Emotional Intelligence Part 4 – Recognizing Your Counterpart’s Feelings
“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creaturs of emotions.” Dale Carnegie
If you want to recognize other people’s emotions, it is essential to first be aware that it is hardly possible to perceive others OBJECTIVELY. Our perception of others is shaped by our own expectations and needs, experiences and values, cultural environment as well as motives and goals.
In addition, there is no clear causal assignment of certain signals and feelings. For example, we cannot assume that someone who frowns, crosses their arms, or raises their eyebrows in conversation will necessarily be dismissive or skeptical of what we are saying.
However, we can already PERCEIVE these signals – and it is also part of emotional intelligence to be very attentive and mindful here. We just shouldn’t make the mistake of believing that we directly know what the perceived signals mean.
Especially people who have a great deal of knowledge about people’s emotional world and whose sensors are already sensitized to perceive such signals (such as psychologists, trainers and coaches) must remain humble at this point and not be too sure. It’s worth always leaving open the possibility that a sent signal had a different meaning than you suspected (no matter how sure you are…).
The surest way to get reliable information about one’s emotional world, in addition to mindful observation, is still to simply ASK the other person about his feelings, then listen to him well and take an honest interest in him.
More on the topic of “Perceiving the feelings of my counterpart” in our next article. Stand by! 👍
#emotionaleintelligenz #EQ #emotionen #leadership #bluefroggmbh #wisdomofthefrog
