You’re a new manager. How can you develop your emotional intelligence to be more effective?

In my experience mindfulness can be utilised in many different ways through the work day as you carry out tasks and interact with others. From listening to sounds in your environment as you work, noticing the feel and sound of the keys as you type on your laptop, or noticing the space between you and your device. This all expands your awareness which calms, grounds and enables a greater lever of clarity and focus. With interactions, listening to understand, for what is not being said, noticing the tone of voice, their body language etc, can help you to be more receptive and hear beyond the words they use and be less reactive to what they say. Most of all stay open and assume what you perceive is incomplete, so you stay open and calm.

In my experience, awareness is the key to a greater level of emotional well-being. Noticing the emotion arising & where you feel it in the body can help it flow through more easily without hitting the sides & building up in intensity. You could imagine you are like a chimney & the emotional feeling can flow up & out of the top of your head. Breathing through the feeling can also help stay level headed while you have an emotional reaction. Most of all, do you best to allow the feeling, because resistance & an attempt to control it will lead to intensity increasing, overwhelm or reactivity before you realise what is happening. Be gentle with yourself if you do react in a way you wished you hadn’t. You’re always doing your best.

I always assume that what I understand to be true is incomplete. This way I stay open to what others say and receptive to their ideas. Putting myself in their shoes allows me to see from their perspective, even if it doesn’t make sense to me. Acceptance is helpful and doesn’t mean you have to put up with dysfunctional behaviour. To me it means I stop resisting what is happening and allows me the space to be compassionate and creative in my approach and responses. Diversity is what makes teamwork most effective. With an empathetic approach, it enables me to accept others and adopt their ideas alongside my own. Assumptions help nobody, so I ask questions to make sure I’m clear I’ve understood another persons intentions before responding.