Emotional Intelligence Series: Deep Dive into Perceiving and Expressing Emotions
This month we’re deep diving into Emotional Intelligence – a super important part of the TALY holistic personality profiling.
Emotional Intelligence measures your skills in perceiving, understanding and using emotions. This may be:
Your own emotions or the emotions of those around you
Overtly shared in conversation or perceived through behaviour, sensing, body language and more
In understanding others to build connections, or using emotions to create new ideas and outcomes
In last weeks overview, we shared background on what Emotional Intelligence is, why it matters, and the model we use at TALY to measure Emotional Intelligence
This model suggests that there are four key dimensions to evaluating and understanding someone’s emotional intelligence. The Mayer and Salovey model of Emotional Intelligence is illustrated below.
Today, we’re going to deep dive into the first key area of this model – SENSING AND PERCEIVING YOUR EMOTIONS.
What is Sensing and Perceiving Emotions?
Sensing and Perceiving Emotions is the ability to perceive emotions in oneself and express them accurately to others. It is also the ability to perceive emotions in other people.
There are two critical things to keep in mind when it comes to understanding this dimension…
It is about sensing and expressing. This dimension is not just about feeling your emotions or the emotions around you – it’s also critical to be able to discuss it openly.
It is about you and others. To be strong in this Emotional Intelligence trait, you need to be able to sense your own emotions, and to be able to sense the emotions of others around you.
Why does it matter?
If you’re still unsure on whether Emotional Intelligence matters or not, here is something to think about.
“People with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time … Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack”
Sensing and perceiving emotions is widely considered the first step when it comes to building strong Emotional Intelligence – and it makes sense.
If you can’t collect the emotional information that’s inside you and from those around you, how can you start to understand this or use to this information to build better relationships and to make better decisions?
How can you develop in this area?
Remember, Emotional Intelligence is not a fixed trait. Rather, it is an area that we all want to continue working on, and to become more and more skilled at. We all have potential to have high Emotional Intelligence.
The better we are in Emotional Intelligence, the stronger relationships we’ll have with others around us.
When it comes to Sensing and Perceiving Emotions, it’s simple. It just takes practice.
In as many situations as possible – whether it’s on your own, with others, at the movies, at art galleries, wherever – try to stop and consider the emotions around you. This behaviour will quickly become a habit… and it will quickly become second nature for you to naturally read the emotional information around you.
Here are a few quick tips.
Practice makes perfect. Set a timer to regularly stop and actively check in on emotions. How am I feeling right now? How are the people around me feeling? Tell others how you are feeling or ask others how they are feeling
Empathy wins. Ask yourself “if I was in their shoes, how would I be feeling?”
Challenge yourself in tricky situations to openly share how you are feeling, even when it feels uncomfortable.
Actively consider the emotions of others in entertainment. When you’re reading, or at the movies, or looking at picture – think about the emotions of what you’re seeing and the feelings attached
Set-up sharing rituals with those you work with most often to have open conversations about emotions. Let them know what you’re doing and why – it might feel a bit strange at first, but it will pay off quickly!
You can also access other tips on developing these skills here and here
Great people decisions start with TALY.
The TALY approach to personality profiling brings together a unique mix of Five Factor and Emotional Intelligence profiling to help organisations, hiring managers and teams to make better decisions about recruitment and teams.
Get in touch to find out more… we love talking about this stuff! Or Book a Demo today to see how easy it is to start using TALY in your business.