Emotional Intelligence Skills: List, Examples & How to Develop Them

Emotional intelligence skills are crucial to success in any field.

Emotional intelligence defines the way people perceive, communicate and manage their emotions. It is a crucial life skill that can help you succeed professionally and personally.

The good news is that you can constantly improve your emotional intelligence skills and there are several ways you can do so.

This article will explore some key emotional intelligence skills, how to develop them, and examples of ways these skills are used in everyday life.

Let’s dive deep into this topic.

What are Emotional Intelligence Skills?

Emotional intelligence skills are abilities that help you manage your emotions effectively. They include the ability to:

• Identify your own emotions
• Understand and manage the emotions of others
• Regulate your strong emotion
• Communicate effectively with others
• Manage stress and anxiety

Why are Emotional Intelligence Skills Important?

Understanding, using, and managing your emotions are crucial life skills that can help you succeed both personally and professionally.

This is why learning to manage your emotions before they manage you is so important.

List of 7 Benefits Provided by Emotional Intelligence Skills

The top benefits provided by emotional intelligence skills are that they:

1. Help you excel personally, professionally, and socially.
2. Help you make more effective decisions.
3. Increase your productivity at work and home.
4. Improve the quality of your relationships with others.
5. Can lead to increased happiness and well-being.
6. Your emotions can help or hinder success in any aspect of life
7. Increase your emotional awareness

5 Key Types of Emotional Intelligence Skills

Self-Awareness Skills

Being self-aware means that you have a clear understanding of your own emotions and the emotions of others.

It also means being able to identify how your emotions affect your decision-making skills.

An emotionally intelligent person is in touch with their feelings and can regulate them effectively instead of becoming overwhelmed by them or shutting them out completely.

How to Improve Self-Awareness Skills:

• Understand how your emotions affect you
• Think about how you react when you feel a certain way
• Learn new skills
• Ask for constructive feedback

Self-Regulation Skills

Having the ability to regulate your emotions is another important emotional intelligence skill.

Being able to regulate your emotions means that you can control how you express them and when to do so.

Self-regulation skills are important when it comes to controlling your emotions when they are overwhelmed or out of proportion to the situation.

Being able to regulate your emotions may mean learning how to take time out or redirect your thoughts to manage them more effectively.

How to Improve Self-Regulation Skills:

• Identify times when you have reacted emotionally to something
• Determine how you might have regulated your emotions instead
• Practice your communication skills
• Work on accepting your emotions

Social Skills

Social skills involve your ability to engage and interact effectively with others. This means that you can use your emotional intelligence skills to read the emotions of others and adapt your behavior accordingly.

Social interaction is a core skill for having positive interactions with others, building personal relationships, and achieving success in any area of life.

Social skills require the ability to empathize and understand how other people are feeling to respond effectively.

How to Improve Social Skills:

• Learn how to get along better with others
• Communicate effectively
• Practice active listening
• Ask open-ended questions

Empathy Skills

Empathy is the ability to understand how another person feels by putting yourself in their shoes. Empathy means you can take the time to listen and understand what another person is saying without judgment or criticism.

Empathy skills are important when it comes to your relationships with others because they mean that you can relate better to the people around you by understanding them better.

How to Improve Empathy Skills:

• Learn more about your own emotions
• Talk to new people
• Try to imagine yourself in someone else’s place
• Listen to other people

Motivation Skills

Motivation is the drive or reason behind your actions. Emotionally intelligent people are more likely to be motivated than others, especially when it comes to goal setting and achieving success in life.

Being able to motivate yourself can help you overcome challenges more easily and accomplish tasks that require effort, determination, and time.

It also means having the ability to see things through until they are completed instead of giving up quickly or not making an effort at all.

How to Improve Motivation Skills:

• Learn how to set goals
• Develop better work habits
• Celebrate your results
• Work with a friend or co-worker to find accountability

List of 15 Emotional Intelligence Skills Every Leader Needs

The following are 15 of the most important emotional intelligence skills that are essential for being an effective leader.

Note that every one of them requires you to develop your self-awareness, self-regulation, and social skills to be more effective in applying them.

List of 15 Emotional Intelligence Skills

1. The ability to identify other people’s emotions through sensory means
2. The ability to understand others’ feelings by putting yourself in their shoes
3. The ability to sense when someone is faking their emotional response
4. The ability to set goals and follow through until you achieve them
5. The ability to regulate your own emotions so they are appropriate for a situation
6. The ability to take immediate action that is relevant, proportional, and timely
7. The ability to remember important moments or details about people you interact with
8. The ability to understand the reasons why someone is behaving a certain way
9. The ability to be genuinely interested in other people’s problems or concerns
10. The ability to develop trust with others by levels of self-disclosure
11. The ability to make people feel comfortable in your presence
12. The ability to make other people feel valued, appreciated or loved for who they are
13. The ability to help someone get through a difficult time or crisis
14. The ability to treat everyone equally regardless of their status
15. The ability to read between the lines of someone’s communication with you

How to Develop Emotional Intelligence Skills

Developing your emotional intelligence skills takes time but is a very worthwhile process. Here are the top ways to make this process happen:

• Practice these skills every day by setting aside blocks of time to focus on what you’re doing and how you’re feeling while doing it. This way you’ll get a stronger understanding of emotional situations.
• Practice these skills with other people by reading books about emotional intelligence or watching videos that demonstrate each skill and sharing your thoughts and feelings about them with other people.
• Read stories from books, magazines, or online media about emotionally intelligent characters whose personalities are similar to your own. They may be fictionalized narratives or real-life news articles featuring individuals who exude positive traits like empathy, sensitivity, and compassion for others in their lives.
• Talk to friends and family members about the emotions they feel at work, school or home without criticizing anyone’s ability to cope with them. Ask them what’s going on in their lives that might cause them to behave a certain way and how they feel about it.
• Practice active listening. When someone important to you talks avoid distractions like watching TV or reading the newspaper while they discuss something with you. Ask questions about relevant details about things they may have mentioned before.

How to Improve Emotional Intelligence Skills

There are multiple ways to improve emotional intelligence skills, here we’ll highlight a couple of the most important ones:

• Ask a coworker, friend, family member, or significant other if he has a problem without telling him what to do about it. If he asks for your opinion, give it as an option rather than a command. For example, say “I’d recommend going to see a doctor” instead of “You should go see a doctor.”
• Identify situations where you tend to get emotional before they happen. Practice using your emotional intelligence skills to handle those emotional triggers exhibiting negative behavior patterns you use when emotions get the best of you.
• Study different theories about how emotions are regulated, processed, and analyzed by brain activity. Determine how many of these theories make sense to you based on what you’ve observed of yourself or other people whose personalities are similar to yours.
• Examine interesting case studies of individuals who have had normal childhood development but cannot be socially active. This could be due to some form of developmental problem that affects their ability to regulate their own emotions or communicate them effectively with others.
• Pace yourself while reading books written for adolescents on learning strategies for assessing emotional intelligence and developing it with other people.
• Identify specific points of interest within them and determine whether you agree or disagree with their theories.
• Spend time observing the behavior and communication skills of peers and adults in social environments where emotions influence how people behave with each other, such as dating, work parties, or group projects at school. Emphasize the positive aspects of their personalities – like kindness, compassion, and sensitivity – without criticizing their shortcomings or mistakes.
• Discuss your observations from the previous point. above with adults who may be able to give you more insight into understanding why they use certain behaviors to cope with various types of emotions. Record what they say about these topics for future reference if they mention any concepts that pique your interest while reading about them in books or watching videos on the same topics.
• Stay focused when completing assigned projects at school, work, or home by determining whether you’re interested in what you’re doing and if so, why you want to complete it successfully.
• Take notes after asking people involved with your projects what emotions motivate their desire for success within them. Record specific details that inspire their confidence throughout each project and which emotions influence their overall performance as well as the quality of their work.
• Identify specific parts of your brain that you use for different types of emotions to motivate your behavior and thought processes. Practice using those parts to motivate yourself when you’re interested in a project but feel like giving up during it because it makes you feel bored, stressed, or distracted by something unrelated to the project at hand.
• Ask someone who has a similar interest in emotional intelligence what they believe are emotional intelligence benefits within society’s current social and educational systems. If they agrees with you on this topic, brainstorm some ways they think can improve one’s abilities to master skills they’ll need later in life involving emotional intelligence – like social interaction, cooperation, communication, empathy, and problem-solving.
• Examine the areas of your life in which you’d like to improve using emotional intelligence skills, but are unsure how to go about doing it. Try observing friends or family members who excel in these areas with people they’re close to, then talk with them about what he/she does differently when interacting with others that make him/her so effective in many different social settings.

7 Examples of How to Use Emotional Intelligence Skills at the Workplace

Using emotional intelligence skills at the workplace involves putting knowledge into action. Here are 7 examples of how emotional intelligence skills can be used at work:

1. Ask a manager, human resource specialist, or a colleague who has been working for the organization for a long time about emotional-social intelligence. Find out how it’s being used within that particular company and what factors influence its importance to success.
2. Think about situations where you’ve had emotional reactions toward someone else in your workplace. Then consider whether those reactions were appropriate given the circumstances and whether they influenced other people positively or negatively according to their perceptions of them. If others shared what was on their minds with you after your reaction took place, try asking them these questions: “How did I make you feel?” and “Was my reaction helpful to us getting our work done?” If not, ask yourself if there is anything you can do moving forward that could create more emotional understanding between you and them.
3. Identify specific people within your organization or industry who are considered leaders, meaning they influence other employees’ behavior while helping them accomplish their work. To develop better emotional intelligence leadership think about what qualities these individuals have in common with one another that makes some people want to emulate them. Ask yourself what behaviors positively influence the morale of others while remaining professional at all times.
4. Find out who within your organization is responsible for recognizing whether an employee has the potential to excel at his/her current job or if it’s time to find new employment opportunities elsewhere. Then, find out how he/she gathers information about each worker’s emotional intelligence skills, including social awareness, self-awareness, self-management, and relationship management. Talk with this person about what you can do to improve the likelihood of being seen as a high-potential candidate for future promotions.
5. Take a few minutes to observe your team members who have been working together for at least six months or more. Think about their level of mutual respect compared to how they communicate with one another about topics that create differences in people. If it seems like they don’t trust each other at all, ask yourself what specific behaviors influence these feelings among them and discuss those factors in a group setting if possible.
6. Identify an individual within your organization with whom you’ve had difficult situations in having quality conversations due to miscommunications that might happen from time to time. Try watching this person engage in a conversation with another team member and notice whether he/she is quick to assume his/her perspective is the only correct one. Then, think about how you’d like to interact with him/her moving forward and see if it’s possible to do so without directly challenging his/her ideas.
7. Think about your organization’s mission or purpose and consider what types of values or beliefs its leaders support while encouraging others to join their cause. Think about how emotional intelligence skills play into that type of organizational culture and try sharing these thoughts in a meeting with your co-workers.

5 Ways to Show Emotional Intelligence on Your Resume

Let’s now speak about the process of getting chosen for a new professional position. The following are 5 ways to show emotional intelligence on your resume:

1. Exude enthusiasm and positivity when you’re addressing a letter to a potential employer. This enthusiasm and positivity will be not only in your cover letter but also in the interview if requested. For example, an individual who is calm and clear-headed in challenging situations will likely perform this way during job interviews as well.
2. Include your current or past employer’s mission statement on your resume to demonstrate how emotionally intelligent you might be because of the values that it supports. Keeping emotions at bay while working toward achieving organizational goals can sometimes be challenging for some employees, but others might excel at staying focused on their future responsibilities within certain work environments based on their specific, personal values.
3. Mention how you reacted to a situation in which an individual’s behavioral response not align with the organization. For example, did you suggest a potential solution to a work-related interpersonal problem? How was your idea received by other workers and/or management? Was your proposed solution accepted or rejected? If accepted, did it improve morale or productivity among employees at that workplace? If rejected, why do you think it wasn’t taken into consideration?
4. Demonstrate on your resume that you can tap into different emotional intelligence skills based upon the needs of others within certain professional relationships. This could be conveyed by demonstrating how well you understand another person’s perspective when they’re upset about something that has occurred in their life, which you were not made aware of at the time that it occurred. If this other person is a coworker, how well do you understand what they’re upset about? Why are they sharing this information with you in the first place at work? Furthermore, if your boss is upset with something that has happened within the workplace, how does she or he convey his or her anger toward certain employees, and can you manage to remain calm while staying focused on helping him or her alleviate their anger?
5. Avoid using emotionally charged words when applying for jobs which tend to attract individuals who prefer having work environments where there’s little conflict between workers’ values and organizational goals. For example, these companies might be interested in hiring individuals who are willing to tolerate turnover rates that are higher, relative to other businesses.

How to Answer Interview Questions About Emotional Intelligence Skills?

Answering interview questions about emotional intelligence levels is not always easy, but preparing for these questions in advance with our 5 ways to show emotional intelligence will help to ensure that you’re prepared during the interview.

Emotional Skills FAQ

What are the five skills of emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is an incredibly important skill. However, multiple other skills are necessary for you to maintain if you want to be emotionally intelligent.

The five most crucial skills that emotionally intelligent individuals possess are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. All of these soft skills maximize your ability to be an emotionally intelligent person.

Is being emotionally intelligent a skill?

Yes, emotional intelligence is a skill. Not only that, but it is an immensely important skill. This skill is the ability to not only recognize and control your emotions but also understand and look after the emotions of those around you.

Many leaders now understand that this skill is needed to be a great leader, effective communicator, and positively viewed figure in general.

What are the 7 emotional intelligence competencies?

There are 7 competencies that make up emotional intelligence. The competencies that help you build emotional intelligence include: calmness under pressure and focus on your goals, a clear vision for the future, being able to adapt to an ever-changing environment (also staying resilient when things do not according to your plan), communicating effectively, empathy and active listening, compassion, and hope as well as positivity for the future.