Psychopathy, (sometimes used synonymously with sociopathy), is traditionally defined as a personality disorder characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, lack of empathy and remorse, and bold, uninhibited, egotistical traits.

The term is often employed in common usage along with the related but distinct “crazy”, “insane” and “mentally ill”, criminal psychology researcher Robert Hare stresses that a clear distinction is known among clinicians and researchers between psychopathic and psychotic individuals. Hare claims that psychopaths “are not disoriented or out of touch with reality, nor do they experience the delusions, hallucinations, or intense subjective distress that characterize most other mental disorders. Unlike psychotic individuals, psychopaths are rational and aware of what they are doing and why. Their behavior is the result of choice, freely exercised.”

If you are convinced your CEO is a psychopath, you might probably be right. Let’s take for instance, Martin Shkreli, the Pharma CEO who raised the price of an AIDS drug by almost 5,000%. His actions are despicable, but he comes across as friendly and charming. The public impression of him did not fit his action. One of the conclusions is that Shkreli may be a psychopath. That conclusion might sound extreme, but it isn’t. It turns out CEOs are way more likely to be psychopaths than any other job title.

Studies say that 1 in 5 CEOs are psychopaths. An Australian study has found that about one in five corporate executives are psychopaths – roughly the same rate as among prisoners. The study of 261 senior professionals in the United States found that 21 per cent had clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits. CEOs are four times more likely to be psychopaths than the average person, according to journalist Jon Ronson, who spent two years researching this, and published a book titled “The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry.”

We can think of a bunch of CEOs who have demonstrated psychopathic traits. Apple CEO Steve Jobs was famous for yelling at his employees, and he denied paternity of his daughter for years.

Donald Trump has built a brand – and presidential campaign – around his brash insults, hard-nosed reasoning, and egocentric behavior. Ronson argues that we shouldn’t be surprised that there are so many psychopathic CEOs. After all, capitalism rewards psychopathic traits: ruthless and driven attitudes that rule out kindness, remorse, and empathy.

But psychopaths also have other traits that help them succeed.

They’re chameleons who can be charming while reveling in manipulating others and ravaging the lives of anyone in their path, Ronson said in an interview. Psychopaths also tend to be cool under pressure and can be extremely intelligent with a single-minded drive to succeed. But it’s often their hubris and confidence that leads to their downfall. Ronson argues that a psychopath’s lack of empathy leaves a kind of hole in the psyche. That space gets filled with a pleasure of manipulating others — and a lack of remorse or guilt about it.

Machiavellianism is “the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct”. The word comes from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, born in 1469, who wrote Il Principe (The Prince), among other works. Machiavellian leaders often tend to be awe-inspiring- CEOs and corporate executives who are incredibly intelligent and intuitive, motivated and manipulative, diplomatic yet devious, congenial yet cunning.

In African business circles, very few businessmen embody more Machiavellian traits than Africa’s richest man, Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote. To the general public, he is the unassuming, refined and civil businessman. In business circles he is viewed as cynical, eccentric, tactical and manipulative.

Over the years, Dangote has skillfully devised creative and unorthodox means of thwarting his competitors. A favorite tactic of his is price crashing. Dangote has thrived sufficiently through dropping prices of major commodities like sugar, cement, salt and flour, leaving competitors struggling to keep up. By and large, he has created a near monopoly in several key commodities in Nigeria.

Dangote has also skillfully made friends in high places. Never has he incurred the enmity of powerful people. He has courted Nigerian political leaders, donating colossal sums to their election campaigns and funding several political parties. Dangote had donated millions of dollars to the campaign of Nigeria’s incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan, in the run-up to the 2011 presidential elections.

Dangote might be cunning and ruthless in business, but he knows just when and how to do good, and how to publicize it enough to win public affection. He has given away millions of dollars to charitable causes in everything from education to health, the arts and small scale enterprises. When you succeed in business, always give back. You win public affection with your grand messianic gestures and build emotional capital for yourself and your brand.

Source: www.forbes.com

What makes an organization successful its people or its leaders? In many organizations it has been seen, especially where leaders are open to suggestions and follow an open door policy with employees, there is a greater willingness to change and adapt. Such organizations usually become more successful over a period of time.

Azim Premji was the chairman and CEO of Wipro technologies who transformed his father`s business from cooking oil producing industry to soaps and made a shift from soaps to software. He was a successful entrepreneur with high social intelligence and knew how to motivate people. He followed the open door policy where in employees could meet their senior supervisor without any invitation and discuss about the welfare of the organization. With his transformational approach, his employees used to work willingly for the benefit of the organization and could interact freely with the higher management to discuss future plans.

We all have at some time in our lives felt anxious. Though, we may not have been consciously aware of what the effects our anxious state has on our work or other aspects of normal life. However, research in the area points that high anxiety shrinks the space available to our attention, it undermines our very capacity to take in new information, let alone generate fresh ideas.

Daniel Goleman in his book social intelligence writes – “The worst period I ever went through at work,” a friend confides, “was when the company was restructuring and people were being ‘disappeared’ daily, followed by lying memos that they were leaving ‘for personal reasons.’ No one could focus while that fear was in the air. No real work got done.” Small wonder. The greater the anxiety we feel, the more impaired is the brain’s cognitive efficiency.

In this zone of mental misery, distracting thoughts hijack our attention and squeeze our cognitive resources. Because high anxiety shrinks the space available to our attention, it undermines our very capacity to take in new information, let alone generate fresh ideas. Near-panic is the enemy of learning and creativity.

The neural highway for dysphoria runs from the amygdala to the right side of the pre-frontal cortex. As this circuitry activates, our thoughts fixate on what has triggered the distress. And as we become preoccupied by, say, worry or resentment, our mental agility sputters. Likewise, when we are sad activity levels in the pre-frontal cortex drop and we generate fewer thoughts. Extremes of anxiety and anger on the one hand, and sadness on the other, push brain activity beyond its zones for effectiveness.

“Banish fear” was a slogan of the late quality-control guru W. Edwards Deming. He saw that fear froze a workplace: workers were reluctant to speak up, to share new ideas, or to coordinate well, let alone to improve the quality of their output.

You are driving to work, planning an important meeting with a colleague, and intermittently reminding yourself that you must remember to turn left at the traffic light, not right as usual, so you can drop your suit at the cleaners. Suddenly an ambulance screams up behind you, and you speed up to get out of the way. You feel your heart quicken. You try to resume planning the morning’s meeting, but your thoughts are disorganized now and you lose concentration, distracted. When you get to work, you berate yourself because you forgot to go to the cleaners.

This scenario comes not from some business primer but from the academic journal Science, as the beginning of an article called “The Biology of Being Frazzled.”The article summarizes the effects on thinking and performance caused by being mildly upset—frazzled from the hassles of daily life. “Frazzle” is a neural state in which emotional upsurges hamper the workings of the executive center.

While we are frazzled, we cannot concentrate or think clearly. That neural truth has direct implications for achieving the optimal emotional atmosphere both in the classroom and the office. From the vantage point of the brain, doing well in school and at work involves one and the same state, the brain’s sweet spot for performance. The biology of anxiety casts us out of that zone for excellence.

It’s natural to get affected by each other’s mood. Drains and Thunderstorms are two types of people. Drains are people who suck the energy out of you with their anger or anxiety or distress. One must focus on not being a drain and managing mental balance and equanimity. Thunderstorms are people who charge you with their positive energy.

Hume’s Philosophical Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The tape came in two versions, either happy or sad, but so subtly inflected that people were unaware of the difference unless they explicitly listened for it. As muted as the feeling tones were, students came away from the tape either slightly happier or slightly more somber than they had been before listening to it. Yet the students had no idea that their mood had shifted, let alone why.

The mood shift occurred even when the students performed a distracting task—putting metal pins into holes in a wooden board—as they listened. The distraction, it seems hampered intellectual understanding of the philosophical passage. But it did not lessen a whit how contagious the moods were: One way moods differ from the grosser feeling of emotions, psychologists tell us, has to do with the ineffability of their causes: while we typically know what has triggered an outright emotion, we often find ourselves in one or another mood without knowing its source.

The Würzburg experiment suggests, though, that our world may be filled with mood triggers that we fail to notice—everything from the saccharine Muzak in an elevator to the sour tone in someone’s voice.

Source: Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Positive sounds such as laughter or a triumphant ‘woo hoo!’ can trigger a response in the listener’s brain. The response is automatic and helps us interact socially by priming us to smile or laugh, and thereby connecting us with the other person. It can help to reduce the social distance between managers and employees.

As Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, the English business magnate who founded the Virgin Group, says “Humor, I think is a very important part of building a business, not taking yourself too seriously and being willing to have a sense of humor.”

Social Intelligence also encompasses your ability to observe and understand the context of a situation you may find yourself in, and to understand the ways in which the situation dominates or shapes the behavior of the people in it. Cooperativeness is an integral part of Social Intelligence.

Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft, which became the world’s largest PC software company. He displayed cooperativeness by building trust and loyalty partly by taking his employees’ opinion into account. He had high technical skills, but initially did not feel comfortable giving others influence on decisions. Then he learned that he could not do everything on his own. The only way he was able to delegate was hiring the most talented employees and giving autonomy to his managers.

Social intelligence, from the standpoint of interpersonal skills, has been described as Karl Albrecht as behaviour which falls somewhere on a spectrum between “toxic” effect and “nourishing” effect. Toxic behaviour makes people feel devalued, angry, frustrated, guilty or otherwise inadequate.

Nourishing behaviour makes people feel valued, respected, affirmed, encouraged or competent. A continued pattern of toxic behavior indicates a low level of social intelligence while a continued pattern of nourishing behavior tends to make a person much more effective in dealing with others; nourishing behaviour is an indicator of high social intelligence.

Social Intelligence certainly made a difference at one university-based hospital in Boston where two doctors contention for the post of CEO of the corporation that ran this hospital. Both of them headed departments, were superb physicians, and had published many widely cited research articles in prestigious medical journals. But the two had very different personalities.

Dr.Burke was intense, task focused, and impersonal. He was a relentless perfectionist with a combative tone that kept his staff continually on edge. Dr.Humboldt was no less demanding, but he was very approachable, even playful, in relating to staff, colleagues, and patients. Prized talent often ended up leaving Burke’s department for Humboldt’s warmer working climate. Recognizing Humboldt’s socially intelligent leadership style, the hospital corporation’s board picked him as the new CEO.

Social Intelligence is the ability to get along well with others, and to get them to cooperate with you. Sometimes referred to simplistically as “people skills,” It includes an awareness of situations and the social dynamics that govern them, and a knowledge of interaction styles and strategies.

One of the offshoots of social intelligence is tactfulness, which means being able to say the right thing at the right time. For example, Steve Jobs, the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. His colleagues described him as a talented person who is captivating and can be a remarkable motivator. An example of inspiration is when Jobs lured Sculley from Pepsi by asking him if he wanted a chance to change the world or to spend the rest of his life selling sugared water.

A conflict arises when individuals have varied interests, opinions and thought processes and are just not willing to compromise with each other. It is always wise to adjust to some extent and try to find a solution to the problem rather than cribbing and fighting. Conflicts and disagreements only lead to negativity and things never reach a conclusion. Conflict management goes a long way in strengthening the bond among the employees and half of the problems automatically disappear. And there is no possible way to manage conflict other than showing exhibiting emotional intelligence and knowing how to manage relationships with individuals.

The following story, composed from a case study, shows how emotional intelligence looks on the outside. Phil feels betrayed because Linda got the promotion he deserved. Over the past six months he had confided all of his hopes and ideas in a co-worker he trusted as a friend and colleague. Linda feels torn and guilty. Her mentor told her to apply for the opening at the last minute and in the interview she knew just how to respond because of all the background Phil had shared with her, but it was also obvious Phil wasn’t going to get the position because they really wanted to promote a woman. If she tells him what she knows, she’s worried he’s upset enough that he might file some kind of a sexual discrimination action.

Fortunately as part of their leadership training they had both taken the EQ (Emotional Quotient) measure so. One of Phil’s lowest scores was in impulse control, and in the past he had often dealt with stress in the workplace in a pretty hostile fashion. Granted he was working on it, but this issue seemed to have pushed him to the edge. He was very sensitive to situations where there was unfairness involved — that was one thing he said he could never tolerate. In fact his highest score of all was in Social Responsibility. He was extraordinarily loyal to his team and did his best to make certain their work was always done on time with the best quality. Linda’s strongest score turned out to be in Empathy. She was a terrific listener — that was why she understood his plans so well, and why Phil wanted to discuss them with her in the first place. Her self-regard and assertiveness were somewhat low so she knew she was going to need support in having what was certain to be a difficult conversation with Phil.

Roger, Linda’s boss, met with the two of them one afternoon. He started out the conversation by listening attentively to everything that Phil said and felt, taking lots of notes and checking in with him regularly until after about 10 minutes he was able to sum it all up by saying, “So if I’m hearing you Phil, you feel cheated and betrayed — cheated because you’ve worked so hard for this promotion yourself, and betrayed because you feel like I used the information we shared in confidence to ace you out of the job.”

“That’s exactly what happened!”, he said as he sighed and sat back in his chair. Roger got right to the point. “Phil there is no question you’re highly qualified for this position.” He said “and I understand from Linda one of the reasons she did so well in the interview was as a result of several meetings she had with you.”

“Yes, I discussed my ideas with her in detail several times over lunch.” Phil said looking at Linda appreciatively with some surprise. “Most times I wouldn’t discuss what motivates my decisions when it comes to this kind of a promotion,” Roger said, “but I talked with several of your coworkers about your commitment to fairness throughout the organization and they say it’s something you genuinely value very highly.” “Yes, and this clearly wasn’t fair to me!”, Phil said with some hurt in his voice.

“If I were in your shoes, that’s how I’d feel too Phil.”, Roger said looking him in the eyes. “But you also know from your work on the diversity Council that we haven’t done as good a job as we need to do in dismantling our glass ceiling here. When Linda demonstrated an excellent understanding of what this project calls for we were delighted to give her the nod. However, you were the first person she suggested bringing on board, so I’m wondering if you would be willing to consider a lateral move to help her lead this team?”

This story is based on the experience of three ordinary people who had realized the value of developing their emotional intelligence and how much it contributes to productivity in their workplace. In the end, Phil decided to stay where he was, but the respect he felt he had been shown went a long way towards relieving his stress about being invisible in the organization. The distrustful attitude and hostile behavior dissolved, and as far as we know have not troubled him any further.

Maintaining relationships with other individuals is an art that needs to be understood. Only someone who knows this art can succeed in life. Parents want to know why their children do not understand them, spouses discuss ways and means to tackle marital disputes, youths wonder why their circle of friend is shrinking by the day and many others are discovering that they are immensely unpopular in their peer circle. Managers study how to work with subordinates, parents take courses on rearing children, husbands and wives learn to talk to each other, teachers study how to cope with emotional disturbances among their students, young minds learn to improve their interpersonal relations with peer groups. Everyone wishes to enhance emotional competencies and is asking how to do it.

Ravi and Sunil joined the premier Indian Administrative Service (IAS) about the same time, with almost the same credentials. Both had superb grade point averages from leading schools and universities, with effusive recommendations from their professors. Both went for identical professional training at the IAS Training Academy as probationers. However, the moment they joined their respective postings as fresh magistrates, all similarities disappeared.

Ravi’s curriculum vitae was impressive; he was academically brilliant and a top scorer. He was a talented and creative student in his school and college days. But he acted as though he had not left high school. The problem with Ravi was that he knew he was exceptional, and was unbelievably arrogant. Despite his academic abilities, he put people off, especially those who had to work with him. He remained glued to his computer screen, voraciously devouring administrative and technical documents and learning about the rules and regulations of bureaucracy. His colleagues rarely saw him except at formal meetings; he was a recluse. He believed that it was his administrative and technical proficiency that counted most in this job. Ravi’s arrogance came across all too quickly; he ended up being transferred every six months, and that too in second or third-tier outfits. And he always wondered why such things should happen to him.

Sunil, on the other hand, adopted a different approach. Though brilliant academically, he ranked slightly below Ravi in the written exams, but he was adept inter-personally. Everyone who worked with him liked him. A few years later, Sunil was termed a ‘successful’ officer. He not only devoted adequate time to his work, but also used his spare time to get to know his co-officers, find out about their interests, projects and concerns. When they needed a helping hand, he offered one. Whenever an additional responsibility was given to him, he volunteered to do so with grace and enthusiasm. He believed that one of the most effective ways for him to be accepted into the team was by helping out.

After a few years on the job, Ravi had done slightly better as an administrator. But Sunil was seen as someone who could work well in a team and take initiatives, and was already marked out for the fast track. Ravi failed to realize that building bonds was a crucial competence for his job. His co-officers knew that he was administratively adept, but they had little faith in his ability to work in a team. In contrast, Sunil showed excellence in several emotional intelligence competencies.

If Ravi’s academic skills were to be put to best use, he needed to master emotional competencies as well. There is a crucial difference between declarative knowledge, i.e., knowing a concept and its technical details, and practical knowledge, that is, being able to implement these concepts. Knowing does not equal doing, whether in playing a game, managing a team, or acting on essential advice at the right moment or doing an IAS job.

Ravi lacked what Sunil had—emotional intelligence. Needless to say, a modern approach based on EQ (Emotional Quotient) is more likely to result in higher levels of performance than a traditional approach based on IQ (Intelligence Quotient). It is for you to decide which path you wish to follow

Source: Emotional Intelligence at work, by Dalip Singh

Workplace relationships are unique interpersonal relationships with important implications for the individuals in those relationships, and the organizations in which the relationships exist and develop. Studies show that workplace relationships directly affect a worker’s ability to succeed.

Workers spend on average 50 hours a week in the workplace, these long work hours result in the formation of workplace friendships. These connections can be both positive, and have the potential to become harmful. Career advancement is easier and you will accomplish more if you can count on the support of coworkers and managers. It’s up to you to actively build relationships with others in the workplace. Don’t approach relationship-building in a selfish manner. Work at building strong workplace relationships for greater job satisfaction and because you value a healthy workplace culture.

Take the example of Melburn McBroom. He was a domineering boss, with a temper that intimidated those who worked with him. That fact might have passed unremarked had McBroom worked in an office or factory. But McBroom was an airline pilot.

One day in 1978 McBroom’s plane was approaching Portland, Oregon, when he noticed a problem with the landing gear. So McBroom went into a holding pattern, circling the field at a high altitude while he fiddled with the mechanism.

As McBroom obsessed about the landing gear, the plane’s fuel gauges steadily approached the empty level. But his copilots were so fearful of McBroom’s wrath that they said nothing even as disaster loomed. The plane crashed, killing ten people.

Today the story of that crash is told as a cautionary tale in the safety training of airline pilots. In 80 percent of airline crashes, pilots make mistakes that could have been prevented, particularly if the crew worked together more harmoniously. Teamwork, open lines of communication, cooperation, listening, and speaking one’s mind. The cockpit is a microcosm of any working organization. The dramatic impact of an airplane crash aside, the effects of having poor workplace relationships and cooperation can have a dramatic impact on both the organization and the individual.

Emotional Intelligence. Why it can matter more than IQ, by Daniel Goleman

Willpower affects many areas of life, including personal decisions, social interactions and conduct in social settings like school and the workplace. Self-control, along with intelligence, is considered by psychologists to be two key human traits that produce many benefits for people and others around them.

For most of the 20th century, scientists have worshiped the hardware powers of the brain, but there has not been any significant attempt to study the software powers of the heart. Walter Mischel, a psychologist at Stanford University, took up the challenge and studied the value of emotional intelligence. He, like many of us, wanted to know the answers to certain perplexing questions: why some people seem to have a gift for living well; why the smartest kid in the class may not end up as the richest; why some people are liked almost instantly and others are distrusted; why some people remain buoyant in the face of troubles which would sink a less resilient soul. In short, what are the qualities of brain and heart that determine success. He decided to conduct a psychological experiment on small children to find out the real story. Mischel distributed marshmallows (a kind of sweet) to groups of 4-year-olds and left the room, promising that any child who could postpone eating the marshmallows until he came back, 15 to 20 minutes later, would be rewarded with a second marshmallow.

Not all the children, however, behaved or followed his instructions identically. Some of them just could not resist the temptation to eat the marshmallow immediately. Some waited for a few minutes, and then decided that there was no fun in waiting for a second one, and that it would be wiser to eat the one which was in hand. Some fantasized with closed eyes that they were eating the marshmallows and tried to wait for the return of Mischel. Significantly, there were still some kids who did not allow tempting thought(s) to sway them, and did not touch the marshmallows at all till Mischel returned.

This experiment further reported that some of the children had been able to think differently. They had resorted to singing, tapping their feet, telling themselves stories, and imagining that the marshmallow was a fluffy cloud, to avoid eating it. Interestingly enough, one kid had even fallen asleep with the marshmallow in his hand! Mischel came to the conclusion that the different moods of the children reflected the amount of emotional intelligence they exhibited. Does this experiment really provide a fundamental measure of emotional intelligence? What does it shows us to prove the importance of emotional intelligence?

Follow-up studies by Mischel 12–14 years later revealed that the children who had triumphed over their desire to delay eating the marshmallows had grown more socially competent and self-assertive and exhibited a higher degree of resilience in dealing with life’s frustrations. Those who had won the second marshmallow were still better at delayed gratification and had applied this attribute in pursuit of their goals. Those who had given in to their desire and had eaten the first marshmallow immediately without waiting, had grown into more stubborn, indecisive and stressed adolescents. The quality of self-control in avoiding eating the marshmallow at the age of 4 turned out to be twice as powerful a predictor of later success in life as compared to IQ. In this experiment, the ability to delay gratification of eating the marshmallow was seen as a master skill, a triumph of the reasoning of the brain over the emotions of the heart.

The conclusion derived from this classical experiment is that the capacity to put off rewards is a single skill that psychologists pinpoint as an indicator of success in life. Mischel’s study confirmed that emotional intelligence does not show up in IQ tests and needs to be viewed from an entirely different angle. The marshmallow experiment established that emotional intelligence, in which self-control plays a huge part, matters more than anything else in determining success in life.

Source: Emotional Intelligence at work, by Dalip SIngh

Self-control is the ability to refrain from knee-jerk reactions in response to your emotions. It is the ability to stop and think before acting, and to pause and consider the best course of action in the present situation. It involves knowing what is important to you, what isn’t, and how that will translate into your actions and behavior. It often has little to do with academic intelligence but it plays an equally important role(sometimes more) in achieving success.

Exactly why David Pologruto, a high-school physics teacher, was stabbed with a kitchen knife by one of his start students is still debatable. But the facts as widely reported are these:Jason H., a sophomore and straight-A student at a Coral Springs, Florida, high school, was fixated on getting into medical school. Not just any medical school-he dreamt of Harvard. But Pologruto, his physics teacher, had given Jason an 80 on a quiz. Believing the grade-a mere B- put his dream in jeopardy, Jason took a butcher knife to school and, in a confrontation with Pologruto in the physics lab, stabbed his teacher in the collarbone before being subdued in a struggle.

A judge found Jason innocent, temporarily insane during the incident- a panel of four psychologists and psychiatrists swore he was psychotic during the fight. Jason claimed he had been planning to commit suicide because of the test score, and had gone to Pologruto to tell him he was killing himself because of the bad grade. Pologruto told a different story: “I think he tried to completely do me in with the knife” because he was infuriated over the bad grade. After transferring to a private school, Jason graduated two years later at the top of his class. He had taken enough advanced courses to raise his grade point average to 4.614- way beyond A+.

The brightest among us can founder on the shoals of unbridled passions and unruly impulses; people with high IQs can be stunningly poor pilots of their private lives.

Source: Emotional Intelligence. Why it can matter more than IQ, by Daniel Goleman

Self-regulation is the ability to monitor and control our own behavior, emotions, or thoughts, altering them in accordance with the demands of the situation. It is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed.

Sometimes you might know exactly what you should do in order to get what you want yet find yourself doing the complete opposite as a result of emotional responses. All of us know that we should control our temper in order to communicate more effectively with others yet most of us lose control of our emotions and mess things up. All of us know that we should control our stress in order to be able to properly deal with life problems yet most of us lose control. Learning how to control your emotions in a relationship, at work and everywhere else is an essential skill that everyone who is serious about success must acquire. Just like knowing what to do is vital knowing how to control your emotions is important so that you can allow yourself to apply what you know.

Take for example the case of the legendary entrepreneur, Steve Jobs, the founder and CEO of Apple. He is accredited with revolutionizing the world of personal computers and mobile phones. He also made people believe that “think different” was more of a life motto instead of a marketing slogan. For all his success and achievement, however, he was considered to be someone who was not nice to be around.

He was greatly feared throughout his Apple kingdom for his merciless, mercurial temper. The tales of his eccentric personality are famous and abound in numbers. One such story is his encounter with a young man in an elevator at Apple’s Headquarters in Silicon Valley. The young man in question had closed the door of the elevator not realizing that Jobs was approaching it. After realizing that he was in the company of the Apple founder, the young man tried to greet him pleasantly. Instead of returning the pleasantry however, Jobs questioned the young man as to what he has done for Apple recently. The young man replied that he has bought an iPad for his daughter on her birthday. The young man thought that he had given a witty answer but to his dismay, Jobs only got more angered and started screaming at him in the middle of the lobby. Jobs shouted at the man that he was fired. He told him to get all his stuff and leave the office immediately, The young man calmly replied that Jobs could not fire him. This made Jobs go berserk and he continued screaming at the man. Finally the young man said that Jobs could not fire him because he did not work for Apple. He was only there to fix the copier. This left Jobs red faced and embarrassed in front of everyone.

All these incidents led to people in certain circles having so much disdain for the Apple founder that there in 2010, a petition called “IhateSteveJobs” started online aimed at making him leave the organization. This goes to show that despite how much success or popularity you gain, you will not get the respect of the people if you do not exhibit control on your emotions and display them appropriately.

One of the basic emotional skills is the ability to recognize different feelings emanating from within and giving a name to them. Knowing one’s emotional strength and weaknesses is of great help because the inner self has to constantly respond to the outer world. It is generally believed that if one cannot interpret one’s own emotions, he or she may not be able to identify the right path that might lead to success.

When it comes to being successful and a figure that is revered around the world, few can match up to the eccentric Portuguese footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo. He is a man who has become a role model and has inspired millions across the world. Today, he is a household name and makes more money in a week than the annual budget of many third world countries. Few sportsmen, if any, have managed to achieve as meteoric a rise as Ronaldo.

That Cristiano Ronaldo is a gifted footballer and a master of his arts is beyond question. However, when one speaks about emotional intelligence, Ronaldo was in the lower spectrum early in his career. When he started playing in his youth and especially after signing for the legendary football club Manchester United, Ronaldo was seen as someone who liked to show off more than produce; an arrogant young lad capable of little more than dancing on the pitch.

This can however be said of many famous sports personalities, the glaring light of fame often blinding young men and women to become arrogant versions of themselves. Sooner or later, this behavior comes out and starts impacting not only their play on the field but also their popularity off the pitch. How all of them react to the criticism faced because of these actions of theirs however is usually very different. How Ronaldo reacted, for example, was elegant.

When he started garnering intense criticism for his frequent outbursts and needless showing off on the field of play from both fans and his manager alike, he could have very easily ignored it and carried on with his arrogant self; instead Ronaldo embraced the criticism. Game after game, the manager, the fans and the media could all see a change in Ronaldo’s attitude. He started becoming lot less pretty and a lot more beautiful, producing more and more results rather than flashy skill shows. Not only did he become someone who the young football fans looked up to more and more, his play on the field also progressed by leaps and bounds. He became more athletic, more focused and more productive till the point that he is now one of the top goal scorers in football history. A few incidents every now and then, he is now considered as one of the most matured players of the game and is often revered as an icon for the youth.

“Know Thyself” said Socrates. Self Awareness is the key to success no matter what your definition of success might be. Only by knowing one’s own strengths and weaknesses can one reach the peak of success. Along with knowing and accepting your weaknesses and working on them, what is also important is to know your strength and have belief in them. History abounds with tales of experts who were convinced that the ideas, plans, and projects of others could never be achieved. However, accomplishment came to those who said, “I can make it happen.”

The Italian sculptor Agostino d’Antonio worked diligently on a large piece of marble. Unable to produce his desired masterpiece, he lamented, “I can do nothing with it.” Other sculptors also worked this difficult piece of marble, but to no avail. Michelangelo discovered the stone and visualized the possibilities in it. His “I-can-make-it-happen” attitude resulted in one of the world’s masterpieces – David.

The experts of Spain concluded that Columbus’s plans to discover a new and shorter route to India was virtually impossible. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand ignored the report of the experts. “I can make it happen,” Columbus persisted. And he did. Everyone knew the world was flat, but not Columbus. The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, along with Columbus and his small band of followers, sailed to “impossible” new lands and thriving resources.

Even the great Thomas Alva Edison discouraged his friend, Henry Ford, from pursuing his fledgling idea of a motorcar. Convinced of the worthlessness of the idea, Edison invited Ford to come and work for him. Ford remained committed and tirelessly pursued his dream. Although his first attempt resulted in a vehicle without reverse gear, Henry Ford knew he could make it happen. And, of course, he did.

“Forget it,” the experts advised Madame Curie. They agreed radium was a scientifically impossible idea. However, Marie Curie insisted, “I can make it happen.” Let’s not forget our friends Orville and Wilbur Wright. Journalists, friends, armed forces specialists, and even their father laughed at the idea of an airplane. “What a silly and insane way to spend money. Leave flying to the birds,” they jeered. “Sorry,” the Wright brothers responded. “We have a dream, and we can make it happen.” As a result, a place called Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, became the setting for the launching of their “ridiculous” idea.

Finally, as you read these accounts under the magnificent lighting of your environment, consider the plight of Benjamin Franklin. He was admonished to stop the foolish experimenting with lighting. What an absurdity and waste of time! Why, nothing could outdo the fabulous oil lamp. Thank goodness Franklin knew he could make it happen.

You too can make it happen!

Recognizing and identifying emotions is a prerequisite for developing emotional intelligence. There is a major difference between experiencing emotions and recognizing them. We all experience emotions but only a few among us can actually recognize them. Recognizing your emotions is the ability to use the analytical capabilities of your brain. People who can identify and recognize their emotions have higher levels of emotional intelligence. Being clear about your emotions is necessary for living with a purpose. In the process, you will learn how to improve your EQ (Emotional Quotient) by controlling a particular emotion.

Let us diagnose a high profile career woman working in a nationalized bank. She always feels that nobody cares for her. She is smart, conscientious, well organized and industrious. She really cares about other people. But whenever there is a function and invitations are sent out, she invariably does not get invited.

At office she hears of lunch plans in the making, but ends up eating alone at her table. There is a reason why she is not on anybody’s guest list. She is an angry woman, but she does not know about it. Nor does she want to admit that she gets angry on trivial issues. Perhaps, she is angry because she did not get promoted, or her mother loved her sister more than her, or her boyfriend had cheated on her. There is no need to explore any more reasons. But whatever the reason(s), she does not want to acknowledge that she gets angry.

Most of the time she concentrates on pushing away her emotions—something she is really good at. She convinces herself through constant mental chatter: ‘No one ever gives me a chance…they’re so unfair…it wasn’t my fault.’ She pushes these feelings out of her system but projects them on to everyone else. Since she is unable to recognize either her own emotions or those of others, she is often caught off guard and hurt by any direct confrontation. She is therefore always on her guard and defends herself at every turn. If, for example, the room feels warm, she will say that she was nowhere near the thermostat. When something upsets her, and most things do, it comes as a complete surprise to her, and her knee jerk response is ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’. People sense the anger and try to avoid her. Rather than experience the pain of constant rejection, she is endlessly obsessed about how unfairly she is being treated and so perpetuates the cycle of emotional hurt.

Have you been able to diagnose our high profile career woman? She changes her mood, rationalizes and rehearses, and in doing so, changes the emotion she experiences from internal hurt to poorly concealed rage. If only she could learn to recognize all her emotions and not be caught off guard, she would definitely be able to develop the ability to manage her anger. And this would enable her to hear unpleasant things without becoming angry or bear hurt without expressing the hurt as hostility. She could become a much more desirable person to interact with and be noticed and welcome by all.

Source: Emotional Intelligence at work, by Dalip Singh

In moving towards the goal of emotional intelligence, they say the first step is admitting you have a problem, and that’s true in every aspect of life. Self-awareness and introspection have the ring of a self-help guru’s empty promises, but they are the starting point that leads to every improvement.

Self-awareness (sometimes also referred to as self-knowledge or introspection) is about understanding your own needs, desires, failings, habits, and everything else that makes you tick. The more you know about yourself, the better you are at adapting life changes that suit your needs.

Take for example the famous story about the circus elephant. Do you know what they do to keep a circus elephant from running away? They tie a metal chain onto a collar around the mighty elephant’s leg – and tie it to a small wooden peg that’s hammered into the ground. The 10-foot tall, 5,000 kilo hulk could easily snap the chain, uproot the wooden peg, and escape to freedom. But it does not do that. In fact it does not even try. The world’s most powerful animal, which can uproot a tree as easily as you and I can break a toothpick, remains tied down by a small peg and a flimsy chain. How come?

It’s because when the elephant was a baby, its trainers used exactly the same methods. A chain was tied around its leg and the other end of the chain was tied to a metal stake on the ground. The chain and peg were strong enough for the baby elephant. When it tried to break away, the metal chain would pull it back. Sometimes, tempted by the world it could see in the distance, the elephant would pull harder. But the chain would cut into the skin on the elephant’s leg, making it bleed, creating a wound that would hurt the baby elephant even more. Soon, the baby elephant realized it was futile trying to escape. It stopped trying!

And now when the big circus elephant is tied by a chain around its leg, it remembers the pain it felt as a baby. And it does not try to break away. So even though it’s just a chain and a little wooden peg, the elephant stands still. It remembers its limitations, and knows that it can only move as much as the chain will allow. It does not matter that the metal stake has been replaced by a wooden peg. It does not matter that the 100 kilo baby is now a 5,000 kilo powerhouse. However, the elephant’s belief prevails.

We are all the elephant. All that stops us from escaping to our freedom is ourselves. All we need to achieve freedom is to realize our strength and our weaknesses. And once we do that, all we need is to break the chains and stride away.