BOOK REVIEW ON
WORKING WITH
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
BY DANIEL
GOLEMAN
REVEWED BY TRACY MORREIRA
PSYCHOLOGY 409b
INSTRUCTOR: Dr.
LEON JAMES
Working with Emotional Intelligence
is a book written by Daniel Goleman in 1995.
Although, he was not the first to come up with concept of emotional
intelligence, (EI) he states it as having these qualities from “character”
and “personality” to “soft skills” and “competence”, all of these human talents
leads up to emotional intelligence.
Goleman refers EI as “the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and
those of others, for motivating ourselves and for managing emotions, well in
ourselves and in our relationships.” In
my own word I see EI as being able to be aware of my feelings and use that to
get myself going and to keep my emotions in control, so that it will not get
out of hand with others as well as myself.
In a book review found on the web, http://www.eqi.org/, it is stated “Goleman basically stole term emotional
intelligence from John Mayer and Peter Salovey (two American University
professors in 1990 who published an academic article on emotional intelligence),
and greatly misrepresented the public about what EI actually is.” However, this particular review might state
that the book topics are not relevant for public concern today I feel that it
is. Although, a weakness towards this
book is that it is solely centered on businesses, companies, working in general
and does not focus on just everyday (interacting with others whether being at
school, parties, or at home) life.
“Mayer and Salovey found that some people were better than others at
things like identifying their own feelings, identifying the feelings of others
and solving problems involving emotional issues”, or as Goleman’s book states
“Mayer and Salovey defined EI in terms of being able to monitor and regulate
ones own and others feelings, and to use feelings to guide thought and
action”. Goleman focuses EI more on
workplace environments and not so much “fine-tuning the theory”, as Mayer and
Salovey does as suggested by Goleman. I
feel that this book should be created as looking as two aspects, EI in the
workplace and out of the workplace.
Being a product of the working field
I’ve had my share of customer service meetings. Where basically it is all about social skills and interacting
with the customer in a polite manner so that the company who you are working
for makes profit with the purchases and the return of that customer and even
their family and friends back to the establishment. Therefore, I feel that EI is needed in our society, yet not only in
the job areas but also in any social grouping.
It is needed for employers to have a better relationship with employees
so that employees will do an astonishing job, and communication between the tow
are open for any types of concerns pertaining to work. It is also needed in school systems where
teachers need to first acquire EI, as well as parents of students or anyone who
deals with other human beings. EI is
needed in everyone because we all deal with other human beings, we need to
understand what others are feelings so that we can better understand them and
encourage ourselves where then we can control our own emotions and those in
relationships.
The book’s concern was on the
problems of EI, that we do not know how to express or know what we want to
do. The book suggests some solutions in
learning the skills and being aware of yourself and others. Which brings us to another important term emotional
competence (EC). It is something
that is learned and that followed by an excellent performance at work,
etc. EC is based on EI, so by recognizing
our feelings and feelings of others we will be better at learning something new
so that our performances are highly appreciated. EI has a framework that is split into two, personal competence
and social competence. Under these five
EI’s are twenty-five EC’s, which you can refer to in the text, Working with
Emotional Intelligence pp. 26-27.
Personal competence is “competence determines how we manage ourselves”,
and social competence is “competence that determines how we handle
relationships”. One quote that is ahead
of this framework of EC’s that I liked was on pp. 25, “None of us is perfect on
this scale; we inevitably have a profile of strengths and limits. But, as we shall see, the ingredients for
outstanding performance require only that we have strengths in a given number
of these competencies, typically, at least six or so, that the strengths be
spread across all five areas of emotional intelligence. In other words, there are many paths to
excellence”. Which is simply
self-explanatory.
When dealing with either home or
work situations our bodies cannot divide the two. Stress no matter what the source will eventually build on one
another. In this book it shows of
stress in the work place how managers who were more tense or overwhelmed by job
pressures (they were not able to recognize their emotions or their employees
and did not learn valuable skills to accomplish an outstanding performance) ran
stores with the worst performance than managers who stayed most composed under
the same pressures. These pressures can
lead to stress (Goleman mentions two types of stress “good stress” and “bad
stress” pp. 88-89) “double the risk of someone with heart disease may
experience a dangerous decrease in blood flow to the heart with in hours of
having these feelings such as: sadness,
frustration, anger, tension, intense anxiety that may cause a heart
attack”. Also high levels of cortisol
can cause you to catch a cold. Your
levels can go up with psychological stress as well. These health or stress factors can be managed by relaxation
techniques like: taking a long bath,
exercise, yoga, writing in a journal or just doing nothing at all. Taking time out to relax will not stop you
from being upset and distressed, but by doing it regularly it will help to control
our emotions.
Goleman has taken EI into the
media. After writing his book, Working
with Emotional Intelligence Goleman was featured on Oprah Winfrey and Phil
Donahue and went on a speaking tour.
The book review from http://www.eqi.org/, claims Goleman to have “promoted his misleading version
of emotional intelligence that it is now difficult to separate truth from
fiction”. Goleman eventually left the
New York Times where he was a writer, and started his own consultation practice
catering to multi-national corporations.
Being a psychology major EI and EC
is related to psychology in general.
Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental
processes. There are seven major areas
of psychology in the text called, Psychology an Introduction by Charles G.
Morris pp. 3-5: Developmental,
Physiological, Experimental, Personality, Clinical and Counseling, Social and
Industrial and Organizational. All of
which have something to with the recognizing of our own emotions and those of
others.
I enjoyed this book because I
learned what EI was and how important it is especially in the job market. Although, they only focused on the work
place environments I hope that they would have focused on all types of everyday
life activities.
School
for example would have been good examples in this text. It would also have been focused on students
(younger students) so that it would be relevant for them to read this
book. This book is good for students at
the high school and college levels to read being that it is based on working
environment. It is not so much relevant
for younger children; I do feel it is relevant for it to be part of the
education system. Learning EI and EC at
an earlier age I feel can better the social skills of the student/child especially
if they are not learning it at home.
They can be better intact with their emotions as well as others
emotions. They will be also able to
control their reactions upon their emotions for the better, to lessen the
health and stress risks. This book should
be particularly read by every adult in the working field, all high school and
college students, yet I feel also by younger students if the book was modified
to the child’s class level.
REFERENCES
Definition and History of
“Emotional Intelligence”, book review http://www.eqi.org/,
Steven Hein last updated on November
3, 2001.
Psychology
an Introduction, text pp. 3-5, Charles G. Morris.
Working
with Emotional Intelligence, text, Daniel Goleman.
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