EMOTIONS, STRESS AND ENERGY:

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: It is an ability to understand oneself as well as others, by

developing an ability to recognize and handle one’s own emotions and of others. It helps
in addressing the points like power struggles with others, poor handling of productive
criticism or disappointment or frustration, fail to empathize with others. Effective leaders
has high level of emotional intelligence and in case of stressful situations they assess the
situation and impart confidence to others rather than losing control over the situation.
Daniel Goleman developed the Four Quadrant Model of Emotional Intelligence: It is a two
by two grid with four quadrants as
1. Self-awareness – getting to
know yourself better. Understanding
one’s own strength and weakness.
2. Self-Management – Post the
recognition and knowing the strength
and weakness, developing the
capability of managing them in the
right way.
3. Social awareness – once the
understanding and managing your
emotions, then one has to understand
the emotions of others.
4. Relationship Management-
With the best understanding of the
emotions of self and others,
competencies such as handling
conflict, being sensitive to others’
emotions, getting along with others
could be developed.
http://www.letstalkaboutwork.tv/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/EQ-Table.png

HAPPINESS ADVANTAGE: Happiness is the experience in state of mind with positive

emotions with deeper meaning and purpose. Some of the positive emotions are joy,
gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and love.
It also state at which the creativity and innovation pops up as the brain broadens its
potential to new ideas and concepts, thereby improving positivity, productivity and
performance ending up in success. It also shuts out the negative emotions that takes the
brain to flight/fight mode to being motivated and skilled because of the chemicals
dopamine and serotonin which are flooded in, as the result of the positive emotions.
Some of the rituals that promotes happiness are meditating, feeling accepted, trusted
secure, act of kindness, sense of wellbeing, rewards etc. Developing habits like
appreciation, cracking jokes, smiling, gifting, empathy towards others, exercising,
meditating, spending time with family on a holiday lighten up the brain to positive emotions
to successful life.

MIRROR NEURONS: Mirror neurons are the brain cells which sense and replicate the
feeling and actions, post sensing it from another person. The emotions of the others i.e.
the environment has an impact on every individuals’ emotions and feelings. If a person is
constantly surrounded by positive emotions, then the impact would be creativity,
enthusiasm that lead to success. It may create a Tetris effect of positive emotions.
Likewise, if the working environment is full of negative emotions that may lead to a
negative Tetris effect and disrupts the performance by inducing stress. The emotions or
the mood of the leaders of the organisation has a major impact on the performance of the
sub – ordinates in turn the organisation. Emotions are contagious and it can be
constructive or destructive.

STRESS & ENERGY MANAGEMENT:

Stress is the response in terms of mental, physical, emotional and behavioural to a

potential threat and demand. Basically, stress is the result of piled up unattended negative
emotions. In threating situations, the reptilian brain takes control to a flight/fight mode
resulting in negative emotions contributing to stressful situations. Mostly, stress is
common in activities that limits time. Some stressful situations could be financial distress,
completing the job on or before time, ambiguous situations, transitions in life, controlling
situations etc., One of the best ways, to tackle stress is to manage the energy. Energy
management could be done in terms of body, emotions, mind and spirit. Attending these
requirements will also result in proper management of time.

Body: Eating meals on correct time, taking short breaks in between tasks, exercising and
having proper and sufficient sleep, avoiding habits that harm the body like drinking
alcohol, and smoking.
Emotions: appreciating others, spending enough time with family and loved ones, doing
activities that gives joy and having close relationships.
Mind: Prioritizing tasks by allocating time and energy, spending time on long term value
and high leverage, strategy and creative thinking, vocations with loved ones.
Spirit: developing a hobby, investing time and energy in making positive differences in
one’s own as well as others life, meditating, expending energy on activities producing
meaning and purpose to life.

By maintaining the energy and time, negative emotions that leads to burnouts and stress
could be avoided. Stress affects the body by increasing the blood pressure and leads to
cardiovascular diseases, eventually. Organizations should invest in activities that build
the employees life and sustain their value so that individual would respond in working
wholeheartedly, daily.

ATTENTION DEFICIT TRAIT:

A real unrecognized neurological phenomenon that leads to distractibility, inner frenzy
and impatience due to brain overload is called Attention deficit trait. ADT is recognized in
people by having difficulty in staying organized, setting priorities and managing time. It
also end up in undermining of work.
As the flooding of data increases, the brain loses its ability to think rational and the
reptilian brain takes over the fight / flight decision leading the negative emotions like fear,
anxiety, impatience, irritability, anger or panic that harms the critical decision making
ability of the brain.
ADT has become an epidemic in corporate culture and it can be managed by promoting
positive emotions, taking care of the physical brain by having healthy diet and lifestyle.
The organization could create awareness about the ADT as a policy and train people on
the symptoms and provide solution. In doing so, the performance of the individual would
be increased along with productive, well- balanced and intelligent work enviornments.

TAKE AWAYS:
1. Emotional intelligence concept is best understood by understanding self-awareness,
Self-management, Social awareness and Relationship management.
2. Bounded awareness could be constructive or destructive. Constructive in case of target
oriented, high focussed objectives. Destructive in the case of relationship management,
risk management etc.,
3. Both the self and social competencies, would be used for develop a relationship that
could be managed well.
4. Having sound emotional intelligence would help in resolving conflicts.
5. Using the lens concept of “reverse lens”, “long lens” and wide lens would help in
understanding of situations better for effective decision making.
6. Like smile is contagious, the emotional well- being is interconnected to the emotions of
the leader of the company. So, leader should manage the emotions and that trigger the
employees’ performance and productivity.
7. Happiness induces the positive emotions in brain and triggers creativity and innovation
in people leading to success and high performance.
8. The environment has a major impact on the brain that reflects in the productivity of the
person in the organisation because of the concept of mirror neuron effect. It is good to be
surrounded with happiness by simple means of activities like gifting, taking a break to
spend time with loved ones, traveling to new places, developing a hobby etc.,
9. Stress could be managed by efficiently handling the energy.
10. Eating healthy and nutritious food and regular exercising, would solve most of the
problems related to health.
11. Having a close relationship would help us to transits the life decisions, efficiently.
12. Managing the time would lessen last minute rush and stress.
13. Prioritization of the work would result in the completion of work on time and avoid
anxiety and stress in organization.
14. Effective utilization of energy would result in keeping the body, mind, spirit and
emotions.
15. ADT could be avoided by a healthy lifestyle, meditating, calming down between tasks,
prioritizing the work, spending time with loved ones, going on a holiday.
16. In case of emergency situation, the reptilian brain gets activated and goes to the
fight/flight mode and trigger the negative emotions.
17. Having a deep breath would calm the nerves and address the panicking situation and
causes a decision making shifts to human brain for rational and deeper thinking.

References:
1. http://web.iitd.ac.in/~prbijwe/Book_Abstracts/C3_N14_The%20Happiness%20Ad
vantage%20By%20Shawn%20Achor.pdf
2. http://www.letstalkaboutwork.tv/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/EQ-Table.png
3. HBR’s 10 Must reads – On Managing Yourself.