In both your personal life and your professional life, emotional intelligence is the cornerstone of your success. This is particularly true for certain professions, such as Health and Safety Managers or those with HSE responsibilities – as implementing safety programmes within companies relies on an enlightened people handling skillset.
In the current climate workplace mental health is also top of focus for many companies, with managing psychological threats to employees seen as as important as managing physical threats – and both come under the domain of the HSE Department.
Importance in Health and Safety Work
As I discussed in the previous Blogs I wrote on empathy, tackling workplace bullying and stress and anxiety at work; not only does emotional intelligence play a part in understanding and supporting employees with mental health issues, implementing mental health awareness and support. It is also an essential element of empathy, a higher attainment of which is most useful in understanding why people are working in a particular manner, implementing effective changes to those existing practices, actioning safety campaigns and improving the safety culture within a company.
In my last Blog I explored what emotional intelligence is, what is looks like and the effects on your working life. By understanding and successfully applying emotional intelligence, you can reach your full potential and achieve your goals. Let us now move forward and look at how we can work on this core subject and the attainment of our goals.
Making Improvements to your Emotional Intelligence
Deepening your emotional consciousness allows you to grow and gain a deeper understanding of who you are, thus enabling better communication with others and the building of stronger relationships.
- Observe how you Feel – It’s all too easy to lose touch with your emotions. Take time to notice how you’re feeling emotionally
- Take Responsibility your Feelings – Your emotions and behaviour come from you alone, they don’t come from anyone else. Once you start accepting responsibility for how you feel and how you behave it will have a positive impact on all areas of your life
- Acknowledge your Triggers – Self-aware individuals are able to recognise their emotions and adapt them to situations. Taking the time to process theese emotions before communicating them
- Pay Attention to how you Behave – Take time to notice your behaviour. Managing your emotions becomes easier once you become more conscious of how you react to them
- Question your Opinions – Take time to challenge your views to help you understand other people and become more receptive to new ideas
- Look at Yourself Objectively – Knowing yourself completely is difficult. Try to gauge your perception from another’s point of view
- Slow Down – Take time out to slow down and process how you’re feeling. Give yourself a break and meditate, do yoga, read or spend time with a hobby
- Leave your Comfort Zone – The biggest barrier to achieving your full potential is not challenging yourself. Great things can happen to you if you’re willing to leave your comfort zone
- Be Approachable and Open Yourself Up – Aim to be accessible and approachable. Listen to someone’s experiences and connect to it with a similar experience of your own
- Celebrate the Positive – Reflect on the positive moments in your life. This encourages resilience to move past adversity
- Think Positive – Maintain a positive and optimistic mindset. See problems and setbacks as learning opportunities
Traits to Avoid for Emotional Intelligence !
- Drama – Listen, offer advice and extend empathy to others but don’t permit others’ lives and emotions to effect yours
- Complaining – This implies victimization and that there are no solutions to problems. Instead of looking for something to blame, think constructively
- Dwelling on the Past – Learn instead from any mistakes and choices
- Bowing to Peer Pressure – Don’t feel compelled to follow suit if you don’t want to. Think independently without conforming to please others
- Criticism – Take care to understand another person to communicate effectively the change you want to see
Above all, remember that emotional intelligence requires effort and continual improvement and is the work of a lifetime !
Corporate OHS is a UAE based Health and Safety Consultancy whose HSE Consultants offer expert resources and superior performance to give you greater results.
We specialize in creating cost effective, user friendly solutions aligned to your operations and budget.
Our range of health and safety consultancy services includes;
- Flexible monthly support packages giving access to HSE services without the burden of permanent costs
- Long term or project based HSE outsourcing
- Risk and fire risk assessments
- Hazard identification and control measure implementation
- Gap Analysis and audits
- HSE legal compliance reviews and assistance
- HSE management system development, implementation and improvement including locally compliant systems such as Abu Dhabi OSHAD, Sharjah OSHJ and/or accredited systems such as ISO 45001, ISO 14001, ISO 9001 and ISO 50001
- Accident investigations
- Business continuity and crisis management
To find out more about our services, please visit our website www.corporateohs.com, send an email to enquiries@corporateohs.com or call Caroline Savage on 052 566 0949