Emotional intelligence (EI) has become a highly sought-after skill in today’s workforce. And for good reason – research shows that EI accounts for over 60% of leadership and workplace effectiveness. Teams with higher collective emotional intelligence simply outperform others.
But what exactly is emotional intelligence? At its core, it’s the ability to identify, understand, express and regulate emotions in positive ways. This includes perceiving how your feelings and reactions impact your own behaviours as well as your relationships with others. Boosting a team’s emotional intelligence can lead to better collaboration, engagement and workplace satisfaction.
The Key Components of Emotional Intelligence
There are four main parts of EI: self-awareness, self-management, empathy and social awareness.
Self-awareness – This includes the ability to recognise your emotions in the moment with clarity. What exactly are you feeling and why? It also involves understanding your inherent strengths, development areas, personal values and inner motives that lead your actions. There are many self-assessment and psychometric tools available to reduce blind spots and build self-awareness. At The Thrive Team we use a tool that measures the 4C’s of Mental Toughness – Control, including emotional and life control, Commitment, Confidence and Challenge.
- Self-Management – This skill encompasses your ability to regulate disruptive emotions and control impulses appropriately. Can you think logically under stressful situations rather than acting on raw emotion? Staying composed in a crisis, not spreading negativity and role-modelling poise for the team would demonstrate high levels of self-management.
- Empathy – A high degree of empathy means deliberately seeing things from other’s perspectives. You make the effort to deeply understand coworkers, team members and clients. Before making judgements you explore where they are coming from and why they feel a certain way. Showing compassion is also vital.
- Social Awareness – The final part involves picking up on emotional cues in various social settings. This means reading the room, gauging reactions in the moment and understanding group dynamics beyond just the words spoken out loud.
The Tangible, Measurable Impact of EI
The impact of boosting team emotional intelligence is more recognisable than you may think. Beyond better collaboration and workplace fulfilment, increased EI also delivers tangible business results. Forbes reports that in organisations with high levels of EI:
- Employee retention rates are up to 400% higher.
- Employees feel 50% more engaged and inspired.
- There is up to 50% decrease in lost-time accidents.
- Over 40% improved team productivity.
In fact, one study on the ROI of EI training programs showed a return on investment of nearly 1,500%. Nurturing emotional intelligence makes sound financial sense. Companies who invest in developing EI across their teams will reap multiple performance gains compared to the cost.
Of course, there are additional benefits as well. Teams become stronger, with more cohesive team dynamics. Conflict resolution is quicker and smoother. The workplace has increased trust, vulnerability and psychological safety.
Ways to Build EI as a Team
Building EI may seem like an impossible, intangible task, but there are ways to develop greater emotional intelligence within yourself and your team over time.
Here are some examples:
- Focused EI training workshops based on individual members’ strengths and improvement areas.
- Regular, purposeful coaching conversations.
- Group activities designed to build trust, vulnerability, and deeper connections.
- Create a structure and opportunities for giving feedback empathetically and calling out unacceptable behaviour compassionately.
- Consistently celebrate wins and growth in individual and team emotional intelligence.
By committing to developing your and your team’s EI, you will see a fundamental transformation. Expect better collaboration, improved team dynamics and greater workplace satisfaction. You will learn to communicate with empathy, regulate emotions and support one another. Teams who invest in emotional intelligence will pull ahead of the pack as thriving high performers.
If you’d like to learn more about creating your own resilient, thriving team, get in touch here. We would love to explore how we can work together.
