How do you lift your emotional intelligence?

While there are many viewpoints expressed in the field of Emotional Intelligence, one area of common agreement is that EQ is a skill that can be learned. This is not surprising as otherwise there would be no point in running workshops on how to improve it. However where there is wide disagreement is on how to improve your emotional intelligence.

Take these three blogs:

4 Practical Ways to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence

This blog by Luminita Saviuc (aka the PurposeFairy) recommends that you do the following:

1. Increase Self Awareness Through Journaling (I think she means keeping a diary. Of course many people now do this on-line. It is called Social Media.)
2. Meditation (5 minutes a day – she supposedly does 90 minutes!!!)
3. Avoid Emotional Hijacking by counting to 10. This is a well known and highly recommended technique
4. Use present language to live in the present and follow this maxim: With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson. Of course one could reply with the famous quote by Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” or “If you fail to plan you are planning to fail” by Benjamin Franklin.

3 Ways to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence

This blog by life coach, Amanda Abella, suggests the following:

1. Strategically reduce your fear of rejection.
2. Use your body when uncomfortable emotions arise. Go for a run or focus on your breathing.
3. Focus on your communication skills. Avoid accusatory sentences, Let people know that you appreciate them, use positive eye contact and give people your full attention.

Signs That You Lack Emotional Intelligence

This article was written by Muriel Maignan Wilkins and published in December 2014 in the Harvard Business Review. She suggest four strategies if you think you have low EQ:

1. Get feedback.
2. Beware of the gap between intent and impact. People underestimate what a negative impact their words and actions have on others.
3. Press the pause button. Pause to listen to yourself and pause to listen to others.
4. Wear both shoes. Not on only should you put yourself in the other person’s shoes but you also must keep being aware of your own emotions when doing so.

All these 11 strategies have their place and of course some overlap. All are based on the premise that people drive performance, and emotions drive people. However they omit the key missing link that temperament drives emotions. The key to emotional intelligence is understanding your core emotions compared to your transient emotions. Your core emotions are driven by your temperament – what you are genetically born with. Based on a study of 11,000 identical twins nature is around twice as important as nurture. I have found the 7MTF/Humm-Wadsworth model of seven core emotions the most practical tool for people to use and once understood (takes a day) dramatically lifts their emotional intelligence.