Sit for a moment and focus on yourself. Are you able to tell exactly what emotional state you are in? Now look at the person who is close to you. Are you able to guess what emotions he or she is now experiencing? If not, you should work on increasing the level of your emotional intelligence. Why? Because managers with high rates of EQ better and faster sense the weaknesses of the company or the team, emerging conflicts, shortcomings or emerging opportunities, and thus they can appropriately quickly and effectively respond to them.            What exactly hides behind this acronym EQ? For the first time the term emotional intelligence was used in the work of Dr. Peter Salovey and Dr. John Mayer of Stanford University. They defined it as the ability to control one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to distinguish them and control this information in thought and action (Salovay and Mayer, 1990). Seven years later they modified this definition by publishing along with Dr. David Caruso Multifactorial Emotional Intelligence Scale (MEIS). According to them, emotional intelligence is the ability to accurately perceive, assess, and express emotions; to generate feelings when facilitate the process of thinking; to understand emotions and emotional knowledge; to manage emotions in such a way, as to develop oneself emotionally and intellectually (Mayer and Salovey, 1997). Five areas that determine the level of emotional intelligence can be described: a. Knowing your emotions means recognizing emotions during their occurrence and monitoring of emotions; b. Management of emotions is the control of the emotions so that they are appropriate to the situation and the ability to soothe oneself and overcome sadness, anxiety and to manage stress; c. Ability to motivate yourself is the ability to subordinate emotions to chosen goals, to defer gratification and to suppress impulsivity, as well as the ability to turn oneself into a state of flow. d. Recognizing emotions in others relates to empathy – to empathize with the situation of the other person, to sense what others need or want; e. Establishing and maintaining relationships with others means to be able to manage the emotions of other people and to have trouble-free contacts with them (Goleman, 1995). Each of these areas depends to some extent on the learned habits and reactions. With a little effort, you can increase your competence in each of them. For example, if you don?t have any problem with deciphering, when your colleague is sad or irritable, but you have difficulties in determining whether your irritation is caused by an excess of the coffee or constant complaints of the roommate, it is worth taking the time to raise awareness of your own feelings. To be continued?   Goleman, D. P. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ for Character, Health and Lifelong Achievement. New York: Bantam Books. Mayer, J. D. & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (Eds). Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Implications for educators (pp. 3-31). New York: Basic Books. Salovey, P. & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 9, 185-211. Photo credit: harmonicagoldfish / Foter / CC BY-SA