Monday Motivation: Connect To Develop Your EQ
STOUT Inspiration + Action To Accelerate Your Week
Get inspired by David R. Caruso’s groundbreaking work in emotional intelligence, then use our Stout Action Plan to assess and improve your own EQ.
INSPIRATION
David R. Caruso, Ph.D.
David R. Caruso is a management psychologist, co-founder of the EI Skills Group, Special Assistant to the Dean of Yale College and a Research Affiliate at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. He co-authored the Mayer, Salovey, Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) and “The Emotionally Intelligent Manager.”
Mayer, Salovey and Caruso were among the first to define emotional intelligence as “the ability to engage in sophisticated information processing about one’s own and others’ emotions and the ability to use this information as a guide to thinking and behavior”.
In their seminal research and publication, The Emotionally Intelligent Manager, Caruso and Salovey break down four of the core skills involved in developing emotional intelligence:
1. Identifying your feelings and those of others
2. Using feelings to guide your own thinking and reasoning, along with others
3. Understanding how feelings might change and develop as events unfold
4. Managing to stay open to the data of feelings and integrate this into decisions and actions
ACTION
Improve Your EQ
❶ Dig In & Open Up
Go beyond a basic gut check and dig in to ID what you’re feeling. Getting a handle on how to assess and process your emotions will help you manage them to advantage and connect on a deeper level with others.
❷ Exercise Empathy
Practicing empathy effectively means being willing to be vulnerable too. Once you’ve identified your emotions, use them as a guide to connect with others. (See our “What’s your empathetic archetype?” infographic for a quick assessment)
❸ Lead By Connecting Head AND Heart
Now that you’ve got some practice identifying emotions in yourself and others, take your leadership to the next level by integrating that knowledge into goals, decisions, and actions to boost success.
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