Reflective Journal On Emotional Intelligence

A few days before attending university, my parents had told me: “University is a whole new world where you will find extremely new experiences”. And yes, time has proved them right. I am proud to say that university has opened doors to lessons and experiences that worth to be learnt. One of those important lessons is Understanding People and Organization course where we get to know the theory, concepts and applications of cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence (EI). In the course’s module 2, I have completed the EI self-assessment test. Its results are described to reflect my capability level within the four EI quadrants, self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness and relationship management developed by Goldman (2002). These components of EI are what need to be understood and managed, in order to be considered as highly emotional intelligent. I agreed with the first three quadrants’ results yet disagreed with the last one.

Firstly, an 8-out-of-10 scores for self-awareness is a fair result since I know my strengths, weaknesses and emotions well, as well as the effect of them on everyone around me. This ability is what John Mayer (1997) described as self-awareness. However, what I need to develop is recognizing the others’ responds to us by first receiving both positive and negative feedbacks. Sometimes it is challenging for me to accept these feedbacks because of my ego. To grow in my self-awareness, I will be open to honest reviews about myself. At the end of the day, spending a few minutes to examine these feedbacks as well as to reflect into them is a good idea. Secondly, I need to work hard on improving my self-management since I usually blow my top under frustration, explaining why I only got 5 in this realm. Previously I did not notice how EI can help me overcome it until Brackett & Mayer (2003) emphasized the direct link between EI and lower likelihood of aggressive behavior. Here are some strategies I planned to achieve the target– making a list describing the causes of my impulsive reactions and noting down possible solutions to each circumstance to prevent losing my temper in the future.

When it comes to reality, I would escape from the hot situation and take one step behind to relax and carefully analyze everything. Thirdly, 7 is an adequate evaluation for my social awareness ability. Though I quite skill in organization awareness and service orientation, I need to enhance my empathy. Firstly, I need to learn to put myself into the others’ shoes. The other tip is to take everyone’s verbal and non-verbal reactions into consideration. Once I can understand these signals, I then ask for feedbacks to make sure that I have correctly identified their reactions. Nevertheless, embracing a good relationship management skillset leads to the ability to resolve conflict, promote team members’ cooperation, persuade people and influence their emotions positively, etc. This ability is what I am lacking so a score of 8 must be a fault evaluation. To improve further, I will practice listening well from others’ thoughts, being open to sharing conversations, or strengthening rapport.

In conclusion, the knowledge I have gained from this assessment truly broadens my perspective. I am aware of my EI capability, its role in social interactions as well as the present and future professions. I also have realized what strengths I need to expand and what weaknesses I need to transform into something valuable. At the same time, my personal and interpersonal skills that related to EI are now my priorities to develop based on what I have discovered. The steps that I have set in order to enhance my EI will be executed frequently.