In the first part of this article (click here), I looked at these key elements that help to assess your Ei:

Measuring the Attitudes elements

Measuring the Feelings elements

Measuring the Personal Management elements

 

In this final part, I shall look at:

Measuring the Relationship Management elements

Developing your Ei

 

The Relationship Management part of Ei assessment is built up from 5 key elements:

Trust – how inclined you are to trust others

Balanced Outlook – how you balance optimism with realism

Emotional Expression and Control – how well you balance expressing and controlling your emotions

Conflict Handling – how well you handle conflict

Interdependence – how well you manage taking yourself and taking others into account

 

In all of these Relationship Management ‘scales’ there are three core components:

The ‘target/ideal’ component where a high level of attainment is desirable

The ‘under/too little’ component where a low ‘score’ is preferable, and

The ‘over/too much’ component where a low ‘score’ is also preferable

So the ‘ideal’ outcome is to have the under/too little and the over/too much measurements with a low ‘score’, and the target/ideal measurement with a high ‘score’.

However, whilst this ‘ideal’ position is readily achievable, especially through developing your Ei, the majority of responses, at least initially, do not demonstrate this ‘ideal’ combination, but notably higher scores in either the ‘under’ and ‘over’ are more common.

Here are the different ‘scales’ measured within each of the 5 Relationship Management elements:

Trust

Under / too little: mistrusting

Target / ideal: carefully trusting

Over / too much: overtrusting

Balanced Outlook

Under / too little: pessimistic

Target / ideal: realistically optimistic

Over / too much: overly optimistic

Emotional Expression and Control

Under / too little: under controlled

Target / ideal: free and in charge

Over / too much: over controlled

Conflict Handling

Under / too little: passive

Target / ideal: assertive

Over / too much: aggressive

Interdependence

Under / too little: dependent

Target / ideal: interdependent

Over / too much: over independent

Remember, all of these elements and their component scales are associated with how you manage your relationships with others, and can be developed and changed to enhance your Ei.

Finally, a brief look at developing your Ei.

You may well have heard of ‘reflective learning’? It’s a process that is proven to help develop many of the ‘soft’ skills and qualities, particularly those that are people-to-people based, including your Ei.

To develop specifically your Ei, try these (N.B.: a professionally qualified coach will be able to help you with all of these):

• Build a clearer picture of your strengths and development areas.
• Actively seek feedback from those around you (including your boss and colleagues), and ask people for their views.
• Walk the talk! Take time to develop your strengths and close important development gaps.
• Establish clear development goals and identify what achieving success at the next level up looks like. Remember to regularly assess your progress against these goals.
• Regularly record reflections on your week, both positives and negatives, your emotional responses to these differing situations, and what you choose to take from these experiences. Ensure you build these reflections into useable information to guide your future behaviour.

 

(based on the Ei Model developed by JCA Global Limited, and the book “Emotional Intelligence @Work” by Jolyon Maddocks)

To find out more about Ei, Ei profiling, or developing any aspect of Ei and its uses in coaching and mentoring, please get in touch – I’m here to help.

t: 01242-672440

e: click here

 

© Adrian Malpass 2016. All rights reserved.