In the job market, many issues revolve around seeing and being seen. Therefore, doing a good job is essential, but you need to ensure that the right people are observing your performance. Likewise, demonstrating your emotional intelligence at work through actions is crucial to your professional image.
After all, it’s no use simply saying you know how to manage your emotions and regulate them in various work situations. You need to make this clear to your managers and colleagues, so that people naturally perceive your mastery of this soft skill.
But how do you do this? Emotional skills are often more difficult to demonstrate. So, we’ve listed some easy ways you can do this in your daily work routine, keeping an eye out for opportunities to prove yourself as a valuable professional.
Curious? Then check out the list below.
What is the skill of emotional intelligence?
However, let’s first establish a clear definition of emotional intelligence. This soft ability, to put it briefly, characterizes individuals who are able to control their own emotions. In other words, your ability to recognize, analyze, and control your emotions, as well as your cognitive processes and bodily cues.
This does not, however, imply that you can control or conceal your emotions. Anger, worry, fear, and other feelings that may be seen negatively but are typical and natural for people can still be experienced with this capacity. The difference is that you’ll be able to recognize them and handle each one without letting it significantly affect your life, including your career and interpersonal connections.
For instance, realizing you’ve messed up will always be upsetting and stressful, causing some negative feelings. Instead of allowing anxiousness to take over and getting immobilized by the circumstance, professionals with emotional intelligence will know how to handle this in order to identify answers and fix the mistake.
Now that you have a better understanding of soft talents, let’s examine how to use them in the workplace. In this manner, you’ll be more aware of what you must accomplish to prove that you have mastered this ability and are prepared for new challenges in the workplace.
How to Show Your Emotional Intelligence at Work in 5 Ways
1 – Have empathy in all your professional relationships
The first step is to demonstrate your empathy.
Professionals with emotional intelligence usually have no trouble accessing and understanding the feelings of others. This allows them to resolve disputes and handle a variety of people and situations while respecting each person and fostering a welcoming and healthy environment.
2. The capacity to communicate clearly and objectively even under difficult conditions
In challenging circumstances, such as emergencies, operational challenges, conflicts with colleagues, and many more, emotional intelligence frequently excels. Employees with this soft skill usually have no issue communicating clearly and objectively, regardless of the audience or the topic.
This happens because of their capacity to control their emotions, which enables them to communicate their views clearly and concisely while preventing misunderstandings.
3 – In moments of tension, stay calm
Likewise, understanding your feelings and emotions makes moments of tension and pressure easier. After all, you know that nervousness is normal, but it can’t overwhelm you when situations and people depend on your judgment and actions.
This way, your calmness in difficult moments will also reflect emotional intelligence, making your posture stand out in the organizational environment.
4 – Show gratitude when receiving feedback, even if it is negative
Another aspect of emotional intelligence is the capacity to “listen to lemons and make lemonade.” That is, you will not adopt a reactive, defensive, or aggressive approach when you receive criticism, a reprimand, or a correction.
In the real world, you already know that this is a wonderful chance. To learn from your mistakes, to absorb the lessons of people who have more experience than you, to be able to change, and become an even more skilled, aware, and well-developed professional.
5 – Be able to resolve conflicts with cool heads and logic
Last but not least, keep in mind that emotionally intelligent people are the best professionals to resolve conflicts.
They can evaluate the situation more rationally and calmly, considering all parties involved, as well as being capable to integrate other skills, for example, empathy, in order to perform the process in the best manner possible, without significant friction between parties involved.