What's one thing you do every day to practice your EI skills?

Written on the 14th of March 2012 by Sue Langley

Using emotions effectively enhances my decision making daily.

Different emotions help with different types of problem solving. Positive moods help with creative tasks. They are likely to be more original, generate a greater number of arguments/options and make people more receptive and able to think ‘big picture’. Neutral or slightly negative moods make people more closed, detail oriented and focussed on what won’t work. They result in a more careful, systematic, bottoms-up approach and better quality arguments.

Every day myself and others in the team will look at their agenda for the day and work out what emotion is going to be most helpful.

For instance, if I am delivering a training session I know that I need a positive high energy emotion. Whereas a day of providing critical feedback to other consultants may require a lower energy, slightly negative emotion. Knowing what I have on and what emotion is going to help my cognitive processing allows me to proactively manage my emotions or tasks to get a better outcome.

Sue Langley is a sought-after speaker, facilitator and master trainer in emotional intelligence, positive psychology and the neuroscience of leadership. Considered one of the leaders in Australia in the practical workplace application of these fields, Sue is CEO of Emotional Intelligence Worldwide and the author of Positive Relationships at Work, in Positive Relationships by Sue Roffey (Springer, 2012).

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