Competency, then, involves a great deal of emotional and social intelligence, a term coined by Daniel Goleman.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify the sources of emotion and to understand why they occur, and manage them properly. Social intelligence is the ability to understand and negotiate complex social relationships and environments.
Emotional and social intelligence matter when we talk about competency because most jobs, no matter how big or small the team, require teamwork and relationship. Without the ability to navigate the emotions of others as well as to understand better your emotions, your work suffers. The higher your emotional and social intelligence the higher your social effectiveness in managing teams and projects. Extensive research has demonstrated that leaders with high social and emotional intelligence have higher performing teams and organizations.
BUILDING YOUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
How do you develop social and emotional competencies? A partial list includes empathy, listening, giving and receiving feedback, resolving conflict, inspiring others, self and organizational awareness, anger and stress management.
For starters, your need to commit to deliberate change. Figure out what you need to work on and set some concrete goals. It’s always a good idea to understand what you are working toward. It’s also helpful to engage in an assessment tool like the 360 degree feedback tool from Hay Group, to understand where you currently sit when it comes to emotional and social intelligence abilities. In the absence of such an assessment tool, a no-holds-barred assessment from those closest to you can unlock a general idea about areas in need of improvement. Again, a good supervisor can be a great help.
After you’ve endeavored to remain committed and diagnosed some areas of improvement, get specific and practical about changing that habit. Are you looking to communicate better? Set some guidelines and remain committed to practicing those guidelines. Give yourself a 2-hour window to respond to emails during work hours to ensure nothing falls off the radar. When someone enters your office, close the laptop and put the phone out of reach. Move to a separate area of the office to get out of your “comfort” level and focus completely on the conversation at hand.
These small things can create the new habits needed to build the competencies you want to develop. And as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. You’ll see those areas develop over time.
A Major League Baseball player wasn’t able to hit the curve ball the first time he saw the pitch. He might not have been very good at it after 100 pitches, but over the course of a decade of practice, the player is now a master.
The same applies to your technical skills. The designer needs to learn Adobe Creative Suite during her education. Over the course of time, she will learn the short cuts and efficiencies built into the product, eventually become incredibly productive at her craft.
Likewise, the emotional and social skills needed to complete the full idea of competency take practice and repetition, but achieving them will unlock the highest levels of competency. If your innate capacity provides guidance to the kind of work that energizes your soul and helps you thrive, competency helps you become more effective in your job, not only technically, but also socially and emotionally.
-MOTISONE AI
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