Organizational and personal effectiveness and emotional intelligence

Presentation

In order to contribute to the dissemination of Stephen R. Covey's proposal for personal and organizational effectiveness, which is clearly of paramount importance to promote the development of people and organizations in a world scenario of intense changes, growing challenges and demands for greater competitiveness, I develop in this work some of its most important concepts. Likewise, I present some ideas about the new concept of emotional intelligence and its importance for the development of the individual and organizations, according to the studies by Daniel Goleman. Between Covey, with his administrative vision, and Goleman, with his psychological vision, I introduce some general ideas about Viktor E. Frankl, with his philosophical vision, about the existential problems of the contemporary world.

Despite the fact that Stephen R. Covey and Daniel Goleman are well-known authors in the United States, their country of origin, as well as in many parts of the world, in our environment they really are not. I think, then, that the opportunity is favorable to get to know your ideas, first, as well as assess the possibility of applying them, later.

Who Is Stephen R. Covey?

A decade ago Stephen R. Covey, the so-called American Socrates, wrote: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), making his book an extraordinary best seller in his country, first, and in the rest of the world, after.

To date, this exceptional book has been translated into more than twenty-five languages, has been published in more than twelve million copies, and its study multiplies more and more every day. In Spanish this book was published in 1990 by Editorial Paidós Ibérica SA with the name of: The 7 habits of highly effective people. The ethical revolution in daily life and in the company.

After this great editorial success, Covey has continued his writing career, writing the works: Leadership Centered in Principles (1990); Daily Meditations for Highly Effective People (1994); First the first (1994), written with the collaboration of A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families (1998); The Nature of Leadership (1999), written with the participation of A. Roger Merril and Dewitt Jones; and Living the 7 habits: Story of Courage and Inspirations (1999), these last two books still not translated into our language.

Stephen R. Covey, BA from the University of Utah, MBA from Harvard University and Ph.D from Bringham Young University, has been considered by the prestigious Time magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential Americans in his country. Dr. Covey has also won numerous awards for excellence in his contribution to the development of individuals and organizations.

Currently Dr. Covey leads the Franklin Covey Company, an important firm that carries out, among other activities, studies and applications on Principle Centered Leadership in the most important organizations and institutions in the world. Its client portfolio includes 82 of the 100 Fortune and more than two thirds of the 500 Fortune, thousands of medium and small companies and government entities, and many thousands more families and individuals worldwide.

Covey products and services are available in over twenty-eight languages, and its planning products are used by more than 15 million people. The Franklin Covey organization has a worldwide network of offices and stores; It has a Headquarters located in Salt Lake, Utah (USA), and more than one hundred dispersed representations in the United States of America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceania and Africa.

Stephen R. Covey proposes in his consecrated work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a renewed philosophy of life based on the understanding and application of the seven habits of personal and organizational effectiveness. Such habits - a synthesis of your keynote study on the culture of success in two hundred years in the United States - are as follows: 1. Be proactive; 2. Start with an end in mind; 3. Establish first things first; 4. Think about win / win; 5. Seek first to understand and then to be understood; 6. Synergize; and 7. Sharpen the saw.

The question that surely many of us can ask ourselves is the following: Why has Stephen R. Covey's first book - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - caused a sensation worldwide?

I will risk pointing out three reasons to try to explain this unique editorial success, which in turn has led to extraordinary business success reflected in the Franklin Covey Company.

First, because the book in question is very solidly grounded in Stephen R. Covey's studies of written ideas of success in the past two hundred years in his home country. Indeed, the author himself points out that his study on the literature of success includes the thousands of writings made since 1776 in his country. This extraordinary knowledge would only constitute the essence of the wisdom of a democratic people on the art of living based on principles.

Second, because the ideas of Stephen R. Covey are highly educational and enriching for anyone who is able to respond to the personal challenge posed by their own overcoming. Based on the important concept of principles, it supports the architecture of the seven habits of highly effective people. Without losing conceptual depth, Covey presents a whole development program applicable to individuals, families, groups and organizations of all kinds.

Third, because Stephen R. Covey's book reaches the community in the right time to be valued, assimilated and exploited. There is no doubt that there is a need in people to find meaning in their own lives, just as it is undeniable that Covey's ideas are transformed into the hands of each one into powerful tools for modeling one's life.

Stephen R. Covey has illuminated in our time the need for understanding on the path of personal and organizational development. It is now up to each individual and organization to walk the tiring and long road that leads to self-improvement. Each one will illuminate his life with a greater understanding and improvement in his own circumstances. That is the challenge that each of us has to respond with the quality of our decisions and actions.

Foundations of personal and organizational effectiveness

The five columns that support the conceptual structure of Stephen R. Covey's thought are the following: 1. Paradigms; 2. Principles; 3. Inside-out process; 4. Habits of effectiveness; and 5. Levels of effectiveness. It is convenient at this point to briefly explain each of these concepts to understand the habits of personal and organizational effectiveness.

Paradigms

According to Covey, paradigms are the ways in which people see the world, in the sense of perception, understanding or interpretation. Another way of understanding paradigms is the idea that they are theories, explanations, models or assumptions that are useful in explaining reality. The paradigms would be nothing but maps of our minds and hearts that give rise to our attitudes and behaviors and, ultimately, to results.

Psychology has three important paradigms for understanding human psychism and behavior. A paradigm -or psychological force- is the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud; another is John B. Watson's behaviorism; and finally, the humanism of Abraham H. Maslow. Of course, each of these paradigms or psychological forces have been divided into many others, but this topic is not properly a central reason for this exposition.

In administration we can also find paradigmatic administrative thoughts. In the eighteenth century the ideas of Adam Smith appeared; in the 19th century the ideas of Charles Babbage; in the early twentieth century the ideas of Frederick W. Taylor; and, finally, at the end of this century, the ideas of W. Edwards Deming.

Beginning

The principles - always in Covey's vision - are natural laws in the human dimension that govern effectiveness and cannot be broken. These principles represent deep, fundamental, enduring, universal, and permanent truths that have been recognized by all major civilizations through time.

If the paradigms are the map, then the principles are the territory. One of the most important principles is the law of the harvest. It would be enough to understand it to ask ourselves the following: Can we reap what we have not sown with our own effort? Some other principles are the following: Quality, change, development, human dignity, education, integrity, rectitude, service, potential and process.

Inside-out process

According to Covey, the process of change and personal development always occurs from the inside out, and is based on the principles, the human person (character, paradigms and motivations) and the habits of effectiveness. This means that the programs of change and personal development in order to be really effective have to be assimilated internally by the person, transcending internal resistance and external barriers.

Habits of effectiveness

The habits of personal and organizational effectiveness constitute a new paradigm proposed by Stephen R. Covey, supported by seven habits recognized by our author in his original and productive study about the literature of success in his country during the period 1776 - 1976.

Habits would only be the result of the intersection of three elements: 1. Knowledge, responds to what to do and why; 2. Capacity, responds to how to do; and 3. Desire, respond to wanting to or motivation. These three elements are required to make something a habit in our lives.

Let us see, by way of illustration, the habit of reading through these three elements: 1. What should I read and why should I read ?; 2. How should I read ?; 3. Do I want to read? If a certain person lacks the habit of reading, there is no doubt that one or more of these elements are not at the intersection. Regarding the habit of reading, recent official statistics report, for example, that Peru only surpasses Haiti in terms of readership in Latin America. As a counterbalance to this situation, we can say that the habit of watching television is replacing the habit of reading. Too bad, yes, that Peruvian television does not yet offer all the educational possibilities that it should put at the service of its own community.

The key to effectiveness is the relationship between production and production capacity. Covey illustrates this relationship very well by narrating Aesop's fable of the golden goose. The fabulist says that on one occasion a farmer had the happiness of meeting a hen that laid a golden egg every day. Not giving credence to what his senses perceived, the suspicious farmer had the egg checked by other people. And indeed, he was able to verify that the egg was golden. By the way, our farmer got rich, because every day that the hen gave him a golden egg. It wasn't long before his excessive ambitions made him think that it was better to kill the chicken to have all the golden eggs at once. Indeed,Without further thought he decided to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. But when he killed it and opened it, he found to his despair that there was no golden egg inside. Without thinking of the consequences, he had killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Thus, the hen's golden egg each day represents production, just as the hen represents production capacity.

The seven habits embody essential principles ingrained in our moral conscience and common sense. The habits of effectiveness are the following: 1. Be proactive-habit of responsibility-; 2. Start with an end in mind - habit of personal leadership; 3. Establish first things first -a habit of personal administration-; 4. Think of win / win-habit of mutual benefit-; 5. Seek first to understand and then to be understood - a habit of effective communication; 6. Synergize-habit of interdependence-; and 7. Sharpen the saw - habit of continuous improvement.

Effectiveness levels

These levels of effectiveness, always in Covey's vision, are the following: 1. Personal effectiveness; 2. Interpersonal effectiveness; 3. Managerial effectiveness; and 4. Organizational effectiveness. Let's look very briefly at each of these levels of effectiveness:

1. Personal effectiveness, based on the principle of reliability, constitutes the relationship with myself; Interpersonal effectiveness, based on the principle of trust, are my relationships and interactions with others; Managerial effectiveness, sustained on the principle of empowerment, is the responsibility to make others carry out a certain task with a clear sense of responsibility and commitment; yOrganizational effectiveness, supported by the principle of alignment, is the need to organize people in harmony with the main lines of the organization.

The habits of personal and organizational effectiveness.

Habit One: Be proactive.

This habit of effectiveness represents the possibility of taking on new challenges in an environment of individual freedom and social responsibility of the human person. This is the habit of awareness and responsible behavior, which is decisive for each person to understand their accomplishments and frustrations, their challenges and responses, their ambitions and their achievements.

It is very important to understand that between the stimuli, coming from the external and internal environment, and the responses, manifested in observable behaviors or not, there is the inner freedom to decide. This is obviously a non-deterministic position, as Viktor E. Frankl himself pointed out when considering it the last of human freedoms. Man can be stripped of everything except choosing his attitude values ​​in the face of his own life circumstances. A master lesson in inner freedom to choose was given by Frankl himself as a result of his painful experience during his years of confinement (1942 - 1945) in four Nazi concentration camps. His extraordinary book: A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp (1946), later published with the title: The Man in Search of Meaning,It will always endure as one of the most valuable human legacies of courage and hope in the most difficult conditions for a human being to endure.

Some illustrative examples of what constitutes the habit of responsibility are the following:

• Value proactivity positively because your daily practice will also mean greater personal freedom. Feel, think and act recognizing that your family is your most important responsibility. Accept new challenges that challenge you to question and break your precarious security to develop more and more. with determination and courage the internal and external barriers that prevent you from acting proactively. Anticipate the future by designing preventive actions with creativity and opportunity. Act with great responsibility in your work as an intelligent way to progress. Reaffirm your responsibility day by day about his own life.

Habit Two: Start with an end in mind.

This habit of effectiveness reflects personal leadership and fully satisfies the need to find meaning in one's existence. This is the habit of the first creation or mental creation, which is essential in each person to understand the fulfillment of his existential mission.

Observations and studies on the vision of the future reveal that it is truly extraordinary and, as Stephen R. Covey considers it, the power of a vision of the future is incredible. The world literature abounds with cases that demonstrate the way in which the vision of the future enables the achievement of their own objectives. Viktor E. Frankl demonstrated this personally, as well as in the cases of those other individuals faced with extreme situations in the Nazi concentration camps. Benjamin Singer also verified the case of school children who had an image of roles focused on the future and their influence on their development. Andrew Campbell and Laura L. Nash studied the influence of the sense of mission in the case of organizations and teams. Finally, Fred Polak studied, in the case of civilizations,the influence of the collective vision of the future.

Some illustrative examples of what the habit of personal leadership is, are the following:

• Decide and act enlightened with your own vision of the future. Direct your life anticipating your future course. Contrast your decisions and actions with your personal mission and make the adjustments that correspond. Accept that your life has a meaning… But also recognize that it is you who has to discover it. Identify the principles and values ​​that guide your own life. Determine the meaning of your life and commit yourself to it. Lead your life outlining the course you will travel today and tomorrow.

Habit 3: Establish first things first.

This habit of effectiveness interprets the idea of ​​personal administration, and its intelligent application enables people to find the difference between what is important and what is urgent to be more effective. This is the habit of the second creation or physical creation, which is basic to understand the quality of decisions and actions on a daily basis.

There are several generations of smart time management applications, each of which has made substantial progress over the previous one: From the first, based on notes and to-do lists; going through the second, supported by the agendas; up to the third, based on time management. Stephen R. Covey has proposed a fourth that finds its sustenance in the matrix of personal administration, in which each activity can be classified according to two criteria: 1) Urgency, those activities that require immediate action; and 2) Importance, those activities that have to do with results. Thus, each activity is capable of being classified into the following quadrants: 1) Urgent and important: Administration due to crisis; 2) Not urgent and important:Proactive management; 3) Urgent and not important: reactive administration; and 4) Not urgent and not important: ineffective administration. It is obvious that it is the second quadrant that is key to achieving effectiveness.

Some illustrative examples of the habit of personal administration are the following:

• Define as a priority the objectives and goals that you must achieve in the short, medium and long term. Decide on what is not urgent but important in your life… and determine to act accordingly. Specify your roles and goals, strive to meet them… and renew them.Establish a model of conduct that allows you to be fully interdependent.Effectivize your results by previously defining the hierarchy of your obligations.Work and commit daily on your private victory.Practice daily using your planner (agenda) to mark day to day day the difference.

Habit Four: Think Win / Win.

This habit of effectiveness exemplifies mutual benefit and powerfully helps to find balance in human relationships with a sense of common good and fairness. This is the habit that makes it possible to achieve shared satisfaction among all those who participate in a negotiation process.

This habit includes the study of six paradigms of human interaction: 1) win / win; 2) you win / lose; 3) I lose / win; 4) I lose / lose; 5) I win; and 6) win / win or no deal. Each of these paradigms is a model of human relations that carries certain objectives and achievements; however, the first model of those named in an interdependent reality is the only viable one. This first model represents mutually satisfactory benefits, in addition to involving mutual learning and mutual influence. The history of conflict in all psychological and social spheres reflects the absence of this understanding, first, and the unfortunate practice of negotiations, later. The collective bargaining processes carried out periodically between business and union representations reflect,in most Latin American business realities, a model based on the win / lose paradigm, the same one that ultimately becomes a lose / lose paradigm.

Some illustrative examples of the habit of mutual benefit are the following:

• Think that if you treat the other as you would like to be treated, you would be sowing the seed of win / win. Accept the fact that both you and others can and should benefit from a negotiation. Business by acting with integrity, maturity and abundance mentality Decide what favors the common good and equity Act thinking that everyone should benefit Cultivate a win / win philosophy of life in family, work and social life Stimulate the intelligence of the team by contributing a philosophy and conduct based on win / win.

Fifth habit: Seek first to understand and then to be understood.

This habit of effectiveness describes effective communication and should be applied in order to develop the benefits of emotional intelligence and obtain a social climate of respect and harmonious coexistence. This is the habit that underpins the need to empathically understand the other and then to be understood and to build more constructive interpersonal relationships.

The importance of empathic listening in the process of human communication stands out especially in this habit. Although all habits of effectiveness are closely related to emotional intelligence, this habit is to a greater degree due to its own emotional connotations. It has been proven through various studies that active listening is a critical aptitude for the supervisor to achieve success in his management. This listening is with the sincere intention of deeply and truly understanding the other person. It may be recalled here that ancient Greek philosophy recognizes ethos, the foundation of character and integrity; pathos, the basis of empathy and feeling; and logos, sustenance of logic and reason.

Some illustrative examples of the habit of empathic communication are the following:

• Mentally learn to put yourself in the shoes of the other to begin to understand him. Ask yourself if the quality of your communication with people provides the necessary respect and enables a harmonious coexistence. Recognize that to understand the other you must learn to listen to him… with an open mind. Understand the other to communicate, first, and find an effective solution together, later. Behave with the necessary firmness and security in front of others to be heard. Make constant and positive deposits in the emotional bank account of others.Learn how to establish empathetic communication by listening and letting yourself be heard.

Sixth habit: Synergize.

This habit of effectiveness implies interdependence and is the social product of well integrated, productive and creative individuals, families, work teams and organizations. This is the habit that underpins the synergistic achievements of teamwork, that is, of those teams in which the result of the group is greater than the simple sum of its members. It could also be said that the IQ of the team is greater than the average of the IQ of those who participate in its composition.

Synergy is a product resulting from the quality of internal and external relations of singular quality. Thus, intrapersonal synergy is a consequence of the practice of the first three habits that promote private victory or personal mastery; while interpersonal synergy is the result of the practice of the three second habits that generate public victory or interpersonal mastery. Another way to approach interpersonal synergy is to consider it as a product of the abundance mindset, the emotional bank account, and the effort to first try to understand. A notable example of synergy is committed, productive, and creative quality circles.

Some illustrative examples of the habit of interdependence are the following:

• Synergize by acting proactively, competitively and creatively in your work team. Select the third top idea in the human groups in which you participate. Achieve new achievements and foster innovation in your own family. dimensions of your personality and achieve greater internal synergy. Act proactively to help build a well-integrated and productive work team. Accept diversity as a strength of the work team that needs to be exploited with intelligence, creativity and sensitivity. to a work team adding and multiplying efforts to achieve the group's objectives synergistically.

Seventh habit: Sharpen the saw.

This habit of effectiveness interprets continuous improvement and offers a horizon of personal improvement in each and every one of the areas of our personality. This is the habit that allows us to understand personal improvement in the physical, mental, socio-emotional and spiritual dimensions.

Stephen R. Covey calls this habit sharpening the saw for that story that tells about a woodcutter who is in the woods trying very hard to knock down trees with his ax. However, it does not cross his mind that his ax also needs to be sharpened from time to time to regain its edge and continue to provide good service. Well, that is precisely what happens to people when they are not able to make a stop on the path of their lives to recover new energies with restful rest, study reading, solidarity with others or meditation. People require renewal in each and every dimension of our personality: physical, mental, socio-emotional and spiritual. In any case,the lack of a proper renovation in these dimensions can have a very high cost for people.

Some illustrative examples of the habit of continuous improvement are the following:

• Rest peacefully for the hours you need to replenish your physical and mental energies. Read, study and reflect… It is still one of the smartest ways to get informed, educated and cultivated. Improve everything you do, there will always be room for improvement. Eat nutritiously and healthily to always be in good shape. Develop your character by expressing principles in your behavior. and positive values. Offer yourself the chance to renew yourself in all dimensions of your personality. Cultivate a vocation of service by serving others with love.

The synergy of habits of personal and organizational effectiveness.

Stephen R. Covey states very clearly that the habits of personal and organizational effectiveness must be applied in an integral, interrelated and sequential way. The seven habits of personal and organizational effectiveness must be applied in a comprehensive way to precisely promote their synergy. The habits are also interrelated with each other, which also favors their internal synergy. The sequence of habits establishes, first, the achievement of private victory, basically by practicing the first three habits of effectiveness; and, later, the public victory, fundamentally by the practice of the three second habits. The seventh habit should be practiced at all times as it helps to substantially improve all dimensions of the personality: physical, mental, socio-emotional and spiritual.The key to the effectiveness of the seven habits lies precisely in their integrated, interrelated and sequential application.

The seven habits of effectiveness constitute a new development paradigm that establishes a difficult personal and organizational challenge. It is not, therefore, a simple recipe but to incorporate new habits into one's personality that foster development in each and every one of the dimensions of personality. Here, too, the phenomenon of resistance to change can be understood for various reasons and considerations. It can be seen, for example, how difficult it can be for a person who lacks the habit of reading to acquire this habit during adulthood. It is dramatic to see that next to absolute illiteracy - people who are not intelligent in reading and writing - is functional illiteracy.This functional illiteracy occurs when people learn to read and write, but due to the lack of educational habits they unlearn these acquired cultural skills. You can also see in your life how difficult it is to acquire new habits if you try to acquire the habit of daily physical exercises. It is then about overcoming yourself to acquire new healthy life habits that replace old and unhealthy habits. It is true that it is not an impossible task, but it is demanding to the maximum, especially when self-discipline is not as strong as it is required.It is then about overcoming yourself to acquire new healthy life habits that replace old and unhealthy habits. It is true that it is not an impossible task, but it is demanding to the maximum, especially when self-discipline is not as strong as it is required.It is then about overcoming yourself to acquire new healthy life habits that replace old and unhealthy habits. It is true that it is not an impossible task, but it is demanding to the maximum, especially when self-discipline is not as strong as it is required.

Emotional intelligence: A need and a hope.

Emotional intelligence is a new name for an old reality in psychology. This term appears in psychological literature only in 1990, in a writing by American psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer. However, it was only with the publication of the book The Emotional Intelligence (1995) by Daniel Goleman that the concept spread quickly and made a fortune. This interesting book was soon followed by another, by Goleman himself, with the name of Emotional Intelligence in the Company (1998).

While recognizing the importance of the IQ -Ic- and the expertise for the achievement of development objectives in the company, Daniel Goleman, the main scholar and disseminator of the concept of emotional intelligence, has pointed out that success in company would obey no less than 80 percent of this important factor.

Why has the topic of emotional intelligence captured the attention of the scientific, academic, business, communication and social media around the world? There may be several reasons for this phenomenon, but I would venture to point out that the main one is the dramatic daily verification of the very serious social and human problems that are experienced at all times in the world. Emotional intelligence in this daily scenario of disagreements and anguishes would only represent a need to find ourselves and others, as well as a living hope for humanity.

The existential problems of the contemporary world

Viktor E. Frankl (1905 - 1997), the notable Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist, founder of the third Viennese school of psychotherapy, reflected on the serious existential problems and social ills of the contemporary era in several of his extraordinary books and stated how an answer to them the logotherapy and the existential analysis.

The principles on which logotherapy is based, according to Joseph Fabry, one of Frankl's most conspicuous disciples, are the following:

1. Life has meaning in any circumstance: Man owns a will of meaning, and feels frustrated or empty when he stops exercising it; yMan is free, within his obvious manifestations, to consummate the meaning of his existence.

Viktor E. Frankl also explained the collective neurosis that characterizes sick societies. The four symptoms of these sick societies would be the following:

1. Fatalism, that is, the belief that there is an inexorable destiny that locks the human being in the limits of a determinism from which it is not possible to escape. This fatalistic mentality is one of the psychosocial features of the culture of poverty in Latin America and throughout the world: fanaticism or reductionism in beliefs, values ​​and behaviors that distance human beings from their rationality and drive them to exclusion, prejudice and authoritarianism. It manifests itself in politics, religion, culture, sports and in many of the segregationist isms of the current era: the massification or the loss of the sense of individuality that turns the free man into a mass man. Totalitarianisms of any political sign engender this basic personality type.The provisional existence due to the insecurity that allows the horizon of life of man to be reduced to the present moment and forget the value that the present action has for the realization of a future with hope and development. It is a response to the lack of hope and sense of life.

Frankl also understood the evils of our contemporary age, and classified them into three groups:

1. Depression, one of the most serious psychiatric illnesses, which has a constantly increasing incidence and prevalence worldwide. It also manifests itself in the form of discouragement, discouragement and hopelessness in life and for life. Addictions, which in recent years have not only worsened but have even appeared new forms with technological development. It is a global problem that has profound and dramatic psychological, social, cultural, legal, economic and political repercussions. Aggression, manifested at all times and in all corners of the planet. It appears covered in the form of couple conflicts, family abandonment, non-responsible parenthood, extreme poverty, exploitation of children and women for prostitution, child and youth gangs, criminal crime, drug trafficking, guerrillas,terrorism, social revolts and protests, terrorism, torture and many other forms of violence.

A personal communication from the teacher Leticia Ascencio de García, General Director of the Mexican Society for Existential Analysis and Logotherapy, informs us: “Here in Mexico, logotherapy responds to a longing for hope that Mexicans feel in a country that lives day by day in more insecurity and to which the collapse of traditions is affecting like many peoples of the world ”.

And what could each of us say about the state of affairs in our country. Perhaps it would be enough to watch only one day of national television programming to see on the screen reflected our own misery not only material but also moral and spiritual.

Fortunately, there are well-founded hopes, there are living forces in society that with few resources and in silent but fruitful and committed action, fight to overcome the degrading advance of the culture of death and its moral and spiritual misery that day by day its merchants try to sell us..

The message of Viktor E. Frankl, synthesized in his beautiful words: In spite of everything, yes to life, is really hopeful for a world in which large masses of people lose faith in their own life and in life.

The challenge for all of us, picking up the hopeful frankliano message, is to learn to live every day full of meaning or, what is the same, full of humanity for the richness of our principles and values.

What is emotional intelligence?

After understanding why an issue such as emotional intelligence is important in our world today, it is necessary to define it and know a little more about its psychological and social structure and dynamics.

Daniel Goleman on the term emotion has written, in Emotional Intelligence (1995), the following: “I use the term emotion to refer to a characteristic feeling and its thoughts, to psychological and biological states and to a variety of tendencies to act. There are hundreds of emotions, along with their combinations, variables, mutations, and nuances. Indeed, there are more subtleties in emotion than we can name. "

This same author in his book Emotional Intelligence in the Company (1998) has defined: "The term" emotional intelligence "refers to the ability to recognize our own feelings and those of others, to motivate us and to manage emotions well, in us themselves and in our relationships. "

In this definition, Goleman has considered five emotional aptitudes, classified in turn into two large groups:

Personal fitness

They are what determine the domain of oneself. They comprise the following skills:

1. Self-knowledge. Self-regulation. Motivation.

Social aptitude

They are what determine the management of relationships. They comprise the following skills:

1. Empathy. Social skills.

Before defining each of these emotional skills, let's see, following Goleman himself, what an emotional skill is. Goleman notes, "An emotional aptitude is a learned ability, based on emotional intelligence, that results in outstanding job performance."

Now let's take a quick look at each of these emotional skills necessary to excel in the competitive world of work.

1. Self-knowledge consists of knowing your own internal states, preferences, resources and intuitions. This self-knowledge comprises, in turn, three emotional skills: 1. Emotional awareness: Recognition of one's emotions and their effects; 2. Accurate self-assessment: Knowledge of one's inner resources, abilities and limits; and 3. Self-confidence: Certainty about one's worth and faculties. Self-regulation consists of managing one's internal states, impulses and resources. This self-regulation comprises, in turn, five emotional skills: 1. Self-control: Keeping emotions and harmful impulses under control; 2. Reliability: Maintain standards of honesty and integrity; 3. Scrupulousness: Accept responsibility for personal performance; 4. Adaptability:Flexibility to react to changes; and 5. Innovation: Being open and willing for novel ideas and approaches and new information. Motivation is the emotional trends that guide or facilitate goal achievement. This motivation includes, in turn, four emotional skills: 1. Eagerness to succeed: guiding desire to improve or respond to a standard of excellence; 2. Commitment: Align with the objectives of a group or organization; 3. Initiative: Willingness to take advantage of opportunities; and 4. Optimism: Tenacity to seek the goal, despite obstacles and setbacks. Empathy is the capture of feelings, needs and interests. This empathy comprises, in turn, five emotional skills: 1. Understanding others: Perceiving the feelings and perspectives of others,and take an active interest in their concerns; 2. Help others to develop: Perceive the development needs of others and build their capacity; 3. Orientation towards the service: To anticipate, recognize and satisfy the needs of the client; 4. Take advantage of diversity: Cultivate opportunities through diverse people; and 5. Political awareness: Interpreting social and political currents. Social skills are the skills to induce in others the desired responses. These social skills comprise, in turn, eight emotional skills: 1. Influence: Implement effective persuasion tactics; 2. Communication: Listen openly and convey convincing messages; 3. Conflict management: Handle and resolve disagreements; 4. Leadership: Inspire and guide individuals or groups; 5.Change catalyst: Initiate or manage changes; 6. Establish links: Nurture instrumental relationships; 7. Collaboration and cooperation: Work with others to achieve shared goals; and 8. Team skills: Create synergy to work towards collective goals.

This is a good account of the anatomy of emotional aptitudes, as Daniel Goleman himself understands them in the organization. However, other authors have a different way of understanding the structure of emotional skills in today's competitive business world. It can, for example, be reviewed from Robert K. Cooper and Ayman Sawaf: Emotional intelligence applied to leadership and organizations (1997). These authors present a model of emotional intelligence based on four pillars: 1. Emotional knowledge; 2. Emotional aptitude; 3. Emotional depth; and 4. Emotional alchemy. In turn, each one of these pillars of emotional intelligence has four emotional abilities, giving a total of sixteen emotional abilities.

The analysis of both models of emotional intelligence allows us to understand that emotional abilities are largely overlapped with different nomenclature. This topic will surely still be the subject of much controversy and debate, but for the moment Goleman's proposal seems to have a greater number of followers.

Organizational and personal effectiveness and emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence will undoubtedly be one of the topics that will be studied and exploited the most in the coming years. During the twentieth century one of the recurring themes of study and research in psychology has been that of rational intelligence, the same that has been expressed in terms such as mental age, IQ, intellectual abilities, cognitive functions and multiple intelligences.

By the way, there is still a lot to investigate and study regarding the issue of emotional intelligence, but what we can be sure of today is that the role of emotions is beginning to be fully recognized and revalued in business organizations.

Daniel Goleman has not properly proposed in his latest books: Emotional intelligence, first, and Emotional intelligence in the company, later, a program for the development of emotional skills. Yes, it has established fifteen guidelines for training in emotional skills. It has even founded the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, an entity that remains very active in creating effective programs for the development of emotional skills in companies. Some of these identified programs, which can be found via the Internet on the Consortium's website, are the following: Management interaction tactics and strategies for effective leadership, achievement motivation training, emotional skills training program,training in human relations, etc.

I have the impression that many of the ideas proposed by Stephen R. Covey agree with those of Daniel Goleman. Why not synergize the ideas of Covey, administrator, and Goleman, psychologist, in a personal and organizational development project? This is an interesting challenge for psychologists and administrators. Here is also a practical application of the third higher idea that Stephen Covey himself tells us about in his sixth habit.

Principles-focused people and leaders

Various students and researchers of psychology have raised in several of his works a set of psychological characteristics that would define the mature man. Abraham H. Maslow (1908 - 1970) in his book Motivation and Personality (1954) explained through a very valuable and original investigation a set of traits of the self-developed personality.

The personality characteristics that Maslow could find, explained extensively in his cited book, are the following:

1. More efficient perception of reality and more comfortable relationships with it. Acceptance of oneself, of others, of nature. Spontaneity. Approach to the problem. The quality of separation; the need for solitude. Autonomy, independence of culture and the environment. Continuous novelty of expression. The mystical experience; the oceanic feeling. Feelings towards humanity of identification, sympathy and affection. Interpersonal relationships. The structure of the democratic character. Discrimination between means and ends. Philosophical feeling of good humor. Creativity. Resistance to "enculturation".

Carl R. Rogers (1902 - 1987), another brilliant contemporary psychologist at Maslow, has also raised a set of psychological characteristics of the personality of the man of tomorrow. Such characteristics would be the following:

1. Internal and external openness to change, to new ways of living, of seeing, of being. Desire for authenticity, rejection of hypocrisy, falsehood or leading a double, secret life. Some skepticism towards science and technology, towards the that aims to conquer and control nature and people, while supporting and collaborating with science and technology that lead to self-awareness and self-control. Desire for harmony that avoids dichotomy and seeks the whole of life with thought, feelings, physical and psychic energies. Desire for intimacy, for new forms of closeness, for communication, both intellectual and emotional. Person in process. The person of tomorrow is convinced that life is dynamic, in constant change; He lives this transformation process and takes risks that lead him to be and grow.Ability to love, eager to give help to others when they really need it. The person of tomorrow is gentle, subtle, sharp, non-moralistic, non-judge and concerned with others. Contact with nature. This person is a lover of nature and has an ecological conscience that will allow him the pleasure of allying himself with nature instead of fighting or trying to conquer it. This person has a dislike for inflexible, highly structured, or bureaucratized structures; thinks that the existence of institutions is justified only if they serve people and not the other way around. Internal authority. Tomorrow's person has confidence in her own experience and mistrust of external tax authorities; he is free, in accordance with his own moral judgments, to disobey the laws that he considers unjust.Detachment of material goods. Money and social status are not the goals of this person who values ​​being more than having. Tendency to spiritual development. The person of tomorrow wants to find the meaning and purpose of life, which goes beyond the human; It examines the ways in which man has found values ​​and forces that allow him to transcend and live in inner peace.

Stephen R. Covey has also defined, based on his own studies and observations, the distinctive characteristics of people and principles-centered leaders. According to Covey, the characteristics of people focused on principles would be the following:

1. They are more flexible and spontaneous. Their relationships with others are more fruitful and rewarding. They are more synergistic. They learn continuously. They become more likely to contribute. They get extraordinary results. They develop a healthy psychological immune system. They set their own limits. They lead a life. more balanced. They feel more confident and secure. They are better able to match what they proclaim with what they do. They focus on their circle of influence. They cultivate a rich inner life. They radiate positive energy. They enjoy life more.

Following Covey, we also pointed out the distinctive characteristics of principle-centered leaders. Such characteristics would be the following:

1. They learn continuously. They have a vocation to serve. They radiate positive energy. They believe in others. They direct their lives in a balanced way. They see life as an adventure. They are synergistic. They exercise for self-renewal.

We can be sure of something by reviewing the psychological meaning of all these personality characteristics. All of them, to a greater or lesser degree, are related to what is now called emotional intelligence. In such a way that the development of these personality characteristics will only mean the development of what we now call emotional intelligence.

Final thoughts

It is necessary to seriously consider the ideas proposed by Stephen E. Covey because they can help very effectively in the purpose of contributing to personal and organizational development. Are ideas difficult to apply, perhaps somewhat expensive and, moreover, with more immediate than immediate results? The answer may be yes; However, on the subject of personal and organizational effectiveness, in the same way as on emotional intelligence, there are still no known shortcuts, short paths or easy routes.

What we can not doubt is that in these turbulent times, it is necessary to decisively promote in companies programs that effectively help human development. Without it, without doubt, it will not be possible in any way to achieve organizational development in a firm and sustained manner in a world context of increasing competition and increased competitiveness.

I can point out that the role of the supervisor can and should be substantially enriched and strengthened with various administrative and psychological actions. However, if I should point out a single action, I would say that the supervisor should assume with more competence, dedication and vocation his role as communicator, motivator and trainer in his day-to-day work. You must also understand -as Daniel Goleman teaches- that in the world of tomorrow, which in reality has been the world of the present, IQ and expertise are not enough to achieve success, but mastery is also essential of that psychological complex which is called emotional intelligence.

Finally, it is very necessary to point out the extraordinary importance of ethical conduct in all spheres of action of the human person. Ethical conduct that reflects the quality of human values ​​and that cannot be forgotten in the complex reality of organizations and communities. Ethical conduct that portrays the heritage of humanity of the social actors in a hopeful and convulsed world. Ethical conduct that needs to be expressed in human development, because without this basis of principles personal and organizational effectiveness could not be solidly sustained. Emotional intelligence also means, among many other things, the ability to fully express ethical behavior, rich in human values ​​and the essence of our own humanity.

Basic Bibliography

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