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Welcome to Episode 122 of the Non-Anxious Leader podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. Today is the first in a two part series on emotional intelligence. Two of my colleagues who help teach leadership development with me were actually in a workshop on emotional intelligence. They both said it is really is similar to family systems theory. There is something about it that would be very valuable to look at.

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When somebody says something like that to me, then I want to get into it. I want to learn about it. I want to get a family systems take. That is what I'm going to do in today's episode. I will get into what exactly emotional intelligence is. And next week I will look at how one can develop emotional intelligence.

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Before I get into emotional intelligence today, I want to do a quick review of the amygdala hijack. Understanding this helps to understand why emotional intelligence is so important.

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When we encounter any situation. Information is first processed by the thalamus in the brain. What we see and what we hear goes through the thalamus and is then sent to the neocortex for processing. The neocortex Is the executive, the rational part of our brain. It's the thinking part of our brain. And if the neocortex determines that our emotions are involved, then the information is sent to the amygdala, which has more control over our emotions.

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However, by design, a small amount of that information that the thalamus is processing goes directly to the amygdala. In other words, the neocortex is bypassed and what is processed goes directly to the amygdala without our thinking brain having the opportunity to process it. As you may know, the amygdala is responsible for our fight, flight or freeze response. So when this small amount of sensory information goes directly to the amygdala and bypasses the neocortex, it enables us to react quickly to potential threats.

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Now, this is great when we encounter a saber-toothed tiger, but it is much less helpful when we encounter our mother-in-law. The important thing to understand is that the amygdala hijack is programed into us to help protect us from physical threats. However, because physical threats are so rare these days, it most often occurs when we encounter a perceived emotional threat. This is where reactivity comes from. We respond without thinking when we perceive that we are threatened. This is why emotional intelligence is so important.

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The concept of emotional intelligence was developed in the early 1990s and has been worked on by a variety of researchers ever since. According to the research, emotional intelligence is an important, if not THE most important variable in personal achievement, career success, leadership and life satisfaction. As you will see, high emotional intelligence is a characteristic of self-differentiation. The ability to be a non-anxious presence is not possible without the skills that are recognized in emotional intelligence.

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I want to share some quotes from different researchers defining emotional intelligence. These quotes come from "Emotional Intelligence: An Overview" by Dr. Monoranjan Tripathy. I'll put a link to this in the show notes.

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The first quote comes from Salovey and Mayer, who were the original people to coin the term emotional intelligence. And they say it is "...the ability to monitor one's own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions."

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As you can see from this definition, emotional intelligence involves self-regulation, self-awareness and intentionality. It's the ability to understand what's going on inside of us, as well as inside of others, as well as the ability to regulate our own reactivity and then act in healthy ways with intentionality.

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The second quote comes to Reuven Bar-On who says emotional intelligence is "...an array of non cognitive, emotional and social capabilities, competencies and skills that influence one's ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures."

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This definition speaks to the ability to deal with surrounding togetherness pressure, with self-awareness and intentionality. We are able to recognize when there are pressures to conform and then we are able to make a decision whether to move towards conformity, that is towards connection and togetherness, or move towards individuality, that is toward self-definition. In either event, it is emotional intelligence that helps us to recognize the situation and to make a choice.

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And finally, Byron Stock defines emotional intelligence as "...the ability to acquire and apply knowledge from your emotions and the emotions of others. You can use the information about what you're feeling to help you make effective decisions about what to say or do (or not to say or do) next."

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This definition of emotional intelligence speaks to the ability to recognize emotional process and separate that from the content of the situation. By understanding the emotions of others and what is going on within us, we are able to self-regulate and respond appropriately. For example, when somebody is angry, we can recognize emotional process that they are angry and not necessarily take it personally, especially if we recognize that the anger is directed at somebody else and we are being triangled.

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Developing emotional intelligence has the capacity to improve our relationships and our communication with others to reduce stress, increase empathy and increase our ability to act in accordance with values, our own values, as well as to learn from our mistakes. It can also help us to increase confidence, positive attitudes and creativity.

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So the question is then, what are the primary domains of emotional intelligence?

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Daniel Goleman is a psychologist and science writer for The New York Times. He has popularized emotional intelligence by taking the research that has gone on before and synthesized it into a model that people can understand.

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According to Goldman. There are four main domains or four main constructs in emotional intelligence. These are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.

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I'm going to go through each one, define them and then make the connection to family systems approach to being a non-anxious presence.

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The first main construct of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. This is the ability to read your own emotions and recognize their impact while using your gut feelings to guide your decisions. You have likely heard me say before that self-awareness is essential to self-differentiation because without it, we will be unable to self regulate. We will not know what's going on inside of us and then we will not be able to intentionally choose how to respond. So self-awareness is something that we talk about frequently when we're talking about self-regulation; when we we're talking about self-differentiation.

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The second construct, in emotional intelligence is self-management. This is the ability to control your own emotions, control your own impulses, and then be able to adapt to the changing circumstances around you. Now, this is different than adaptivity, where you just give in. It's being able to respond and be flexible to what is going on. So this is managing yourself. This aspect of emotional intelligence encompasses self-regulation. A person who is not able to self regulate is neither emotionally intelligent nor self-differentiated. This idea of self-management means that we can control our adaptivity or our reactivity, that we are able to be conscious of what is going on with our emotions and the circumstances around us.

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The third construct in emotional intelligence is awareness. This is the ability to sense and understand and react to others emotions while understanding what is going on in the system, in the social network of which we are a part. This type of awareness of emotional process and individual interactions, as well as in the system itself, is extremely important in being a non-anxious presence. Emotional intelligence enables us to recognize the higher order things that are going on and separate them from the content. We are able to see what is happening in others and in ourselves, apart from the content of the situation, and then manage our emotions accordingly.

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And finally, the fourth construct or domain of emotional intelligence is relationship management. This is the ability to inspire others, to influence them, to develop relationships with others while managing conflict.

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This is the essence of being a non-anxious presence. This is self-differentiation. Relationship management is the ability to maintain a non-anxious presence even in difficult situations. We cannot underestimate the importance of being a non-anxious presence. When we are able to respond in self-differentiated ways in leadership and personal situations, it has a tremendous ability to inspire and influence others in a positive way. When others experience us as a non-anxious presence, it has a calming effect which often enables them to become more self-aware and intentional.

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In summary, I would say that emotional intelligence describes what self-differentiation looks like. It describes what is going on inside of us as we try to figure out how to be a non-anxious presence. So next week we will dig into what you can do to develop your emotional intelligence so that you can function in self-differentiated ways, so that you can be a non-anxious presence. In the meantime, I would like to hear from you if you have worked with the idea of emotional intelligence. Connect with me via email if you have it, or go to thenonanxiousleader.com and use the contact form.