May 16, 2015
In his emotional intelligence book titled, “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ” Daniel Goleman suggests that the quality of being emotional itself is intelligent. And that’s where I come in when I work clients. Sometimes we’ll start by exploring emotions and other times we’ll explore the physiological component of emotions.
It’s very interesting that even though there may be a variety of different emotions that we may experience, the common understanding lists only about six basic emotions. Another recent research study by the University of Glasgow narrows it down further to about four emotions.
So really what is this emotional intelligence all about? Some of the claims using the ontological coaching framework is the claim that your body, the human body you have, is tremendously intelligent.In fact it is the human body that experiences emotions.
The Human Body – Your Inner Emotional Intelligence Book
One claim is that the human body is always in an emotion at any time. A second claim is that our mental, cognitive faculties can only interpret what shows up in our bodies.
Our cognitive faculties can only interpret those emotions that we experience. The idea of emotional capacity as an indicator for intelligence is what the Emotional Intelligence book is about.
One interpretation that I want to share with you is that when you can notice and make distinctions about what is showing up for you in your body, that’s a quality of intelligence. Knowing how to articulate those experiences you emote goes a long, long way and creates a way for powerful conversations to take place.
The book about emotional intelligence was written by Daniel Goleman in 2005 and it is a good book to explore how emotions and their inherent intelligence are interpreted.
Emotional Leadership
When I work with clients, we begin by exploring the topic of emotional intelligence and how that shows up in their body. Once clients are able to articulate and create those distinctions, their conversations go to a much deeper level. And results are produced. This is done entirely because the conversations are much more effective!
Here’s a potential situation that you may encounter: When you working with your team, colleagues and peers, it is very important to understand the emotion of commitment versus the emotion of compliance.
This is especially noticeable when you have targets and deadlines to meet. The way that these emotions are described also have to do with the kind of language that’s used around them.
When clients are able to notice what kind of language is used around certain emotions, that tells a lot about how effective conversations are.
Essentially, the greater the emotional intelligence–and for me that means being able to articulate what those emotions are–the more powerful the conversations. This means that clients are able to notice physiological sensations and articulate the resultant emotions.
Emotional intelligence allows for a greater depth of experience and conversation. This leads to increased commitment, increased communication and increased trust!
Take charge of your emotions. Your own body, that inner emotional intelligence book that is waiting to be read is always providing information.
- Stop.
- Listen.
- Notice.
Learn to notice distinctions and articulate them. Then, choose to experience an appropriate emotion in your conversations which will generate results for you in your life.
These skills don’t just apply to the workplace either! You can use these skills to develop trust in the workplace and take them into the domain of family and community! When you show up as a leader, you show up in presence. If this sounds like something that you would like to develop, I’d love to hear from you!
Contact me and let’s have a conversation to see how we can work together in creating that life of leadership presence and powerful results!
Explore these two courses that will help you to understand the connection between your body, your personal emotional intelligence book, and the effectiveness of your communication: