Improving Workplace Relationships Using Emotional Intelligence - Part II

Part I covered the EQ’s 4 Components and provided 10 Ways to Work Smart. This second and final part will provide tips for employees and managers.

Tips to Become a Better Employee

Since most managers are overseen by someone else, the following tips apply to everyone. Good employees must complete their tasks while maintaining integrity, perseverance, and progress.

Here are some tips to become a better employee:

1. Speak Up When You Have a Problem

It’s great to have an emotionally intelligent manager, but they may not have the time to understand or guess your emotions. Intense and lasting physical pains will tell you when you need to speak up.

2. Identify What You Want from the Job

You cannot ask for what you do not know you want. Recognize what you want most out of life right now and how you hope this job will meet your needs.

3. Assess Your Performance Quality Daily

The most frustrating professional event is being suddenly laid off. If you are conscious of how your work improves your safety and well-being, you're probably doing what works for you and performing well. Nothing will surprise you as long as you have the empathy to see that this is appropriate for both your manager and the company.

4. Understand What Your Manager Values

Consider your manager's emotions, compare their words and actions, where their concerns are expressed, and how they handle others to gain insight into how to address their needs at work. You can comprehend your manager's emotions by employing awareness and empathy.

5. Understand the Organization’s Values and How You Feel About Them

Every organization has a personality as well. So, familiarize yourself with its production goals and how it operates. Is the work environment formal or informal? Do employees communicate spontaneously or schedule meetings? Are plans drawn publicly or secretly? Is the organization's style conservative or bold, employee-oriented or product-oriented? How does the organization handle resigning employees? Is hiring done internally or externally? Do coworkers genuinely like each other or just tolerate one another?

What suits you? Are you pleased with what you find? If not, what can you tolerate, and what discomforts do you feel physically? Understanding this will help you integrate successfully if you decide to stay in this organization.

Tips to Become a Better Coworker

Being a good coworker largely depends on your part in boosting the organization's morale and teamwork. It may seem best to just focus on your tasks. However, employees who adopt this attitude often find that both their and the organization's interests suffer as a result.

Unfortunately, developing positive working relationships with your coworkers is not simple. Not everyone will see you as a companion, and you may not feel trust in everyone you work with. Your intuition about your colleagues can be destructive in such cases.

Here are some tips to become a better coworker:

1. Avoid Assuming Anything About Your Coworkers

It’s very easy to show your biases in the workplace, and you may not need to get to know your coworkers. However, you won’t learn anything about them if you base your assumptions on stereotypes, such as "recent college graduates are arrogant," "older employees are conservative," or "women can be manipulated by emotions and men by data." Let your emotions guide you in recognizing what makes each person unique.

2. Don’t Expect Everyone to Speak Honestly

Some seem incapable of speaking openly at work, either because they are afraid, overly polite, or too cautious. They rarely say what they mean or mean what they say. You can only uncover their emotions by paying close attention to what their body language tells you about their emotions and less attention to what they say. So, trust your instincts, and be particularly cautious with those you consider competitors.

3. Set Boundaries

Decide how close you are willing to go with your coworker. This is not to say that you shouldn't form friendships at work. You stand a good chance of making friends if you share the organization's values and objectives with the other employees. However, be mindful of your emotions so you know when you want to be an acquaintance rather than a close friend.

Don’t let emotional blackmail or office politics pressure you into relationships you don’t want. If you feel uncomfortable in a relationship, trust your instincts and withdraw. If a conflict arises at work with someone you consider a close friend, your emotions will guide you on where your priorities lie.

4. Offer Help

Don’t wait for your coworkers to ask for help. Your generosity will foster camaraderie and morale in the office, and you’ll gain their support and loyalty in the future.

5. Don’t Take It Personally

Understand that everyone has work, personal lives, and their own ways of dealing with others. Don’t take any coworker's behavior personally. Let your colleagues’ actions highlight your empathy rather than your pity. You can understand their feelings without taking on the responsibility for their suffering.

Tips to Become a Better Manager

If your job involves overseeing others, they will see you as their brave leader. This implies that even if they develop their emotional intelligence, they will still look to you to initiate conversations, start tasks, and set the tone and rhythm of everyday activities.

Here are some tips to become a better manager:

1. Anticipate Employee Issues

Use your empathy to get to know your employees and the connections among them. Empathy allows you to comprehend the relationships between employees, what drives them, and even the unique "personality" of the department or company. Will the mentor's retirement result in a drop in performance quality? Will restructuring eliminate important support systems? Will employees feel relieved or disturbed if a project is turned over to a consultant? The more you understand your employees' emotions, the fewer unintentional acts of discord or animosity you will take.

2. Be the First to Speak Up

Some employees fear their managers and will only bring up issues after significant suffering even if you provide a safe communication environment. This is why it's so important to be proactive in speaking openly with your employees about potential problems or changes and to seek their opinions. If you sense disagreement from one or more employees, try to address the topic in a way that alleviates their insecurity. However, respect their privacy if they continue to refuse to talk.

3. Encourage Employees to Improve Themselves

Seek out others' strengths to energize the workplace. Employees frequently possess untapped abilities that can benefit all, and acknowledging others' worth is a powerful way to boost morale. Encourage your employees to maximize their potential, then they are likely to strive for higher goals.

4. Make Promises You Can Keep

Don’t ask for your employees' opinions if you don’t intend to listen sincerely, and don’t promise rewards you can’t deliver. Avoid holding brainstorming sessions and telling your employees how great their ideas are if you don’t plan to implement them. Employees can distinguish empty promises and won’t work hard for those they don’t trust.

5. Exemplify Flexibility and Adaptability

Your employees will be more creative, proactive, and driven to realize their full potential if you demonstrate that taking the initiative to solve problems is more important than rigid plans and regulations. Can you scrap a business plan that isn’t yielding the desired results without worrying about how it will affect your reputation? Can you respond quickly to problem reports sent by your employees? Can you reorganize and reposition strategies without pretending to be exhausted?

6. Help Employees, Don’t Spoil Them

Despite what some managers believe, you can listen to your employees and care about their emotions without spoiling them. Understand that empathy and pity are not the same thing, and you must remain aligned with your emotions while trying to understand theirs.

Empathy will allow you to end a conversation before it becomes an unproductive argument that conflicts with your goals without offending your employees. You’ll be able to praise employees' work without fearing it will lead to complacency, and you'll balance your employees’ need for appreciation with your need to achieve goals. Your emotional acceptance will protect you from being manipulated by others.

In Conclusion

Emotional intelligence is a key skill for success at work. By developing it, you can achieve your professional objectives, strengthen relationships, communicate more effectively, and resolve conflicts amicably.