Emotional Intelligence Is the Topic of Another Internal Podcast Developed by the Nepuga Team

All the topics covered in the Development Project that engaged the Nepuga Team last month relate to important soft skills in the workplace, and most of them, if not all, relate to and complement each other in some way. Among them, a very popular topic lately, and one that can be considered within the different topics covered throughout the project, is Emotional Intelligence.

The team that handled this round's topic was made up of sales advisor Anielle Domiciano, coordination assistant Leandro Rodrigues, designer Giovanna Scarparo, Joselaine Castro from the finance department, and Nicolas Vieira from the IT department.

Why Emotional Intelligence Doesn't Exist Without Self-Awareness

One of the first definitions brought up for Emotional Intelligence on the occasion was “controlling your emotions so that you are not controlled by them,” making it a subject intrinsic to self-awareness and, as pointed out during the podcast, a skill to be developed daily and an invitation to self-analysis.

Among the reflections proposed in this regard, Leandro turns to everyday work life, considering that in this environment we are constantly receiving immediate feedback, so observing how we react to feedback and orders can give clues about how our own emotional intelligence is doing in dealing with situations that may bring some kind of stress.

The “culture of yelling,” the participants agree, cannot be tolerated. Although it is a matter of self-analysis and self-development, that does not exempt people at different hierarchical levels from seeking to develop emotional intelligence. That is precisely why conversations like these become so important, as an invitation to everyone's reflection and a search for improvement together.

To that end, the group sought to revisit their own experiences and how each of them manages to deal intelligently with their demands and potential stress in the face of the tasks to be fulfilled and the activities tied to them.

A Conversation with a Theoretical Foundation

With a theoretical foundation for structuring these examples, the group found in Daniel Goleman, the leading figure on the subject, some paths to reflect on.

A psychologist and journalist, Goleman published in 1995 the book “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ”, in which he highlights 5 pillars of Emotional Intelligence: Emotional Self-Awareness, Emotional Control, Self-Motivation, Empathy, and Interpersonal Relationships.

Anielle shares a bit more about what she and her team found while studying the subject: “Daniel Goleman says that emotional intelligence is reason and emotion, so we need to know how to deal with our reason and our emotion, which is why it is very important to have self-awareness, to know our emotions so we can work within them.”

Anielle, who, it is worth remembering, is a sales advisor, considers empathy the most important thing for her job, since she deals with many prospective students every day and needs to understand as well as possible what the people who reach out are looking for, and how to communicate with them most effectively.

Besides Daniel Goleman's book, the sales advisor also leaves another book recommendation, Emotional Intelligence in Sales (Inteligência Emocional em Vendas), written by Jeb Blount. And, along with the recommendation, she stresses how important it is to keep up to date in the professional field you work in, so you can get better and better at solving problems and handling crises.

Emotional Intelligence Understood Across Different Departments and Activities

Leandro, for his part, recalls different professional experiences in his career, and how in each of them he found new opportunities to consolidate his own emotional intelligence:

“At work, I consider myself a person with quite a lot of emotional intelligence; if I think back to my first professional experiences, I was terrible, I talked back, I was someone who confronted people. But over the course of my experiences, at every job I entered I went through different things, different experiences, dealt with different people and problems. That's why I say that we learn to have emotional intelligence.”

Nícolas adds, addressing another of the pillars, emotional control:

“Emotional intelligence is knowing which emotion you are feeling at that moment, because we all make decisions, although most of the time they may seem rational, that are determined by our emotions, along with reason.”

And he gives an example: “Someone who is angry can make a wrong decision, and so can someone who is very happy. And sometimes holding back a little, waiting to calm down, waiting until you are in a more controlled emotional state, can be important.”

Giovanna also sees how other aspects of emotional intelligence apply in her daily work: “In my area, which is marketing, I believe the most important things are self-awareness and self-regulation, because I need to manage time, manage demands, know how to organize in order to deliver on time.”

In short, the exchange established in this opportunity for professional development and integration encourages self-awareness and care in the way we express ourselves in the workplace. A conversation that resonates with and fits today's everyday challenges.

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