Training Material on Emotional Intelligence

Training material on emotional intelligence, also known as Emotional Quotient, is an individual’s ability to understand and manage their own emotions in positive ways to communicate effectively, relieve stress, empathize with others, overcome challenges and manage conflict. It can help employees turn intention into action by building stronger relationships at work and make informed decisions based on what benefits the organizational and personal goals simultaneously.

Emotional intelligence is associated with several advantages for employees and subsequently for the organization.

The following have been proved by research studies

• Employees with high emotional intelligence are better at motivating themselves. In cases where the manager is not skilled at motivating their teams, members like this can continue to work effectively through self-motivation.
• Emotionally intelligent employees can go further up the career paths than other. Employees who are more emotionally intelligent form good social relations and can maintain their composure during critical situations, these qualities are usually key to performance appraisals and promotions.
• Emotional Intelligence has an impact on both the mental and physical wellbeing of employees. Employees with higher emotional intelligence will therefore be able to focus on their roles and responsibilities rather than be tied down by stressors like health issues.

Training materials on emotional intelligence must cover all the five core components of emotional intelligence as defined by Daniel Goleman. They are self-awareness, self-regulation, intrinsic motivation, empathy and social skills.

Following are the details of how each of these components should be integrated into the training:

Self-awareness

Employees must be trained to monitor their own moods, emotions and be mindful of how they affect others.

Self-regulation

Employees, especially those in leadership positions, must know how to manage their mood, emotions and think before engaging in their impulse.

Intrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation is a factor that cannot be trained rather, the training can bring awareness to how influential intrinsic motivation is to the work one performs.

Empathy

They must be trained on recognizing and understanding others’ motivations. This will lead to effective teamwork and good management of teams.

Social skills

The training should emphasize on the importance of managing relationships and building networks and how emotional intelligence ties into these areas.

To improve emotional intelligence of teams, the following steps can be followed:

• Choose a leader that will take ownership of the improvement process.
• Assess the emotional intelligence of members and identify the strengths and weaknesses.
• Build team norms that require members to utilize their emotional intelligence and thus improve it continually.
• Facilitate the team to brainstorm creative ways to manage stress at the workplace.

Conclusion

Training material on emotional intelligence is ranked sixth in the top ten skills required to thrive in the workplace in the future, hence, investing in good quality training materials on emotional intelligence is important. Emotional Intelligence training will enable professionals to form stronger social networks in the workplace and thereby perform more cohesively and effectively, which will lead to improved productivity, innovation and increased profits for the organization.