Raising Your EQ

In a recent advertisement for products related to Emotional Intelligence, the Harvard Business Review included these two sentences :  "Emotional intelligence is a combination of self-management and social skills that can transform and optimize individual and team performance. Now you can learn to develop and leverage your own emotional intelligence to improve your own and your team's productivity." I like that because it makes it clear that Emotional Intelligence is more than emotions and feelings. Yes, you need to be be aware of emotions and use the information they provide to help you make sound and safe decisions but "knowing" isn't enough in and of itself. You need to build social skills and exhibit them successfully; you need to self-manage your behaviors. I often describe personal EQ as an ability to know when you feel good, when you feel bad, and how to get from bad to good in a way that gives you positive outcomes. Following that dictum has certainly helped me to avoid pitfalls such as taking things personally, jumping to conclusions, and overreacting . . .  Since the sky may be the limit for raising one's EQ, it involves an ongoing journey of skill building and implementation.