According to Soulaima Gourani Founder of Women Reignite, if you want to be competent in the future, it is not your education, business skills, or expertise that makes you valuable at work. What you need to develop are soft-skills, such as empathy, ability to work with others, and integrity.
Emotional Intelligence (EI) as one of the most valuable skills one could have in the future because people with good emotional skills can make a positive working atmosphere. Studies, show that a that positive environment can boost workplace creativity and productivity. When you feel safe, you are willing to take risks.
“5 things all people with high emotional intelligence do at work”
- They are self-aware. If you intend to become successful, you must be able to get things done and to get things done, sometimes requires help from other people. From getting a new job, getting an investor, an invitation, a project completed at work, or just trying to get other moms to help you out, you’ll need emotional intelligence (EQ). EQ is very much about understanding yourself and others. To be able to read and understand, control thoughts, emotions and actions. EQ combined with the ability to collaborate, motivate, and communicate with other people is the key to building trust in others, and that is how you obtain success in life. People who self-aware, don’t tend to micro-manage others, they are good listener and don’t always place the blame on others.
- They can connect with others. Many less-educated and “self-made” people do far better in life than you might expect despite the fact that their traditional intelligence (IQ) may average or even below average. How so? These people can arouse confidence in others, and they have the ability to get others to agree with them. They can sell a good idea and get people to support them, and their ideas and suggestions. There is no correlation between how smart people are and how successful they can become. It is in your ability to connect with others. And the good news is you can train yourself to “relate to others.” It is my knowledge that people, who focus significant effort on “social investments in and for others”, in addition to their main activities, seem to be both more successful in their chosen work and more fulfilled in their lives as such. You don’t need to know a lot of people just the right people. These people have mastered the ability to connect with others.
- They embrace change. Embrace changes, write new rules and learn to spot trends. Do not be taken by surprise. Learn about all the choices you can make today that will change the way you move through life as a working and ambitious woman, for the better. You must continually develop yourself—there is no finish line. Working to enhance your EQ is a lifelong process without a finish line. All of the people that you will encounter during your career are as individual as you are. Because you will be faced with working with a variety of personalities constantly develop your EQ. You really must prepare yourself for a lifelong marathon, where you need to develop the following:
- Your social skills
- Your positive attitude toward other people
- Your comfort zone expansion
- Your healthy attitude toward yourself
- Your effective approach to life
- Mental health
- Understand and handle your fears
You will encounter new problems, new relationships, new technology, and the like. But the question is, how do you deal with these changes? Your reaction is nothing but an acquired habit that you have chosen to live with! Your time is better spent on taking care of your customers, your network, or your ability to engage in trusting relationships than on chasing another professional credential. The next time you meet another person, make an effort to be interesting and interested—this will give you better results than any elevator speech that you can ever write.
- The embrace and encourage diversity in the workplace. In many organizations – even if you are a freelancer you have to work in teams. There is still much ignorance on how to attract, retain, and develop employees of different generations, races, educational backgrounds, etc. We still tend to employ people we like and talent we understand. Diversity and generational understanding are crucial to innovation and understand ourselves better. They teach and remind us of multiple identities, truths, emotions for each individual. It may not make your life easy or comfortable, but it is healthy for you. Conflicts and spending time with people we don’t look or feel like is the best personal development path in the world. You grow from constructive conflicts. Innovation and personal growth happen in that gray-zone and will place enormous demands on your overall EQ.
- They are open and embrace critical feedback. Key to success is openness, trust, confidentiality and honest feedback (nonjudgmental) from people who care. People often tell you what you want to know. Real friends are the ones who Tell you stuff you need to know. Once they do, you have to embrace it. A lot of people does not readily receive critical feedback. Someone is high EQ in the loop of reflection & Feedback -> Self-compassion->Self-acceptance-> Self-actualization and back to Reflection & Feedback and so on. Feedback is an essential component of change. You have blind spots. And if “you’ve got broccoli in your teeth…” you need people to tell you that, cause you can’t see it!
About Soulaima Gourani:
Soulaima Gourani is a motivational speaker, philanthropist and author, with many years of approximately 200-plus global talks per year. Today she resides in Palo Alto, California, where she continues to advise American leaders, entrepreneurs and companies in areas such as strategy, management and leadership and as an online coach and mentor on www.womenreignite.com