Many at times, we struggle to understand why we sometimes have feelings such as joy, sadness, fear and anger. And this doesn’t apply just to ourselves: do you ever find yourself looking at someone and trying to second-guess their behaviour, or wondering what is going on inside their head?

1. EMOTIONAL
INTELLIGENCE AT WORK
Research by:
Sunday Jawando

2. “If you care for your team members, they
will care for you and this will ultimately
reflect in their work”

3. DEFINING INTELLIGENCE
“an individual’s ability to perceive, control and evaluate
emotions”
Daniel Goleman popularised the notion of ‘emotional
intelligence’ (EI) in 1995, ideas around how people
might recognise, discern and use their emotions and
those of others to guide their thinking and behaviour
have circulated since the 1920’s.
The concept of EI has developed as a way to understand
why people act and behave in the way that they do in
life and work. It can include, for example, insights into
how people lead, why people get into conflict and what
helps or hinders employee motivation and trust in
others

4. • Many at times, we struggle to understand why we
sometimes have feelings such as joy, sadness, fear and
anger. And this doesn’t apply just to ourselves: do you
ever find yourself looking at someone and trying to
second-guess their behaviour, or wondering what is
going on inside their head? These questions have
important implications for businesses and
organizations. How successful are we in understanding
and managing the emotional content of our own lives
as well as the lives of those whose paths we cross?
INTRODUCTION

5. Emotional intelligence – nature or nurture?
There are three main branches of emotional intelligence.
1. The ability model
This model argues that in order to be emotionally
intelligent, you need to possess certain competences. The
four branch model, detailed in Mayer, Salovey and Caruso
(2004: 200), for example, argues that you need to be able
to:
• know your emotions
• know what to do with them
• understand their meaning
• know how to manage them

6. 2. The trait model
This model, breaks from the idea that emotional
intelligence is based on abilities. It argues that people
have emotional self-perceptions and traits that form
part of their personality. These are self-identified by
the person rather than scientifically measured and
might include self-identifying levels of assertiveness,
self-esteem and happiness, for example.
Emotional intelligence – nature or nurture?

7. 3. The mixed model
This model combines several types of emotional
intelligence qualities. These might include:
• skills (being empathic, for example)
• traits (such as optimism)
• other qualities (such as being able to read facial
expressions, being able to inspire others)
• We will explore these models in greater depth but, as
you can see, there is some debate as to whether
emotional intelligence is a set of skills that need to be
learned and improved upon or whether it is a set of
personality traits that are inherent and self-identified …
or a mixture of both.
Emotional intelligence – nature or nurture?

8. CAPTURING YOUR THINKING:
There is a connection between:
Experiencing our emotions,
Recognising them,
Managing them,
And utilising them appropriately

9. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS
ABILITIES: SALOVEY AND MAYER 4
BRANCH MODEL (1997)
Here, Intelligence is measured using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional
Intelligence Test V2 (MSCEIT 2.0).
This uses a 141 item scale to measure the four branches and the test-taker
performs a series of tasks exploring how well they perceive, facilitate,
understand and manage emotions. After that, the test taker gets a score

10. SALOVEY AND MAYER 4 BRANCH
MODEL (1997)

11. EXAMPLE OF AN MSCEIT BRANCH 1 QUESTION
Indicate the emotions expressed by this face [1 =
Strongly disagree – 5 = Strongly agree]:
Happiness 1 2 3 4 5
Anger 1 2 3 4 5
Fear 1 2 3 4 5

12. Anxiety 1 2 3 4 5
Surprise 1 2 3 4 5
Sadness 1 2 3 4 5
Example of an MSCEIT Branch 2 question
What mood(s) might be helpful to feel when starting
a brand new online degree? [1 = Not useful – 5 =
Useful]

13. Example of an MSCEIT Branch 3 question
Paul felt worried, and became a bit stressed when he
thought about how many performance reviews he had
to conduct for his supervisees. When Paul’s manager
emailed him to assign him ten more, he felt ____.
(Select the best choice.)
a) Overwhelmed b) Depressed c) Humiliated d)
Embarrassed e) Calm

14. 1 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 51 2 3 4 5
Example of MSCEIT Branch 4 question
Sharon just came back from a successful business
meeting. She was feeling energised and happy. How
well would each action preserve her mood?
Action 1: She started to make a list of things that she can
successfully complete before the next meeting. [1 = Very
ineffective – 5 = Very effective]
Action 2: She began thinking about a moment in the meeting
where she accidentally presented an incorrect statistic. [1 =
Very ineffective – 5 = Very effective]
Action 3: She decided it was best to ignore her feelings since
they wouldn’t last anyway. [1 = Very ineffective – 5 = Very
effective]

15. TRAIT EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE (TEIQUE).
This helps us to answer such questions as:
• How aware are we of our strengths and limitations?
• Can we cope with sudden emotional demands?
• How do we react under pressure?
• Can we control our impulses under stress?
• How self-motivated and adaptable are we?
 https://www.thomasinternational.net/ThomasInternatio
nal/media/UK/Assessments/Downloads/TEIQue-Sample-
Report-June-17.pdf
 https://www.thomasinternational.net/en-
gb/assessments/assessments-we-offer/teique/

16. LOGIC VS EMOTION
Smart decision-making requires more than the intellect
as measured by traditional IQ. The Emotional
Intelligence also has its own contribution towards
decision-making and to our overall life performances
and success.
Most people would agree to make decisions using Logic
but there are situations that needs emotion or
sometimes result in emotional responses first. This
means that every form of emotional bias needs to be
worked on first before Logical thinking and decision-
making can take place. Balance the Emotion and Logic.
Furthermore, in some cases, others will prefer to use
logic to solve some situations and while attaching more
importance to emotions in solving other situations.

17. PSYCHOLOGICAL FLEXIBILITY
• Psychological flexibility refers to the ability to fully contact
the present moment and the thoughts and feelings it
contains without needless defence and – depending upon
the situation – persist with or change behaviour in the
pursuit of values and values-based goals.’
• Psychological flexibility asks us to believe that having
negative thoughts, feelings and emotions is not
inherently harmful to our health and wellbeing, it’s how
we respond to these stimuli that can make the difference.
• An example of this would be the person who describes
themselves as ‘useless’ or ‘sad’ rather than being able to
acknowledge that these are transient emotions or
thoughts. This is often a subconscious thought process but
can dominate behaviour.

18. • While the figure is carrying the emotions with her
(Balloons) (we all have to), she is not gripping them too
tightly and nor paying much attention to them, but
neither is she trying to avoid them or letting them fly
away.
Consider your own responses:
• Are you able to accept that setbacks and failure are
normal and are a part of what it means to be human?
• Are you able to put some distance between your
experiences and how you respond to them?
• Are you able to ‘hold your balloons lightly’ and move
forward in a value-led direction?

19. HEART VS BRAIN
We can see exactly why the heart wants to avoid the heat!
However, learning why we avoid things we don’t want to
face is one of the first principles of ‘psychological flexibility’
(Hayes et al. 2006: 7)

20. EMOTIONAL AGILITY
• David and Congleton (2013) suggest four potential
ways of helping others:
• Recognise patterns – what are you stuck on?
• Label thoughts and emotions – what can you
recognise?
• Accept them – what can you admit to and accept as
part of you?
• Act on values – how can you move forward in a way
that is true to you?

21. REFERENCES
• Steptoe-Warren, G. (2013) Occupational Psychology: An Applied Approach. Harlow: Pearson
• Zeidner, M., Matthews, G., and Roberts, R. D. (2009) What We Know About Emotional Intelligence:
How It Affects Learning, Work, Relationships, And Our Mental Health. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
• Freedman, J. (2005) ‘Dr Daniel Goleman on the origins of emotional intelligence’, Six
seconds[online] available from https://www.6seconds.org/2005/01/30/goleman-emotional-
intelligence/[30 June 2018]
• Goleman, D. (1995) Emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ. New York: Bantam
Books
• Wenger-Trayner, E. and Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015) Introduction to Communities of Practice [online]
available from http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/ [8 August
2018]
• Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., and Caruso, D. R. (2004) ‘Emotional Intelligence: Theory, Findings and
Implications’. Psychological Enquiry 15, 197–215
• Petrides, K.V., and Furnham, A. (2001) ‘Trait Emotional Intelligence: Psychometric Investigation with
Reference to Established Trait Taxonomies’. European Journal of Personality 15, 425–448
• Hayes, S. C., Luoma, J. B., Bond, F. W., Masuda, A., and Lillis, J. (2006) ‘Acceptance and Commitment
Theory: Model, Processes and Outcomes’. Behaviour Research and Therapy 44, 1-25
• Flaxman, P. E., and Bond, F. W. (2010) ‘Acceptance and Commitment Training: Promoting
Psychological Flexibility in the Workplace’. in Assessing Mindfulness and Acceptance Processes in
Clients: Illuminating the Theory and Practice of Change. ed. by R. A. Baer. Oakland, CA: New
Harbinger
• Hayes, S. C., Luoma, J. B., Bond, F. W., Masuda, A., and Lillis, J. (2006) ‘Acceptance and Commitment
Theory: Model, Processes and Outcomes’. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44, 1-25
• David, S., and Congleton, C. (2013) ‘Emotional Agility’. Harvard Business Review [online] November.
available from https://hbr.org/2013/11/emotional-agility [3 August 2018]

22. "Knowing others is intelligence; knowing
yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others
is strength; mastering yourself is true
power.”
Lao Tzu

23. THE END