By Brenda Dempsey
Success is dependent upon five competencies of Emotional Intelligence (EI or EQ), according to Daniel Goleman.
- Self-Awareness
- Self-Regulation
- Motivation
- Empathy
- Social Skills
These competencies determine how you handle yourself and others and affect not only business but your life. As an Author leader, you need to reflect on each of these areas, let’s look at each element in detail so you can evaluate your current performance.
You as an Emotionally Intelligent Author
Self-Awareness
When you are self-aware, you always know how you feel and how that impacts those around you. As a self-aware author, you have a clear perspective on your strengths as well as those areas you need to develop. These, of course, are steeped in humility as exemplified in your behaviour.
BRILLIANT BYTE to assist you in developing your self-awareness – Keep a Journal. Journals are a great way to heighten your self-awareness. Take a few minutes each day to write down (brain dump) what is going on inside of your head. This activity is non-judgemental and is intended for you to connect with yourself more, moving you to a high degree of self-awareness.
Self-Regulation
According to Goleman, this element of EI is An Author’s commitment and flexibility to their personal accountability
BRILLIANT BYTE – Know your Values. Take some time to reflect on your “Code of Ethics”. Having a crystal clear awareness of this will empower your decision making when faced with challenging decisions. Know what’s important to you. When you know your core values, then you will always make the ‘right’ decision.
Motivation
BRILLIANT BYTE – Know your WHY. What is the purpose of what you do each day?
A crucial narrative question to ask is, “Do I love what I do each day?” When the answer is YES, then your purpose of achieving that goal will create infinite motivation despite the challenges you face daily.
Use Sakichi Toyoda. Five Whys technique to find the root of any issues and develop countermeasures.
When you are aware of the root problem, then you can look at it from a different perspective. It is also essential to keep your goals fresh and energised. Be sure to consider them each day and tweak as you go along.
This demonstrates reflection and keeps you ‘solution-focused’.
Empathy
Empathy is a critical skill for authors so you can manage your marketing, PR and work effectively with your team at every level. As an Author, become an empathetic leader so you can put yourself in other people’s shoes with ease and grace. This competency allows you to develop each member of your team, challenge others who are acting unfairly and provide constructive feedback which motivates. The effectiveness of an empathetic author illustrates how you are good at listening to those who need it.
To earn respect and loyalty of your team, show them you care by being empathetic.
How you can improve being empathetic.
BRILLIANT BYTE – Walk in their shoes. You know it’s easy to support your own perspective. After all, it’s yours. Take time to find out what is going on in the lives of the people around you. Show them you understand their situation and provide support so they can continue to do their job at the usual high standards.
Use the Perceptual Positions technique to assist you in developing high-level empathetic skills—more about that in another blog.
Social Skills
Being a great communicator is a crucial aspect of the Social Skills element of Emotional Intelligence. As a great communicator with impact, you are open to hearing both good and bad news. You exercise expertise at getting your team’s support and filled with excitement when a new mission or project is launched to promote your book and business.
Being an Author with good Social Skills enables you to be excellent at managing change and resolving conflicts. You love to see things through to their end and are very much involved in the energy and application of effort. You set an example with your own behaviour.
As an author, learn how to build social skills.
BRILLIANT BYTE – Improve your communication skills. How well do you communicate? Take this quiz to find out.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCS_99.htm
This will provide you with useful feedback, so can begin implementing straight away to improve your communication skills.
It’s time now to take control of your Authorship and reflect where you can improve the Five Elements of Emotional Intelligence.
Here’s a recap.
| EI ELEMENT | DIAMOND TIP | TECHNIQUES |
| Self Awareness | Journaling | EI, Mindfulness, Goal Setting, LOA, Healing |
| Self Regulation | Know your Values | EI, Live with Purpose, Decision Making, Five Second Rule, Happiness |
| Motivation | Know your Why | EI, 5 Whys, Personal Power, Goal Setting, Eat the Frog First, Success |
| Empathy | Walk-in their Shoes | EI, NLP, Communication, Perceptual Positions, Body Language, Effective Team Work, Success |
| Social Skills | Improve Communication Skills | EI, NLP, Communication, Listening, 5:2 Rule |
Time to expand your world and feel the difference when you heighten your Emotional Intelligence, Comment below your top tip to improve the Five Competencies of Emotional Intelligence. Want to know how it can work for you?
Let’s get started…
https://brilliantsolutions.as.me/
Brenda Dempsey
Book Brilliance Publishing