Emotional intelligence is an essential skill for all lawyers to acquire
Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist, described Emotional Intelligence as
“the capacity for recognising our feelings and those of others, motivating ourselves, and managing emotions well in ourselves and our relationships.”
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to identify, use, understand and manage emotions positively to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathise with others, overcome challenges and diffuse conflict.
According to Daniel Goleman, there are five key elements to EI.
- Self Awareness
People with high emotional intelligence are usually very self-aware. They understand their emotions, and because of this, they do not let their feelings rule them.
They are also willing to take an honest look at themselves, they know their strengths and weaknesses and work on these areas to perform better.
- Self-Management
Self Management is the ability to control emotions. People who self-manage don’t allow themselves to become too angry or jealous and don’t make impulsive, careless decisions.
One of the ways to manage your emotions is to understand your triggers. An Emotional Trigger can be from a person, situation, event or an external stimulus that provokes a strong emotional reaction.
These are the three steps to developing ways to manage your stress levels:
- The first step to reducing stress is recognising what stress feels like.
- Identify your stress response. For example, if you become angry due to stress, you will respond best to stress relief activities that quieten you down.
- Discover the stress-busting techniques that work best for you. For example, the best way to reduce stress quickly is to engage in relaxing and energising activities. In my case, it is going to an exhilarating spin class or participating in a vigorous vinyasa flow class.
It is important to be aware of your emotions and understand how they influence your thoughts and actions.
- Social Skills
There are various ways to develop one’s social skills. These skills include the ability to communicate clearly and be a good listener.
Non-verbal communication is also important, such as learning to read non-verbal cues in the eyes, voice tone and body positioning of others.
- Empathy
Empathy is the ability to identify with and understand the wants, needs and viewpoints of those around you.
People with empathy are good at recognising the feelings of others, even when those feelings may not be obvious. As a result, empathetic people are usually excellent at managing relationships, listening and relating to others. They avoid stereotyping and judging too quickly and live their lives openly and honestly.
One way to achieve empathy is to listen effectively to both the verbal and non-verbal messages of others, to ask questions to find out more about other people and what they are feeling and to acknowledge and respect the feelings of others even if you disagree with their viewpoints. This woud include avoiding making comments that are judgemental or undermining.
- Motivation
People with a high level of emotional intelligence are usually highly motivated. They are highly productive, love a challenge and effectively communicate with others.
I’ve observed a high degree of emotional intelligence in the lawyers at Wisewould Mahony. We pride ourselves on the ability to communicate strategically, applying emotional intelligence to the job of negotiating, persuading and resolving conflicts, whilst simultaneously understanding our clients’ (and our opponents’!) needs and problems.
