Increasing the emotional intelligence of team members

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive your own emotions and work with them, and similarly perceive and positively influence the emotions of people around you. The higher the emotional intelligence of a team's members, the better their mutual cooperation, understanding, productivity, and resilience to stress and crises. How can you increase the emotional intelligence of subordinates so that your team genuinely uses its potential to the fullest? Here are a few tips.

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Let employees become well acquainted

You can support the ability of subordinates to perceive and respond to others' emotions by allowing them to get to know one another well. Don't underestimate team building events and similar activities which allow team members to get on the same wavelength and recognise changes in one another’s feelings.

Speak about your own feelings and create an environment where people are not ashamed to discuss emotions

As Harvard Business Review points out, you will hardly be able to develop emotional intelligence in your subordinates if you yourself remain closed to matters of psychology and emotions. Lead by example: speak about your feelings and create an environment which is psychologically safe and where it is normal to talk about joy and positivity, as well as about frustration, fear or uncertainty.

Appreciate subordinates who are not afraid to admit to experiencing certain emotions

Learning to perceive and express your own emotions is the first step towards working with those emotions and the emotions of people around you. Publicly appreciate a member of your team who is unafraid to talk about their feelings, and support an open approach to matters of psychology.

Learn to motivate subordinates positively

Show team members in practice how someone can be positively motivated through emotions. Praise them, encourage them, and present them with a vision of success they can aspire to. When you learn to motivate your subordinates positively, you increase the likelihood that they will inspire and support one another as well.

 

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Article source Harvard Business Review - flagship magazine of Harvard Business School
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