Recently I was just thinking and a question crossed my mind: Kenny, imagine you’re in an interview and the interviewer asks you “what is emotional intelligence?” At first I was speechless or perhaps thoughtless amazed not because the way the question hit me but because despite the noise on LinkedIn concerning emotional intelligence, I did not take time to read about it. So I had to do some research, updated my knowledge base concerning this interesting topic and decided to share my findings with you guys. Because I know just like me there’re loads of people who will be speechless if asked what emotional intelligence is. So what about emotional intelligence?

According to Wikipedia, Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to recognize one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior. Now let’s carefully analyze the definition in bits…

First, EI is the ability to recognize one’s own emotion. This means first, you need to understand your emotions: this has a lot to do with your temperament. Every temperament has shortcomings; this is the more reason you need to know your temperament so as to be able to deal with your temperament’s shortcomings.

The second part of the definition: ability to recognize people’s emotions. This is really important as it makes you coexist harmoniously with people. If you’re able to recognize and understand a person’s emotions, you’ll be able to relate with the person appropriately, no matter what that person does, you’ll not be caught off-guard because you know what to expect from him/her. Assuming Kemi is my colleague in office and I’m able to recognize Kemi’s emotions, I’ll be able to relate with Kemi based on my knowledge of her emotions. Even if everyone sees Kemi as stubborn, impossible to work with, I shouldn’t have any problem with Kemi.

Ability to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately. In dealing with people, you’re going to have to always bear in mind that people are different. EI involves your ability to tell the difference between John and Joshua, and also know that the way you relate with John should be different from the way you relate with Joshua. At the end of the day, John and Joshua will be happy with you because you’ve been able to treat each of them fairly based on your understanding of their individual feelings.

And finally, ability to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior. This last part summarizes it all. Being emotionally intelligent shapes not just the way you think but your behavior. It takes a sales person who is emotionally intelligent to make huge sales because he understands his customers and knows how to keep them happy and satisfied.

The importance of emotional intelligence cannot be overemphasized. As long as you’re alive, relating with people is inevitable. We all therefore need to fully understand to concept of EI in order to form great and healthy bonds with people not just in work place but every place.

http://www.amebojoint.com/2015/11/what-about-emotional-intelligence.html

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Nice one, OP.

Emotional intelligence is one of the several subsets of intelligence. Having knowledge of temperaments will go a long way to make someone emotionally intelligent. Though, they are not the same, they are related and that will in turn improve ones relationship with people.