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Janissa Dunchack

HCM 4630
25 September 2015

Reflection on Emotional Intelligence

There are a number of things I learned about emotional


intelligence throughout this unit. Emotional intelligence is the ability to
be in touch with your emotions in able to control and understand those
emotions. By being emotionally intelligent, you are able to understand
your behavior and why you act the way you do in certain situations. It
is important as a future healthcare executive for me to be emotionally
intelligent so that I can be aware of my emotions as well as aware of
the emotions of the people I work with. This will help me to be a more
effective leader and to meet the needs of my followers.
One of the things I learned about emotional intelligence
throughout this unit is that there are five different components of
emotional intelligence. These include: self-awareness, self-regulation,
self-motivation, social awareness, and social skills. Self-awareness
includes having a deep understanding of ones emotions, strengths,
weaknesses, needs, and drives. (Freshman 2002) One way to become
self-aware is to take note of how you respond in high stress situations.
Do you get upset and temperamental? Do you think before you speak?
Being self-aware is a great competency to contain as a leader. Selfregulation includes the ability to adjust to fluctuations and being able
to say no. Self-regulation goes hand in hand with self-awareness.
Once you learn to become self-aware, the next step is to regulate
yourself. When you get temperamental you need to learn to step away

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instead of arguing back with an employer. Self-motivation is when you


are driven to achieve, being passionate over profession, enjoying
challenges. (Freshman 2002) Self-motivation includes being positive
when morale in the workplace is low, setting a positive example and
motivating colleagues to work hard to build morale. Finding ways to
show appreciation to your staff members is another way to motivate
them to continue working hard and let them know their work is
appreciated. Social awareness is putting other people before yourself
and considering their emotions. This reminds me of the golden rule,
treat others the way you would like to be treated. This also reminds
me of a commandment in the Bible that says to love your neighbor as
yourself. Recognize other peoples feelings before you take action. If a
staff member is having a hard day and made a mistake, rather than
yelling at them and making matters worse, talk to them about what is
going on and see if you can help them before addressing their mistake.
Be compassionate and think of others. Lastly, social skills are being
able to move people and encourage them to work towards a common
goal. This can be achieved through good listening skills. When people
talk, you should listen so you can learn to meet their needs and learn
how to approach them in order to be able to encourage them. Leaders
need to have good social skills in order to communicate well with their
colleagues. This allows leaders to communicate what their
expectations are as well as note the expectations of their followers.

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These five components of emotional intelligence are key to


understanding the concept as a whole.
Another thing I learned about emotional intelligence through Dr.
Adlers video is that, similarly to colors, there are also primary
emotions that make up the other emotions. These emotions include
happy, sad, mad, and scared. Happy is the sense of joy we feel when
something happens that we wanted it to. Mad is the frustration that
occurs when something does not go our way and seems unfair. Sad
is the emotion we feel when with the occurrence of defeat. Lastly,
scared is the preconception that an event will occur that we do not
want to happen or did not know would happen. Through each of these
four primary emotions, we have multiple other emotions. This is an
important concept for when we are trying to become more self-aware
leaders, analyzing our emotions and where they come from can be
very beneficial.
Also through Dr. Adlers video, I learned there are three secrets
to emotional intelligence. These secrets entail questions we can ask
ourselves in order to become more self-aware. The first secret is to ask
yourself What triggers our emotional world? (Dr. Adler) Digging
deeper to the roots of emotions will help us to understand our feelings
better. It is almost like performing a root cause analysis on our own
emotions. The second secrete is asking, How do your feelings
manifest in you? (Dr. Adler) Are there any physical signs of how you

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are feeling on the insides? For instance, when I get nervous I start to
get hot and maybe sweat. Even if I did not recognize how nervous I
was, sweating is a physical indicator of how I actually feel. Noting
these different physical characteristics will also help to identify how
you feel emotionally. The third secret is figuring out if you know how to
handle stress. When you are stressed can you handle it or does it
overtake you? This is the concept of self-management or regulation,
knowing how to deal or cope with your feelings. These three secrets of
emotional intelligence helped me to better grasp the concept of
emotional intelligence, especially when trying to learn about my own
personal emotions.
Through learning all about the many concepts of emotional
intelligence I was able to identify my EI strengths and weaknesses. My
strengths would include self-regulation, self-awareness, and social
awareness. I have always been a pretty compassionate person and try
to always consider the emotions of other people. One of my favorite
quotes is by Thomas A Kempis and it states, be assured that if you
knew all you would pardon all. This quote reminds us that everyone is
going through something and has a story, so it is important to not
judge them on their actions. I always remember this quote when I hear
about people who may have committed a crime and wonder what
happened through their childhood that may have encouraged this kind
of behavior. This social awareness helps me to always consider other

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peoples emotions before I make a decision or act upon something. I


am also pretty good at recognizing my own emotions and
understanding them. When I do feel a certain way, especially angry or
some kind of negative emotion, I always try to reflect on what may
have caused that frustration. Lastly, I would say I am good at selfregulation and staying true to my values and saying no when I have to.
I am also good at stepping away from a bad situation or when arguing
with someone. I think it is important to step away from an argument to
allow myself to calm down and collect my thoughts before discussing a
problem with someone. This way I do not speak before I think. I also
like how my pastor always says that feeling a angry or any emotion is a
choice. I think this is another concept that helps me to be more aware
of my feelings and choose to be happy and joyful over angry and
upset.
I would say my weaknesses include being self-motivated and
lacking strong social skills. While I like to think I am optimistic about
things, which helps motivation, I am not good at setting goals and
sticking to them until completion. I need to work on committing to
achieving my goals and passions. I also need to work towards
improving my social skills. Social skills include being able to motivate
people and know how to encourage them. I think I have a good basis
to improve my social skills, because I am socially aware and a good

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listener; I just need to work to become a stronger speaker and better


with my words in order to move people.
In order for me to become a successful leader it is important for
me to work to improve my two emotional intelligence competencies
that I am lacking. An action plan would be beneficial for me to improve
these. First I need to make action steps towards improving my selfmotivation. I think a few important action steps could include: meeting
with a mentor who can guide me throughout my improvement efforts.
This step would require the support from a mentor and I think they
should work with me for two weeks, allowing me one week to improve
each competency. Another step could be to take the MEIS test and
determine my personal strengths and weaknesses with him/her. This
would require me to obtain the MEIS test, the scores, and again have
the support from my mentor. I could do this in one or two days. After
determining my own strengths and weakness, I think it would be
beneficial to learn what my peers think are my strengths and
weaknesses. I could determine this through friends and classmates. I
would need their support and participation in order to collect feedback.
I could distribute a survey to them at the beginning of the week and
give them a few days to get it back to me for me to review with my
mentor. Lastly, I should set achievable goals that collaborate with my
MEIS scores and the feedback from my peers and work to achieve
those goals. My mentor can assist me in setting this goals and

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assuring I strive to achieve them. Once I do achieve them I think it is


important for me to celebrate my accomplishments in order to
motivate me to want to achieve more things. Lastly, I could attend a
seminar on motivation and take notes on what the speaker says that
motivates me so that I have reminders later on. I have never heard a
motivational speaker, but I have always heard they are very beneficial.
This would require funds to attend the seminar, a motivational speaker,
and some kind of notepad to take notes on. Presenting what I learned
to my mentor could be a beneficial way to communicate what I learned
also. Throughout this time I need to focus on being optimistic and
accepting challenges. After participating in these action steps I am
hopeful that I will become more self-motivated.
The second week of improvement will need to be focused on
improving my social skills. Working with my mentor, I think I should
come up with a topic to form a presentation on. After we have the
topic, I think I should first gather data and then record a video of
myself speaking to my mentor about the topic. After recording the
video I think we should review the video and note areas of
improvement. After recognizing where I can make improvements I
think I should present the information in front of a group of people.
The group can be peers, friends, colleagues, or whoever my mentor
sees most fitting. This would require my cell phone to record a video
on, the support of my mentor, a group of peers, and a computer to

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form a presentation on. Throughout the presentation I think my peers


should again evaluate my performance and identify areas where I need
to continue working to improve my social skills. The last action step
would be to attend a social event and find people I do not know to
interact with and make conversation. While talking with people I need
to focus on directing the conversation towards topics we may both be
passionate about. For example, if the social event is a meet and greet
with healthcare executives from WakeMed hospital, talking about how
the executive got to where they are today may be beneficial. Noting
my body language and their body language throughout the
conversation can also help. This will require finding a social event for
me to attend and support from my mentor afterwards to talk about my
behavior. Taking these action steps will help me to improve my social
skills. I need to just continue to put myself out there and become more
comfortable in large groups, so that I can learn how to move and
inspire people better. Social skills are very important in the healthcare
field and are adamant in order to be a successful leader. At the end of
this second week I will make a portfolio about my experience so that I
can continue to reflect on my improvement efforts.
This unit on emotional intelligence has taught me a lot. I had
never heard of emotional intelligence before this class. I think the
videos we watched, Brenda Freshmans article, the book, and the
PowerPoints in class really helped me to gain a good understanding of

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EI and its importance. The knowledge gained in this unit will help me
to be more aware of my emotions, which will benefit my interactions
with other people. I really am hopeful that this unit will be of great
assistance to me in my future career. I will be including the resources
provided in this unit in my portfolio to take with me after I graduate. I
have already found myself trying to understand my emotions more in
day-to-day life. Emotional intelligence goes beyond the professional
workplace and can be applied in all areas of your life. As Dr. Adler says
in his video, When we feel good about ourselves, we have more to
give to others.

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References:
Adler, M. Emotional Intelligence: how good leaders become great - 2014: UC
Davis Executive Leadership Program. YouTube. N.d. Web
Freshman, B., & Rubino, L. (2002). Emotional intelligence: a core competency for
health care administrators. Health Care Manager,20(4), 1-9.
Rubino, L., Esparaza, S., & Chassiakos, Y.R. (2014) New Leadership for Today's
Health Care Professionals: Concepts and Cases. Sudbury, MA: Jones and
Bartlett Publishers. ISBN: 978-1-4496-3431-5

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