According to Mental Health America: “Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to manage both your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you.

There are five key elements to EI:

1. self-awareness,
2. self-regulation,
3. motivation,
4. empathy, and
5. social skills.

People with high EI can identify how they are feeling, what those feelings mean, and how those emotions impact their behaviour and, in turn, other people.”

As leaders, we get super involved in everything that happens with our team, projects, and work. And in a sense, if we don’t set the correct boundaries, we can get emotionally involved. That’s just human nature.

However, the biggest challenges for our emotions are when someone pushes our buttons, does the wrong thing, or has an emotional outburst of their own.

The dilemma with leadership that I personally found is that you’re expected to be perfect—the perfect role model.

So, let’s go through a couple of strategies:

The first couple of strategies have to do with your daily emotions and how you can use these to gain emotional intelligence:

1. Self-awareness
2. Social awareness
3. Empathy
4. Develop active listening skills

What to do when you’re in a heated/emotional moment at work.

1. Take a deep breath
2. Use "I" statements
3. Focus on the issue
4. Find common ground
5. Seek mediation

Finally, if things did get heated and you reacted emotionally, apologise and learn from the situation. Reflect afterwards on why you reacted like that and identify the trigger. Now, devise a plan for how you will deal with that next time

Have a listener question?

Submit it at https://www.womenoffaithinleadership.com

Next steps:

1. Navigate to https://www.womenoffaithinleadership.com where you can:

• Join the community of like-minded female Christian leaders. This is where I will be hanging out if I'm not on the podcast chatting to you all. Come share and support each other here.
• Subscribe to my newsletter so you can stay up to date with all upcoming episodes and any other exclusive or special offers.

2. If you need any support, you can get in contact with me for a 1:1 coaching session. Just email me at support@rikawhelan.com

3. Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rikawhelan

Free Diagnostic Tool

Take our free Organisational Gap Analysis today and identify the gaps in your organisation and leadership when it comes to healthy work environments.