done. It will take a consistent and concentrated effort and unfortunately no traditional program or 5 day training seminar will help, as these courses primarily focus on the rational part of the human brain. Growth and refinement of your emotional intelligence will require repeated attempts at conscious self awareness, persistent self monitoring a commitment to the acquisition of knowledge, integrated with reflection. This is where an honest and trusted friend will also come in very handy. Basically you are attempting to alter, in order to improve, your current behavioural conditioning. For more information regarding the challenges you will need to overcome throughout this process please refer to the ‘The science behind behavioural change part 1 & 2 ’. But above all you will need energy, attention density, focus and enthusiasm. If it’s your aim to create the true leader you believe yourself capable of becoming then you must build that vision in your mind and hold onto it, you must find the emotion associated with that completed vision and hold onto it. The one thing that is definite is that in your attempts to grow and refine your emotional intelligence, you will fail. When you do, just remember, it’s ok to loose the battle as long as you don’t give up on the war, if you persist you will win. It’s nothing more than reframing existing behavioural conditioning with the establishment of new constructive habits of your choosing and this will require time, patience, energy and practice. In the end the resulting benefits will far out way the initial efforts.
‘Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Please keep in mind that throughout the history of humanity as we've known it there has been one consistently repetitive truth, and that is, everything we currently think we know will eventually be proven wrong. For some strange reason I rarely see the medical profession using leeches anymore, we know now that the sun does not revolve around the Earth, we are almost positive that if you keep sailing to the left you will not sail of its edge and we are now fairly certain (although I’m sure would still disagree) that the presence of sexual arousal in women is definitely not 'Female Hysteria'. When the Apollo astronauts returned from the moon with what they thought at the time to be useless moon rock it took decades to once again be proven wrong. We know that if enough helium-3 found in those original samples can be mined from the top few feet of lunar soil it will supply the world’s largest emitter of deadly greenhouse gas with over 1000 years of economically viable, environmentally friendly and completely waste free electrical energy. As a result researches are currently working a helium-3 reactor that will actually produce more energy than it takes in. My point here is that everything is in a state of evolution and refinement everything is on its way somewhere, especially the human condition. The last frontier will not be space rather the human mind. Here through Golemans research we have been given the clearest and the most practical tool that we currently know of to aid us on our path of personal growth. Is it perfect? Probably not and if history is anything to go by its likely that it will eventually be proven either wrong or floored in some way. However in the years to come emotional intelligence will be torn apart anyway, it will be built up, recreated, replaced, redefined and then torn apart again in response to newly discovered ideas, information and insights into the human mind/brain relationship. One of the most dangerous things that we all face especially in today’s increasingly challenging society is what it is that we don’t know, we don’t know. The Goleman model of emotional intelligence is simply a tool to either use or refuse the choice is yours. You are responsible for the depth and pace of your growth into maturity and you are completely and solely responsible for the results that you are currently getting from your life. However keep in mind that with each new step we take, even if that step be a stumble, with each increase in integrated information and with each redefinition of what we currently consider intelligence to be, the result will always lead us closer to what the human condition has continually strived to achieve - Our full and unique potential.
“Wisdom is not the result of knowledge, rather the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
Again re-reading and integrating the information presented here will serve you far greater than just skimming over it once explore the links provided and be sure to reflect upon your past life experiences with the intent of creating wisdom.
Good luck!