Archive for Relationship Management

Emotional Intelligence affects how well you express yourself. I have already covered in prior articles how emotional intelligence allows you to have good self-awareness, which is required for good self-management. And social awareness or empathy is needed for good relationship management. These are the building blocks of emotional intelligence that allow you to be skilled [...]

How do you have empathy? In many cases it comes naturally. In others it helps to take some conscious steps to promote your empathy for others. You need to make it your intention in these cases. Be clear as you face a situation that you want to have empathy for the other person, even if [...]

Having empathy is a crucial part of being emotionally intelligent and building good relationships. I define empathy as the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes. That means being present with them. Marshall Rosenberg in one of my favorite books, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, p. 91, defines empathy as, “Respectful understanding of [...]

Part of emotional intelligence is the ability to connect with others. You need to make this a conscious intention for important relationships and focus on this intention before you start a crucial conversation. Just being focused on this intention will tend to make you better at connecting. You are paying more attention to this goal, [...]

How to handle crucial conversations? Here are some steps to take. 1) If you know you must have a crucial conversation, prepare for it. When is it worth the time to prepare? If you have these three items of a crucial conversation: – When an important issue is involved. – The other person or group [...]

In work relationships, it is crucial that people trust you. Sometimes it is hard to build trust with someone who has a prior history that makes them afraid to trust you. For example, the CEO of a company once assigned me to give executive coaching to a VP of the company. I sat down with [...]

Have you ever been told that you were being judgmental? Most of us have heard that from a spouse, teenager or co-worker. How can you work on this? The first step may well be to become less judgmental toward yourself. Then you can more easily improve how you handle others too. Do you have self-judging [...]

I teach a 5-step emotionally intelligent problem-solving process in my Virtual-Workshop series, Leadership Communication™. Step 1: Ascertain the facts. What did you see or hear? Look beneath other people’s interpretations of the facts. What actually happened? Step 2: What do you and others think about the facts? What judgments are being made? Are there interpretations [...]

This is a true case. Imagine you are the Executive Director of a large non-profit organization. Your insurance company notified you that starting in 6 weeks your premiums for health insurance benefits for your employees would cost 25% more for the next year. Your Board of Directors instructed you to change to another plan called [...]

Collaboration can help you be more emotionally intelligent and resilient. One way to encourage collaboration is to ask the other person what they really want. And you need to tell them what you really want. If you can create a sense that both of you are a team facing a problem together, success is more [...]