Emotional Intelligence: Look it up.

Emotional Intelligence: Look it up.  Acethecase.com defined "emotional intelligence" as based on the notion that the ability of managers to understand their own emotions, and those of the people they work with, is the key to better business performance.  Allpsych.com defined it as the awareness of and ability to manage one's emotions in a healthy and productive manner.  Last week we had the guest speaker come and talk to us about training.  He talked about emotional intelligence.  He told us when we got home to go and look it up.  I had no idea what it was and had no idea how it would be applied in to the business world.  He said that it’s a newer idea being used all throughout business.  He said that "emotional intelligence" helps create a great leader and brings you as a manager to your employee’s level.  Supposedly its one of the biggest ideas to hit the business world, yet it has been around since the 1900's.  I learned that it can even be traced back to the days of Darwin and how he discussed the importance of emotional expression for survival and adaption. Now day’s emotional intelligence is being related to the work place and testing people on their emotional intelligence can help you understand their thoughts and emotions on a different level.  I really enjoyed the guest speaker and the topics he presented on.  I actually went home and applied some of the things he spoke to us about. 

This week's discussion also brought me to think of another interesting point.  Facebook.  We talked about how when employers are holding interviews they will most likely search for the interviewee's on Google and facebook.  I am currently looking for a job and this topic of conversation made me go Google myself and check my facebook.  I would never have thought twice to Google myself to see what comes up. The first thing that comes up when I Google myself is my facebook page.  I double checked to make sure my page is blocked to random people and can only be accessed by my "friends".  This way if someone were to look me up and try to access my page without being requested they would not have access.  I would not want a possibly future employer to look me up on facebook and have something on my profile that might make them think twice about hiring me.  You do not really have control as to what people post on your wall.  The only thing you can do is delete their comments once they have already been posted.  You always want to leave a good first impression.