Getting a grip on your feelings - learning emotional intelligence

By Berit Waschatz Aug 25, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Berlin - At an early age children feel empathy. When a child hurts itself and starts crying, another will often begin to cry as well.

But depending on the environment in which they grow up, some children have little chance of living out these feelings, says Anja von Kanitz, a communications trainer and consultant. When they grow up they tend not to have the ability to express their feelings, to recognize their own feelings or to respond to the feelings of others.

'But you can also train your emotional intelligence,' says Professor Gerhard Blickle of the University of Bonn in Germany.

The starting point is that people need to know how high their level of emotional intelligence is. Anyone aiming to establish their emotional intelligence is confronted with questions in a self-testing procedure. They are required to imagine whether they are usually conscious of how they feel and whether they react to their own feelings at all.

Also significant is whether they can control themselves when angry or quickly say things that they later regret. The self-testing process also looks into whether the person concerned recognizes the feelings of others or is completely helpless in the face of them.

If the end result is that the person concerned is unable to feel very much, then his emotional intelligence is seen as in need of training, Von Kanitz says. The training is exactly the same as in sport. When you start jogging, you don't run very far at first. 'That does not mean that you can't do it any more,' she says.

Improving emotional intelligence means listening to yourself, Von Kanitz believes. If you do something, you should ask yourself what your reactions to it are. 'Training your internal observation is one of the foundations.'

Those aiming to raise their emotional intelligence also have to train their bodies, as bodily perceptions are important. You should constantly be asking yourself how much energy you have, whether you are enjoying physical exertion or the opposite.

Knowing your own feelings helps at work as well. 'People with a high level of emotional intelligence are professionally more successful, especially if they have the will to succeed,' Blickle says.

Managers especially need to train their emotional intelligence. 'If you want to lead a team, that is a complex assignment, because you have to win over the people under you,' Von Kanitz says.

To be able to master a management position, you have to have feelings for other people. Good managers cannot simply plough their own furrow, but need to convince their staff to cooperate. If you do not have the antennae for this, for how to talk to other people, it becomes difficult. 'This then jeopardizes your own career.'

But ordinary employees also work better if they pay proper heed to their own feelings. Those who listen to their own warning signs are less often subject to office harassment or burnout, according to communication trainer Ingryt Paterok.