Profiles in Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is a powerful tool for increasing empathy and compassion, as well as assertive communication. The ten awesome women who comprise the Rutgers University Basketball team demonstrated, for the world, how important emotional intelligence can be in calming destructive dialog and promoting healthy anger.

These young women managed their anger and hurt over the vicious comments of Don Imus by using the incident to demonstrate civility, class, gracefulness and emotional intelligence. Rather than inflame an already volatile situation, they chose do have a private meeting with Mr. Imus, where they listened to his apology and shared the feelings which his comments triggered in them.

The four emotional intelligence skills of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management tend to pair up under two primary competencies: personal competence and social competence. Personal competence is a result of your self-awareness and self-management skills. It’s your ability to stay aware of your emotions and manage your behavior and tendencies. Social competence is a result of your social awareness and relationship management skills. It’s your ability to understand other people’s behavior (Don Imus) and motives and manage your relationships (anger). In response to Mr. Imus’ comments, all of these skills were used by the ten Rutgers University students and their coach to a great extent--their behavior influenced the ultimate outcome of this issue.


George Anderson, M.S.W, BCD, CAMF
Diplomate, American Association of Anger Management Providers
http://www.andersonservices.com/
http://www.angertrends.blogspot.com/
www.anger-management-resources.org