Athan Oparaji:”Knowing that Life is Fluid You Bubble to Displace Your Own Weight so as to Rise to the Top”.
As a trained engineer, I start by breaking the topic into building blocks and then rebuild the interconnecting pieces together into a complete structural solution for a better concept analysis.
Role of emotion
Etymologically,emotion means “move out”. An emotion is therefore an impulse which reacts as a response to stimuli which provides an important information about ourselves and others. Whether positive or negative it affects our work ethics,relationships,engagement and career development.
Therefore, emotion governs our business with others and our personal daily lives. We decide and take business decisions based on whether we are happy or sad. For example, I became a writer out of an emotional turbulence had as a result of a challenge that was beyond my control with thieves.Though writing is me but I had to burst it out as a way to ease myself from what I call in my poem: “Freedom in Boxes by Athan Oparaji”. The traumatic turbulence inspired me to publish a powerful poem in the world’s largest poetry site: allpoetry.com: “Your Sorrow is your Effervescence, by Athan Oparaji”.
So,the capacity to effectively show and manage (control) this emotion as well as interpret and respond to the emotions of others is called Emotional Intelligence (EI). This intelligence can actually be developed as defined by Daniel Goldman’s publication in his best selling book on Emotional Intelligence: As a set of human skills that contribute to performance at work and in life and which can be developed with practice. This set of competencies cover for different areas of abilities: self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness and empathy and relationship management.
The correlation between Intelligence Quotient IQ and Emotional Intelligence EQ.
IQ is a globalised recognised standard of measuring one’s general intelligence which predicts which level of job one can hold and what technical expertise one can master. Having this high IQ is not an absolute pathway that the person becomes an excellent performer or a great leader in an organization as it does not take into account the non-academic abilities to succeed in life.
Success in our business life is completely achieved when you can understand and manage not only your emotions but the emotional expressions of others. This is where emotional intelligence becomes very relevant to complement IQ as it envelops the IQ to link everything from sound decision making to academic achievement. The summation of both is an important quality for business leaders and managers to have as both IQ and EQ undoubtedly play significant roles in what I call the 2P’s of life: Professional and Personal life.
Therefore,the five ways emotional intelligence bubbles in our business lives are as follows:
Increase Sales Performance: Emotional intelligence is an important factor in our work place to improve sales performance. High-value customers are likely to make large-volume purchases,give referrals and provide sales lead. They communicate well with sellers and instead of losing them, they often point out potential problems with a product and recommend for improvement. These are the results of showing empathy with your customers because they know you understand and value them.
Improve Customer Relationship&Satisfaction: There’s a sales maxim that says it costs up to five times as much to replace a customer as it does to actually keep one. So, this makes “repeat customers” a source of solid revenue as a result of building strong business relationships with high emotional intelligence.The key to retaining this kind of customer is to under promise and surpass customer’s expectations applying effective formal and informal commuication techniques. To be successful in the support center industry you must develop excellent, effective communication skills through emotional intelligence as the first impression a customer will have with your company is going to be based on her interaction with you.
Influence Work Ethics: Having high Emotional Intelligence influence work ethics which results an overall improvement in job performance of an organization. Studies conducted by Goldman in more than 500 organizations demonstrate that self-confidence,self-control,self-awareness and integrity which are elements of emotional intelligence not only guarantee employees success, but also the overall success of a company.
Encourage Teamwork: Self-awareness and empathy which are key factors of emotional intelligence encourage teamwork.When you don’t understand your emotions, it is very difficult to understand the feelings and actions of others. Here, empathy takes the lead because we are able to wear the shoes of others to understand how they may feel or react to certain situations. It is when we understand that we all are unique in nature that we can work together and share a unity of purpose in diversity.
Leadership: Emotional Intelligence is a key competence to true leadership. The most effective leaders in the world have a high degree of emotional intelligence… Without it, a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an endless supply of smart ideas, but he won’t still make a great leader says Daniel Goleman in 1998 on what makes a leader. In one of my articles: Understanding the Principle of Leadership published at an online engineering magazine: myengineers, I defined leadership simply as leading from behind which is found from what I call the wolf pack principle of leadership as true leaders are servants.In the article I said to become a true leader you must oversee and carry your followers along in your visionary leadership which is to move forward. The leadership process was summarized in my poem published in allpoetry.com as “The Cob of Greatness” by Athan Oparaji.
To crown it all in this leadership, great leaders explain and give meaning to their followers on what’s in for them and why they must embrace change which is in line with my definition of leadership. So, you have to carry them along with your high degree of emotional intelligence and that’s why the former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch says to become a great leader you have to be the “chief meaning officer”.
Ikenna Athan Oparaji is a Poet, Creative Picturesque Writer,Chemical Engineer and currently an Asset Integrity Engineer at Liquid Energy Global Services Limited.
He can be reached at: ikeathans4success@yahoo.com