Intelligence has appealed to everyone traditionally and remained a benchmark for years to assess the potential and capabilities of an individual professional at work. No department in a company remains untouched with measuring intelligence levels of new or existing employees in various human resources related process.
In interviews, reviews, routine assessments, quarterly or annual appraisals, and other feedback and development sessions, almost every similar corporate situation in some or the other way addresses intelligence-related issues. And the corporate communications people, too, are not untouched with this within an organisation.
Well, even if the people work in teams, groups, and in a collaborative manner to achieve the organisation’s business objectives, we must remember that they are individuals. They are prone to thoughts, feelings, emotions, impulses, biases, and ideas, constantly. The larger the organisation is, the larger becomes this pool of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and ironically it is quite invisible in routine interactions of people.
People work wearing a mask of what is required at the work as a part of their professional behaviour or individual goals, but these emotions always remain underneath this mask, within their minds, and keep affecting whatever they do.
Emotions are important. They are key pieces of information, which when you share with people affect whatever you do. Joy and happiness motivate you, while stress and mental pressures slow you down and affect your productivity.
Being well emotionally at work allows you to be in control of the situation and instead of circumstances controlling you. It allows you to make the right choices, make informed decisions, prevent impulsive actions, execute the thoughtful implementation of plans, and being in control most of the time.
Individual emotions have a strong potential to affect the emotions of those in the team. They are contagious, even if they aren’t seen so easily. Human minds are highly perceptive and sensitive to the situations, people, and the environment that they are a part of. Even if there is a little uneasiness on some issue in an individual, it has the potential to affect the entire peer group of that individual within an organisation.
If we can listen around well, we can observe around well, and if we can feel the situations around us well, it becomes easy to drive our actions at work joyfully towards enhanced productivity. Connecting with our own emotions, understanding how they could be impacting us in our decision making, how they could help or hinder our way of making choices, can provide us with a way to manage them.
Listening or engaging well with your teams, colleagues, seniors, juniors, and other participants of the management team will pave a way for a better understanding and greater connection with individuals. Being more attentive to people, especially your juniors will always make them feel more comfortable voicing their opinions, thoughts, ideas, and notions they may have.
Social awareness, being able to understand how emotions can trigger actions, being empathetic to the people around us, being able to motivate and inspire others in the team, etc., can go a long way in managing work efficiently. Openness and the ability to exchange of information being in control emotionally prevent any miscommunications.
Now, from the perspective of corporate communicators, emotional intelligence is one of the most crucial aspects. Being responsible for managing the image of the organization, and ensuring smooth communication they have to deal with matters affecting a varied audience.
It is a cross-departmental multi-hierarchical, and manifold issues led interactions, that corporate communications people often engage with. Good understanding and practice of emotional intelligence will assist them in finding better solutions to the communication problems for the benefit of the organisations and its people.
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
Praveen has been closely associated with many national and international events related to cinema for children, art and culture. He has a well-rounded experience that cuts across all key sectors of PR & Corporate Communications.
He started his career with URJA Communications, an advertising agency specialising in technology brands, where he was instrumental in developing the PR division. Post this, he had a stint with Horizons Porter Novelli, a global public relations consultancy. Thereafter, he was heading the IT & Telecom division at Clea PR, a leading Indian public relations and communications company followed by a fairly long stint with Omnicom Group agencies viz. TBWA\India and Brodeur India.
Excellent take Praveen