How to Practice Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
More and more we are realizing that Emotional intelligence, alongside compassion and understanding, is a hard skill in the workplace. Without these skills, very often you will begin to run into the same problems in any workplace.
Welcome, fellow holistic practitioners! My name is Brook Woolf, and I am here to share my expertise in business advice and coaching specifically tailored to the needs of holistic practitioners like you. As an Empowerment Coach and Emotional Body Mapping Coach/Teacher with years of experience in the industry, I understand the unique challenges you face as a holistic practitioner in building a successful and sustainable business.
I started my career in nonprofit management and founded a 3-story non-profit community center at the age of 22, where I supported 22 free/donation-based programs. However, I felt stuck in an administrative role and not doing the soul-fulfilling work that I wanted. This led me to study bodywork and healing principles and modalities, which eventually led me to become a successful holistic practitioner.
Through my coaching, I have helped hundreds of clients live healthier, happier lives. My expertise in emotional body mapping, mindfulness, and self-care has enabled me to facilitate amazing body transformations, business transformations, and mindset transformations for my clients.
In addition to my passion for holistic healing, I am also passionate about learning and growing. I have studied multiple religions, trained in multiple healing modalities, built my own tiny home with my partner, and been credited by Van Jones as a leader in today's society of facilitators making positive changes in our world. I bring this same passion for growth and learning to my coaching, providing structured, clear, and articulate training that can help you achieve your business goals.
I am excited to share my knowledge and experiences with you in this blog, and I hope to inspire you to take your holistic practice to the next level by offering effective business strategies and coaching. Together, we can create thriving businesses that support both ourselves and our clients on their paths to health and wellness.
We can keep changing careers, communities, and organizations, however, wherever you go, there you are! Emotional intelligence empowers you to live a purpose-driven life with better communication skills, ease, and community to help you achieve your goals. This blog will be broken down into 3 parts. What is emotional intelligence- the 5 pillars, How to use those pillars in the workplace, and why is it so invaluable?
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE BROKEN DOWN BY THE MASTERS…
Here, is Daniel Goleman’s five pillars of emotional intelligence. It is easy to see how these can help inside and outside of your professional life:
Self-awareness – Understanding how you receive and give, what may trigger you emotionally, and what your values/morals/principles are. Learning yourself is a lifelong practice and is the first step in learning how to do the following step.
Self-regulation – Learning how to control your emotions and build tools to share yourself with others to get your feelings heard and understood. This includes learning how to communicate effectively, concisely, and without blame. This is also a lifelong practice, so be gentle with yourself as you will inevitably have moments where you have less tact/control than you would have ideally wanted.
Motivation – When you allow yourself to connect to your deeper purpose in your career or life motivation can come easier. You can connect to your big WHY and remind yourself what is gravitating you towards productivity and actions. It can help aid in setting bigger goals for yourself in whatever area you choose to make your focus.
Empathy – This topic requires its own blog! Empathy is understanding and opening your heart. It is the part that I feel is our deepest connection to our humanity and can slip away easily if we want to live like robots (productive and feelingless). Empathy is holding space for someone through compassion and understanding. Empathy can feel the most vulnerable when done right as it is a matter of finding ways to connect through our own compass of knowledge and experiences.
People skills – Sometimes, it is easier to learn some basic skills to open the pathways of more vulnerable and authentic conversations. People skills are super helpful if you want to have a healthy feeling of connection at your workplace, with family, or with friends. It builds confidence and allows you to move up in your field.
Ready to get into the Nitty Gritty of how to do this yourself!? This is an in-depth blog post to really try to help give you tools to build your emotional intelligence in your workplace and in your life.
How Do You Become More Emotionally Intelligent?
No matter what level of emotional intelligence you are currently at, you can grow to be an emotionally intelligent genius! These skills may come more naturally to some people than others, but emotional intelligence is not a fixed ability. With training and practice in the following five key areas, you can improve your emotional intelligence at work and in your life. These practices will change your life in ways you could never have imagined! It is amazing how you will shine, progress, love and enjoy your team and your career as you step into your power professionally and personally.
Build Intrinsic Self-Awareness
The first step to increasing your emotional intelligence is becoming more self-aware. Learn how to recognize your own emotions and understand what is causing them. Notice which types of situations lead to certain emotional responses. Sometimes, emotional responses appear in the form of a body sensation. Notice tensions in your body, how you're holding yourself, and if your body is more guarded or open. This can help you identify your own emotional strengths and weaknesses and then work on improving.
Practice Self-Regulation
Step two, learning how to manage your emotions, whether it is timing, making sure everyone is open to receiving, and understanding how and when emotions can safely be expressed, heard, and understood. Work can be overwhelming, projects can keep adding up and it really brings out the worst in us at times. It is important to remember that everyone is going through their own version of this and to have awareness we are all in it together! When we think of it this way it makes sense why regulating your emotions can be so empowering for you and the people around you. Instead of reacting at the moment, you are being deliberate to feel your emotions, process them, and then share when all parties are in a mindset where they are going to be open to hearing you and receiving it with an open ear. Regulating your emotions at work sometimes looks like sharing your feelings in an email in a concise yet honest way, asking for help, and reaching out to your colleagues with questions when you are feeling confused or misunderstood. It means taking a pause before you react with your emotion, yet allowing your emotions to still be a part of your decision-making process.
Very often we get it wrong when we say things like, “Don’t act on your feelings.” While the sentiment is really meant to be don’t let your emotions lead HOW you share with others, communication, in the end, is about understanding. Communication is sharing energetic and tangible space using body language, and tonal and verbal communication. You can see how many variables can get lost if you are not aware of all these parts of yourself! If you are not regulating your emotions, you may inadvertently not be able to show your authentic self as your emotions are overcrowding the shared space. This is when people stop listening and become overwhelmed and can shut down as a response.
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Expand Your Inner Motivation
Internal motivation, or the gentle ego, is the force of life itself. Very often, we think the external goal (a higher salary, vacation, material goods) is what will motivate us to do better in our careers, however, motivation is intrinsic by nature. Our drive comes from our knowingness of how our careers align with our values, morals, and principles and what skills can help nurture the relationship between ourselves and our values. Know the values of your organization and how you align with them.
No decision in the workplace serves to be on data alone, your intuition and emotion matter.
Essentially, the more you do what you believe in, the more you value your career’s daily motivations as they align with your true self.
Instill Empathy!!
Empathy brings patience and understanding. When practicing empathy, ask more questions from a true space of active listening. Learn to ask questions that help you understand more. Don’t make assumptions about who you work with. Try to understand with your heart when someone is sharing their feelings with you. Let your emotions show you who they are instead of false biases. Empathy is the ability to share an emotional understanding with compassion.
When you are using empathy and also working on sharing something of importance to you, it is best to be mindful that your feelings are also affecting others. You can use gentle cues in the workplace to see if someone is open to hearing you share something. For example, “I am feeling concerned/excited/confused about some things. Can I have your ear?” If they are not available and you specifically would like to share with that person, simply ask when they are available to hear you.
It is important to practice boundaries and clear communication as it is how we will create less passive aggressive behavior in the workplace. Do your best to not take anything personally, most people do not communicate openly, 100%, or were taught/practicing emotional intelligence.
If there is miscommunication or you feel misunderstood, try communicating with your work associates with ‘I feel’ statements, but be concise. When communicating, do your best to remove blame from the conversation as those conversations tend to muddy the focus of wanting to be understood. Sometimes, this approach may seem counterintuitive as it seems aggressive for some people at the beginning and too subtle for others. It all depends on how you were taught/or not taught to have uncomfortable conversations.
When you begin to master Empathy in the workplace, it can open doors for real authentic connection with your peers. You can make space for more personal conversations, make real lasting friendships, and it can create a network of like-minded people at your fingertips.
It can look like having your boss open up to you emotionally. It can look like you getting more days off at work because they understand that you are more productive when you take care of yourself. It can look like a more productive team that has less tension and laughs together. It really does change so much in the workplace when we begin to really ask each other, “how are you doing?” and stick around to hear the answer, the real answer to that question.
Further your Social Skills
Social skills are not about faking them for the sake of fitting in. They are built to guide you to have conversations that are more authentic and less phony. Social skills are built so that we as people can learn to embrace differences, respect one another, and share a 50-50 space holding for one another. Social skills are best when we ask purposeful questions while remaining true to ourselves. Don’t just ask a question for nicety, ask with genuine curiosity. Keep it as a conversation, don’t make it a debate. If you see that it is going down the road of debate discord you can always turn the wheel of the conversation by tuning into another topic, pausing, or doing your best to reconnect with your heart. Emotions are not from your brain, so a conversation led from the brain is better left to the court-rooms- and even courtrooms I would hope the heart would still be involved in the decision-making process. It is easy in this world to focus on the negatives, do your best to focus on the positives of the person whom you’re talking to in the situation.
Why Does Learning All this Emotional Intelligence Matter??
Seems like a lot of work, yeah?? I bet!
According to Help Guide, https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/emotional-intelligence-at-work.htm we need emotional intelligence (EQ) most where we’re least likely to find it: at work. The workplace remains the last bastion of IQ worship because many people still believe that getting personal interferes with productivity.” However, it is quite the opposite. Work and progress generally thrive in an organization with high levels of emotional intelligence(EQ).
Organizational culture is ignited by emotional intelligence. People work better as a team, the morale is higher, people stay longer, and genuinely enjoy their careers. As a leader emotional intelligence is what connects you to your mission.
Edgar H. Schein and Peter A. Schein write in Humble Leadership: The Power of Relationships, Openness, and Trust, “In our view, leadership is always a relationship and truly successful leadership thrive in a group culture of high openness and high trust.”
Contrary to what employees from previous generations may have believed, people can’t turn off their emotions when they go to work—nor should they!
The key for business leaders is to strip themselves of preconceived notions about what a boss is supposed to do and approach every situation with a perspective of emotional intelligence. Stomping your feet and yelling at employees to work harder may lead to improved short-term work results, but the long-term effects will almost certainly be disastrous. For one, the turnover rate would skyrocket. It is known that leaders who have high empathy and high accountability skills have the strongest teams.
Harvard Business School writer Lauren Landry writes, “While you might excel at your job technically if you can’t effectively communicate with your team or collaborate with others, those technical skills will get overlooked. By mastering emotional intelligence, you can continue to advance your career and organization.”
While you cannot control those around you and may not be doing the hard work to be more emotionally intelligent, the more you practice your own intelligence the easier it is to circumnavigate uncomfortable situations.
Do the hard work, and I promise it will pay off. Humanity and you deserve it.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope you have found the information and insights I have shared helpful and informative. If you are a holistic practitioner seeking to grow your business and take your practice to the next level, I invite you to consider working with me 1:1.
However, I also understand that 1:1 coaching may not be the right fit for everyone at this time. That's why I offer a range of other resources, including books, courses, and self-care starter kits, starting from just $11.
Whether you're just starting out on your holistic journey or looking to expand your existing practice, I have a range of tools and resources that can help you achieve your goals. From mindfulness and marketing practices to emotional body mapping techniques, my resources are designed to empower you to create a healthier, happier, and more fulfilling life.
So, if you're not ready for 1:1 coaching but still want to learn more about how to grow your holistic practice, I invite you to explore my website and check out my range of resources. Together, we can create a holistic business that supports your vision and helps you make a positive impact on the world.