[Answered]What is ‘emotional intelligence’ and how can it be developed in people? How does it help an individual in making ethical decisions?

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capability of a person to assess, manage and control one’s own emotions as well as emotions of others. It is critical to manage our behaviour and decision making. It has 5 components- self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. These 5 components are important to develop emotional intelligence among people.

How emotional intelligence can be developed in people?

The skills that make up emotional intelligence can be learned at any time. The key skills for building emotional intelligence can be built by:

1. Self-awareness: Self-awareness ability allow an individual to know his/her strengths and weaknesses. This help in managing emotions through using his/her strengths and working upon weakness.
2. Developing Empathy: Having empathy is critical to understand and manage emotions of other people. Ability to recognize others’ emotions help individual to act accordingly. It helps them to understand their colleagues’ feelings and perspectives, which enables them to communicate and collaborate more effectively with their peers.
3. Stress management: It’s important that one must learn how to manage stress first, so that he can feel more comfortable reconnecting to strong or unpleasant emotions and changing how you experience and respond to your feelings. A person can develop your emotional awareness by practicing mindfulness meditation.
4. Effective Communication: An effective communication can help people to develop better strategies and increase their efficiency by synchronising their efforts.By motivating others to communicate how they feel, can help them to know themselves better.
5. Training to adapt:People should be able to adapt to changing circumstances. This can be achieved by training to manage different situations. Ability to understand and manage their emotions and of those around them help emotionally intelligent leaders to navigate through difficult circumstances.
6. Taking responsibility: Take responsibility for one’s actions is a part of emotional intelligence. One must develop courage to accept his/her deeds. This enables a person to better accept his/her faults and work upon them ultimately leading to emotional intelligence.
7. Mindfulness: Mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment and without judgment. The cultivation of mindfulness can be achieved by yoga or meditation technique. Mindfulness helps shift ones’ preoccupation with thought toward an appreciation of the moment, physical and emotional sensations, and brings a larger perspective on life.

How does it help an individual in making ethical decisions?

1. Informed decision making: Emotions help inform decisions by allowing the decision maker to anticipate the positive and negative emotional consequences of a particular decision on the decision maker and on others. The ability to read others’ emotions, is critical in responding to others’ feelings.
   2. Empathy: More empathic individuals make more ethical decisions because they take into consideration the reactions and feelings of those impacted by the decision. The tendency to feel another’s pain help the decision maker to make ethical decisions.
2. Moral decisions: Ability to regulate emotion helps a decision maker monitor his/her own emotional state, and serves to inform about whether a particular decision feels good or bad. This ability could be used to regulate emotions productively toward more situations.
3. Conflict resolution: Emotional Intelligence help individuals in resolving conflict effectively. It enables a person to visualise the effect of his decisions on him and others and help him to manage negative emotions like greed and anger.
4. Objective Decision making: Emotionally Intelligent person make objective decisions based on accumulated wisdom and understanding with time. A person who manages his or her emotions will take quick and strong decisions without emotions being involved after proper cost-benefit analysis.

Emotional intelligence is critical for effective decision making. It plays an important role in driving an organisation together towards a goal and help in conflict resolution. It enables a leader to be more empathetic, professional, understanding and goal oriented. Now-a-days, organizations take initiative to improve Emotional Intelligence among its employees through different group activities, exercises, seminars and tests. However, EI also improves with age (maturity) due to one’s experiences in life.