Four Dimensions of EI

There are four dimensions of Emotional Intelligence. First two fell in the category of Personal Competence as Self-awareness and Self-management. Remaining two, Social awareness and Relationship management, fell in Social Competence. These are nothing but the new Leadership competencies as described by Goleman.

Self-Awareness:
It is ones’ understanding about his/her emotions, strength, limitations as well as values and motives. People with strong self-awareness are realistic. Normally these people reflect quietly rather than acting impulsively. Emotional awareness, accurate self assessment and self-confidence constitute self-awareness.

Self-Management:
One should control the emotions. Most of the times, emotions control us. That will be fine for positive emotions like enthusiasm or pleasure of meeting a challenge. But keeping disruptive (negative) emotions and impulses under control is the key to self management. Importantly, self-management enables transparency – openness to others about feelings, beliefs. Other aspects of self-management include adaptability, initiative and optimism.

Social Awareness:
In simple words, it is called Empathy which is nothing but sensing others’ emotions, understanding their perspective, and taking interest in their concerns.
In the growing global economy, empathy is a critical skill for both, getting along with diverse workmates and doing business with people from other cultures.
Social awareness is the most easily recognized dimension of EI.

Relationship Management:
This is the final EI ability and is a mixture of above three. Managing relations skillfully boils down to handling other people’s emotions. Relationship management is nothing but friendliness with a purpose: moving people in the right direction. Teamwork, collaboration and conflict management are the key parts of relationship management.

In short, these EI competencies are not innate talents, but learned abilities, and hence more effective.

Catch you next time,
Mahesh Masurkar, PMP
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I had a training on EI in last month. I got my EI profile during the same.
It will look like this.