Episode #73: How to Apply EQ to your Work in 2025

If you want to improve your EQ skills, make it a priority for 2025.

You can seek help from a coach, mentor, co-worker, family member, or friend. 

You can make it a habit to observe how people you interact with manage their emotions, good or bad, and to learn from them.

You can also pay close attention to your own emotions. Keep track of those people or situations that trigger a negative reaction from you.

Above all, use whatever visual or sound aids work best for you to keep EQ top of mind in 2025 and beyond. 

Transcript

Episode #73: How to Apply EQ to your Work in 2025

Welcome to THE CAREER ACCELERATOR, the podcast where corporate managers will find tips and tools to deliver results through others.

Hello. Today I will share suggestions on how to improve your emotional intelligence in 2025.

I’m your host, Percy Cannon. 

In our last episode I covered how CliftonStrengths from Gallup is widely used in organizations for leadership development, team building, and to improve workplace culture.

Within team scenarios, I mentioned how CliftonStrengths is best used when connected to a specific challenge or opportunity you are trying to solve.
 
 For this purpose, Gallup has created the “Five Truths of a Strong Team” model. It represents the key characteristics that differentiate high-performing teams from average ones. They are:

1.    Conflict Does Not Destroy Strong Teams Because Strong Teams Focus on Results.

2.    Strong Teams Prioritize What’s Best for the Organization and Then Move Forward. 

3.    Members of Strong Teams Are as Committed to Their Personal Lives as They Are to Their Work.

4.    Strong Teams Embrace Diversity of CliftonStrength Talents. 

5.    Strong Teams Are Magnets for Talent. 

These five truths highlight that it’s not just individual talent that matters but how team members collaborate, leverage the different CliftonStrengths themes and domains present in the team, and support one another in achieving common goals. 

In today’s episode, I’m diving into a transformative topic that’s reshaping workplaces, relationships, and personal growth: emotional intelligence. Specifically, I am unpacking insights from Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves. This book has taken the concept of emotional intelligence and broken it down into actionable steps to help anyone boost it and improve how they handle emotions—both their own and those of others.

So, what is emotional intelligence? You may have heard of it as “EQ” or emotional quotient. It’s about being aware of, understanding, and managing your own emotions, while also being tuned into the emotions of those around you. Emotional intelligence isn’t just a “soft skill.” It has a big impact on personal relationships, leadership potential, and professional success.

Bradberry and Greaves explain EQ within two main categories: personal competence and social competence.

Let’s start with personal competence, which is your ability to stay aware of your emotions and manage your behavior and tendencies. It is composed of two key skills: self-awareness and self-management.

Self-awareness is about recognizing and understanding your own emotions in real-time. It’s noticing when you're starting to feel frustrated, or nervous, or excited, and understanding the cause of those feelings. Self-awareness helps you make more thoughtful decisions instead of reacting impulsively. Bradberry and Greaves emphasize that self-awareness is foundational because it lets you understand your emotional triggers and patterns, and this awareness then leads to better choices.

The next personal competence skill is self-management. Self-management is the ability to regulate your emotions. It’s about staying in control, especially when emotions are running high. Think of a heated discussion: If you can pause, take a breath, and choose a response instead of reacting, that’s self-management in action. Bradberry and Greaves give practical tips here, like the famous “count to ten” rule or visualization techniques. Over time, mastering self-management can help you become more resilient and adaptable.

This brings us to the social side of emotional intelligence: social awareness and relationship management.

Social awareness is all about empathy and recognizing the emotions of others. It’s about picking up on social cues, body language, and tone, which can be especially useful in group settings. This skill helps you “read the room” and understand how others are feeling, even if they’re not saying it outright. Social awareness enables you to build rapport and establish trust with others.

Relationship management, on the other hand, is the skill of using your self-awareness and social awareness to connect with others effectively. It includes skills like communication, conflict resolution, and teamwork. Leaders with high relationship management skills can inspire their teams, manage conflicts diplomatically, and create a positive atmosphere. 

Bradberry and Greaves make it clear: Relationship management is not about avoiding conflict but rather about handling it with empathy and fairness.

In my executive coaching programs, I commonly run a 360-feedback process, where I interview employees who frequently interact with my client at work. I typically discover one or more EQ opportunities for improvement, such as not waiting for the other person to finish talking before responding, not investing the time to build a relationship with a co-worker, and not showing vulnerability to ask for candid feedback.

For each EQ opportunity encountered, we develop an action plan with an agreed-upon success criterion, typically a forward view of how the executive will have improved and practiced a particular personal or relationship competence skill.

If you want to improve your EQ skills, make it a priority for 2025.

You can seek help from a coach, mentor, co-worker, family member, or friend. 

You can make it a habit to observe how people you interact with manage their emotions, good or bad, and to learn from them.

You can also pay close attention to your own emotions. Keep track of those people or situations that trigger a negative reaction from you.

Above all, use whatever visual or sound aids work best for you to keep EQ top of mind in 2025 and beyond. Growing your emotional intelligence is a life-long journey of continuous improvement. Be patient but consistent.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode on emotional intelligence. Whether you’re looking to improve your leadership, strengthen relationships, or simply understand yourself better, I hope today’s discussion gave you some valuable insights.

If you like what you heard today, please rate, subscribe, or follow this podcast and share it with your co-workers and friends. 

This is Percy Cannon, working to help you make the rest of your life…the best of your life®.