The term „emotional intelligence“ has become highly popular together with Daniel Goleman’s bestseller with the same name. According to Goleman emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand and manage your own emotions.
He also stated a hypothesis that people with a high score on emotional intelligence are much more successful and happy in life compared to people who possess only a high IQ.
We can define five factors, which are part of emotional intelligence:
1)Self-Awareness
This factor describes not only the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions but also to reflect upon the effect of your own emotions and behavior on other people.
2) Self-Regulation
The second factor describes your capacity to regulate your own emotions and to express them accurately. It means to adapt yourself well to change.
3) Social Skills
When you score high on emotional intelligence you are usually also good in the interaction with other people and able to build solid relationships, because you are able not only to understand your own emotions but also others.
4) Empathy
Factor four describes the ability to understand how others are feeling and to respond to people’s emotions according to this information.
5) Motivation
Intrinsic motivation is much more important for emotional intelligence compared to extrinsic motivation. Why? By nourishing a passion in conformity with your needs, values, and goals you will be more likely to stick to it for a long time period, even if the material reward lets you wait for.
What opinion do you have about those 5 factors? Which ones are a good fit for you?