A641.3.3.RB
Working
with EI: Getting Results!
Some
of us wear compassion as a war wound.
Some even use it as a defense and others as an offense.
Look,
I’m compassionate to fault. It is
equally my weak point as it is my strong point.
I
remember, as a child, crying when I watched things like “Snoopy come home” and
many of the “ABC After School Specials”.
Now that I reflect…this compassion was more like empathy.
I
cried when my Golden Retriever, Ginger, died at the age of seven, after a
walk. I pined for at least four
days. I cried when my brother died of
cancer at the age of 34, and still cry today. I cried when my grandmother died
at age 89, I miss her. I cried when Mary
Tyler Moore died…she was part of my entire life. I’m watching Forrest Gump, as a type this,
and have to wipe tears away.
Funny. Today, someone made one of those ridiculous
comments on social media and I got sucked in.
I tried to wax intelligently but kept facing obvious negativity. Yes, religion was involved. Finally, I began to use compassion and was
told that I was being disrespectful. I
tried to use EI but was fought, key stroke by key stroke. Ha! I
had to chuckle.
According
to Goleman, “Emotional intelligence refers to how well we handle ourselves and
our relationships. The 4 domains. Self-awareness, knowing what we're feeling,
why we're feeling it, which is a basis of, for example, good intuition, good
decision-making. Also, it's a moral compass.
Say,
in part, is self-management, which means handling your distressing emotions in
effective ways so that they don't cripple you, they don't get in the way of
what you're doing, and yet, attuning them... to them when you need to so that
you learn what you must. Every emotion
has a function. Also, [marshalling]
positive emotions, getting ourselves, you know, involved, enthused about what
we're doing, aligning our actions with our passions.
The
third is empathy, knowing what someone else is feeling. And the fourth is
putting that altogether in skilled relationship. So that's what I mean by emotional
intelligence.
There're
many definitions out there. The part of the brain, it turns out, that supports emotional
and social intelligence is actually the last circuitry of the brain to become anatomically
mature. And because the neuroplasticity
of the brain shapes itself according to repeated experiences, so my argument
is, hey, we should be teaching kids regularly overtime, in a systematic way,
self-awareness, self-management, empathy, and social skill. In fact, there, now,
enough programs and they've been around enough in schools that they're about to
publish a huge meta-analysis, looking at hundreds of schools and kids that had
the program versus those that don't. Guess what? All anti-social behavior, you
know, disruption in class, find that... it goes down 10%. Pro-social behavior,
liking school, well-behave, up 10%. Academic achievement scores, up 11%. So it
really pays. Executive function, which is mediated by the prefrontal lobe, both
helps you manage your emotions and helps you pay attention. So as kids learn
these skills, they also learn learning... basic learning skills. I think that
the fact that that was an argument was one thing that caught people's
attention. Then, there was a little chapter on... called managing with heart,
which argued that leaders who were sons of a bitch were actually defeating the
company's own mission. And I think that made a lot of people happy because they
work for people like that. I don't know... Some people gave it to other people
because they thought they needed help in this domain.” (Goleman, 2012)
I
love this guy! Dan Goleman is so on
point. He sees it crystal clear.
So,
am I self-aware? Pretty sure that I am,
and this is why. According to Pathway to
Happiness, “Self Awareness is having a clear perception of your
personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation,
and emotions. Self Awareness allows you to understand other people, how they
perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment.
We might quickly assume that we are self aware, but it
is helpful to have a relative scale for awareness. If you have ever been in an
auto accident you may have experienced everything happening in slow motion and
noticed details of your thought process and the event. This is a state of
heightened awareness. With practice we can learn to engage these types of
heightened states and see new opportunities for interpretations in our
thoughts, emotions, and conversations. Having awareness creates the opportunity
to make changes in behavior and beliefs.” (Pathway to Happiness, n.d.)
As a
high school teacher, I need to self-manage.
It is an absolute must. According
to Morning Star, “Self-Management brings organizational structure to an
enterprise spontaneously. Individual Colleagues, directed by their
Personal Commercial Mission, are principally responsible for organizing their
relationships. Their Personal Commercial Mission is their
"boss." The managerial functions of planning, organizing,
staffing, directing and controlling are the personal responsibility of each
Colleague
.
Self-Management is an alternative to the traditional,
hierarchical method of organizing we see most often in modern organizations.
There are a few key ideas that are central to the Self-Management philosophy,
namely that:
- People are generally happier when they have control over their own life (and work)
- It
doesn't make a lot of sense to give the decision-making authority to the
person that furthest (literally) away from the actual work being done
- When
you give good people more responsibility, they tend to flourish
- The
traditional hierarchical model of organizations is not scalable—in fact,
it's a recipe for a slow painful death
- There's
an undeniable link between freedom and economic prosperity in nations
around the world—and, further, an undeniable link between lack of freedom
and corruption at the national level. The same is true of human
organizations in general.” (Morning
Star, n.d.)
Yes,
I am happier not being lorded over by an administrator. I love having my freedom to teach.
After
27 years as a leader in the Army, I honestly do not need to be managed. I feel that those in my administration
understand this and have a “hands-off” approach to me and my classroom.
Now
on to social awareness. I am definitely
a social butterfly. But this is not
about entertaining. According to Change
Management Coach, “Social awareness gives you the ability to understand and
respond to the needs of others. This is
the third of the domains of emotional intelligence proposed by Daniel Goleman. According to Daniel Goleman the
competencies associated with being socially aware are:
- Empathy:
understanding the other person’s emotions, needs and concerns.
- Organizational
Awareness:
the ability to understand the politics within an organization and how
these affect the people working in them.
- Service: the ability
to understand and meet the needs of clients and customers.
Awareness of social situations means you
carefully consider what people want, and plan to communicate with them in a way
that is intended to meet that need.
Is this the same as manipulation? I'm not
sure.
Great leaders and public speakers are
skilled in this ability. It helps them build support.”
I
am what psych babble refers to as Type-A.
I am out-spoken. I am not
shy. I speak my mind. I am funny.
I am good with crowds. So, am I
socially aware? Probably.
Finally,
there is social skills. This, in itself,
reminds of a line in the movie, “Water Boy”, starring Adam Sandler. There is a scene where Adam Sandler’s mom,
played by Kathy Bates, states, “You don’t have what they call the social skills”
referring to her son, Bobby Boucher’s, ineptness. However, Bobby does have what it takes to be
super social. Although I am nothing like
Bobby Boucher, I am just as social.
According to, Skills You Need, “Social skills are the skills we use to
communicate and interact with each other, both verbally and non-verbally,
through gestures, body language and our personal appearance.
Human beings are sociable creatures and we
have developed many ways to communicate our messages, thoughts and feelings
with others.” (Skills You Need, n.d.)
References
Goleman, D. (2012, April 23). Daniel Goleman Introduces Emotional Intelligence. [Video File].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7m9eNoB3NU
Pathway to Happiness. (n.d.). Self Awareness. Retrieved from http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com/self-awareness.htm
Morning Star:
Self-management Institute. (n.d.). WHAT
IS SELF-MANAGEMENT? Retrieved from http://www.self-managementinstitute.org/about/what-is-self-management
Change Management Coach.
(n.d.). Social Awareness. Retrieved
from http://www.change-management-coach.com/social-awareness.html
Skills You Need. (n.d.). What are Social Skills? Retrieved from https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/social-skills.html
