The Tribune

Let us suppose you get caught in school traffic in the eastern part of New Providence, public buses make daredevil moves as you veer on the sidewalk to save your car from becoming a mangled piece of steel. Non-functional traffic lights make intersections a free for all and on your way from the parking lot to the office a persistent beggar appealed to you for breakfast money. When you get into the lobby the usual burst of cool air is replaced by stagnant, thick air – the air-conditioning is down. A quick check with your secretary reveals that she forgot to follow up on the last assignment issued to her last Friday. Unfortunately, she bears the brunt of all your frustrations.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) speaks to the regulation of emotions to ultimately ensure that a healthy work or home environment is maintained by preventing flare-ups at unsuspecting office personnel or family members. People are emotional beings by nature and as such, to work with them is to work with emotions.

The work environment can be described as a place where human beings are brought together to complete tasks. More often than not, emotions will play a role in every day professional exchange. “Don’t bring ya stress round here - leave it at da door’’ is one variant of the Bahamianised theory that emotions are unfitting in the workplace. Ideally, it is intimated that business decisions should be based on information, logic and calm reason, with emotions kept at bay.

A quick reality check will expose, however, that emotions can’t be checked at the door. Some employees make the assumption that emotional neutrality is necessary for professionalism and workplace survival, coming across as stoic, rigid and unapproachable. While this may have its positives, it is not good for the cooperative culture that upper management craves. It is certainly not good for an organisation who may be intent on promoting these otherwise qualified employees into management roles. Conversely, the same would be true for people who emote excessively, telling you how they feel about everything. Simply being around them can be exhausting.

Fostering an emotionally intelligent culture within the workplace invariably acknowledges that emotions are always present and that regulation of emotions is paramount to a productive environment. Across the gamut of the workforce people vary enormously in the skill with which they use their own emotions and react to the emotions of others; this makes the difference between an effective manager or a non-starter manager. It is not overly egalitarian to suggest that most professionals, supervisors and managers are reasonably smart people, but there can be a huge difference in how well they handle people. That is, the department manager may be a genius in technical, product or service knowledge—and get failing marks in people skills. Thus, developing emotional intelligence could go a long way in helping companies be more productive and more profitable.

As I have coached a number of professionals from professional self-destruction, I have come to discover that these employees do not derail because of the lack of technical skills, but because of definitive emotional shortcomings. Their lack of regulated emotions causes them to be overly authoritarian and incapable of processing conflicts, therefore, botching their relationships with colleagues and subordinates alike.

The redeeming dynamic of emotional intelligence and the internal work that it requires to enact is that unlike Intelligence Quotient (IQ), emotional intelligence is not etched in stone and can build on itself when a conscious effort is made. We can all benefit from some introspection.

Keep thinking though; you are good for it!

• Kirkland Pratt is a Counselling Psychologist and Master’s degree holder (Northern Caribbean University- Jamaica 2009) in Counselling Psychology with an emphasis in Education. He lectures at Synergy Bahamas as an adjunct instructor in Industrial Psychology. For comments, contact kirklandpratt@gmail.com.