There are a lot of unique terms we’re going to be using as we delve into Emotional Intelligence over the next several weeks.
Emotional Intelligence or EQ is broken up into four domains: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management. Each domain comes with corresponding competencies, but we’ll start talking about those more in-depth next week.
Here are the domains broken down in a Harvard Business Review article:
Something to understand before getting into each domain is that real EQ success comes from a balance of strengths across each. And it’s a process.
One thing to know about the domains is that they’re all connected and all require a certain level of understanding and application in each in order to master all four. For example, it’s hard to have excellent relationship management without having a handle on social awareness; and you can’t have effective self-management without self-awareness.
In fact, according to Daniel Goleman, who made EQ what it is today, self-awareness — the very first domain — is the foundation of Emotional Intelligence. It’s the ground step to having high EQ.
He defines it as understanding your own emotions and their impact.
“You know what you are feeling and why — and how it helps or hurts what you are trying to do. You sense how others see you and your self-image reflects that larger reality. You have an accurate sense of your strengths and limitations which gives you a realistic self-confidence. It also gives you clarity on your value and sense of purpose, so you can be more decisive when you set a course of action.” – Daniel Goleman, Self-Awareness: The Foundation of Emotional Intelligence
According to research at Cornell University, having high emotional self-awareness is the “strongest predictor of overall success.” It’s also known to be one of the hardest of the four to develop, which is why it’s known as the foundation for the other three domains and the competencies that make them up.
As we highlight each domain and their competencies, we’ll also discuss how to go about developing emotional self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. But before we get into the nitty gritty, I wanted to set a reasonable expectation in your mind, and that’s this:
You can’t develop good EQ overnight. You can’t bounce around the four domains and expect the same results … and there are going to be competencies that come more naturally to you than others. But, if you stick with it and put the work in from the ground up, it will be worth it. It will be effective. And you will see results that are going to set you up for leadership success.
Like I mentioned last week, EQ is one of the most important aspects of great leadership — you can be the smartest person in the world but lack Emotional Intelligence, and you’ll still come up short. If you’re willing to put the work in now, it will benefit you in the long run.
Next week we’re going to talk more in-depth about the Self-Awareness domain and the competencies that come along with it. Since this is the foundation of Emotional Intelligence, it’s a post you aren’t going to want to miss!
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