W3 Emotional Intelligence Self Evaluation

Post#2 by Roan Bautista-Emotional Intelligence Self Evaluation

After completing the emotional intelligence test, my result came back as having high emotional intelligence. Cherry (2020) defined emotional intelligence as the ability to be aware of one’s own feelings, ability to express one’s feelings appropriately, as well as having empathy and the ability to understand others’ feelings. Huber (2020) describes emotional intelligence as an “intersection of thinking and emotions” (p. 27), management of emotions, and is considered as a competency for leadership and management. Although I scored high on this test, I believe that I still have an area I can improve on with regards to one of the components of emotional intelligence, and that is difficulty expressing my feelings appropriately. Cherry (2020) mentioned this on her article that even though people are empathetic and has good self-awareness, they still struggle to share their feelings with others. This is so true for me. I experienced being a nurse leader working with different people with different personalities. I noticed that I am not good at confronting people, correcting their mistakes, or telling them they need to step up or improve their performance at work. In order to avoid this kind of situation, I shut down, keep quiet and just do the work myself, and not asking for help from others to avoid frustrations on my part. This action made me feel more stressed and burnt out.

Leaders must not only recognize and capitalize on their strengths, but also be able to identify their weaknesses and address them (Mackie, 2016, as cited in Northouse, 2018 p. 61). Northouse (2018) states that understanding one’s weaknesses can allow you to work to improve them and also allow you to recognize the instances where your weaknesses can be a liability to your leadership. This is where I will start working on improving the ability to talk to others and express how I feel for them as a leader. I have to understand my own weakness and recognize that this could be a pitfall in being an effective leader. I just now realized too that part of this is attributed to another weakness that I know I have, and that is lack of self-confidence. Northouse (2018) states that practice builds confidence. In order to improve more, I know I need to accept more opportunities to lead and believe that I was chosen because I have the knowledge and ability to be an effective leader. Moreover, in a research study conducted by Wang, et al., 2018, their findings state that increasing nurse’s transformational leadership knowledge, ability, behavior, and skills through trainings or education could improve nurse’s emotional intelligence. This could be very helpful if workplace could provide this kind of program to develop and support current and future leaders.

References

Cherry, K. (2020). Habits of Emotionally Intelligent People. Verywellmind.

Huber, D. (2013). Leadership & nursing care management (5th ed.). Saunders, an Imprint of Elsevier Inc.

Northouse, P. (2018). Introduction to leadership concepts and practice (4th ed.). Sage Publications.

Wang, L., Tao, H., Bowers, B. J., Brown, R., & Zhang, Y. (2018). When nurse emotional intelligence matters: How transformational leadership influences intent to stay. Journal of Nursing Management, 26(4), 358–365. https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.12509