The Four Mindsets

chapter 3 How to develop emotional intelligence: Step 2 — self-management

Self-management describes how we manage our emotions, responses and behaviours and how we control and manage their impact on others day by day. In relation to emotional intelligence this is a ‘must have' competency. We need to be able to manage ourselves whenever we're stressed or our buttons are pushed. This is typically a core trait of any positive role model at work.

The work environment requires dealing constantly with people, problems and money. The ability to self-manage effectively makes the difference between achieving results and not! The research shows that if this competency is missing, then significant problems occur that are usually far reaching and highly destructive to productivity and organisations.

From our interviews with many managers, it became evident that high performers, whether managers or frontline staff, scored highly in two key areas: self-control (how people control themselves and their reactions in negative situations) and resilience (how people bounce back from negative situations).

Self-control

To build skills in self-control, it's necessary to understand what is happening in difficult situations. To be able to do this, it's important to understand human behaviour and how it is impacted by:

• your physical state. This is your actual physical being — your actions, body language and behaviours.
• your emotional state. This is how you feel. We all feel many emotions, and some ...