Content
1. Instead of an I ntroduction
2. Thou ghts that led me to write this Book
3. The Cooperation of Emotion, Mind and Body
Our Emotional System
What are Feelings and Emotions?
Emotional Markers
Competence
Empathy – the most important Requirement
4. Emotional Competence in Practice?
The four fields of Emotional Competence
Vigilance for myself and my Emotions
Vigilance towards Others
Vigilance for common Interaction
Ability to regulate Emotions and Motivation to act
5. Why do we need Emotional C ompetence
Emotional Competence in our private Lives
Significance of Emotional Competence in each Individual’s Career
Emotional Competence in Leadership
Emotional Competence and its Significance in Business
Future Perspective: Encouraging Emotional Competence in Business
The “Sports Side” of Emotional Competence
6. Nurt uring and Developing Emotional Competence
Educational Examples for Emotional Competence
Vigilance in Self-Nurturing and Development
Vigilance in Nurturing and Development of Others
Vigilance for mutual Interactions
Ability to regulate Emotions and (self) Motivation to act
7. Further Thoughts
Warning – Feelings are infectious
A Self-Experiment in the Area of Sports
A Tree must be bent while it is young
Happiness – the Dopamine of Life
Humor Research
To lead, you must arouse Emotions
Action and Sports
Nature as “the Skill of Lingering”
Earth yourself
Arts and Crafts - artistic Activities
Music
Writing
Drifting in Quiet
8. Your Fountain – an Outlook
Glossary
Appendix
Further Literature
Acknowledgments
1. Instead of an Introduction
You don´t want to read a long introduction but want to know what this book is all about? You will learn how emotional competence can help you succeed in your personal, business and private life.
You will find the answers to the following questions:
What exactly is emotional competence?
How can emotional competence benefit your personal, business and private life?
What possibilities and methods are there to encourage and develop your own emotional competence?
2 Thoughts that led me to write this Book
“What is the use to reach the moon if we cannot overcome the chasm that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important expedition and without it, all others are useless.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer and pilot (1900–1944)
A strong trend for new key qualifications (such as the capability for teamwork, cooperation and motivation) has been noticeable in the last few years, which are associated with social or emotional competence.
According to many studies and reports, it is increasingly important to bring a certain portion of these qualities such as emotional competence into our professional as well as private lives.
The psychotherapists say that people are threatened with self-alienation through their lack of self-perception and the overload of external stimuli; and so our innermost, emotions and needs will be neglected.
Futurologists are predicting that values such as empathy and emotions will be in great demand.
Psychologists know that the key to all social competence is in the presence of emotional competence.
At the same time, the educational ideals of our western culture stress the importance of intelligence, logic and rational thinking. Grades, Pisa tests, exams and minimum duration of studies are the focus of the educational discussions.
Where are, in fact, the sensitization and encouragement of emotional competence in our culture, which should be supported in all areas? It has little room in our school system, as well as serious support for emotional competence in areas of adult education - mostly in professional life -, which is of very little value at this time. It is present only in a few curriculum or master courses just as it is not present in leadership training programs.
A further consideration, which led me to this subject and motivated me to write this book, was my many years in adult education, human resources development, consultation and coaching.
I realized - repeatedly - that the participants had the right tools for good communication or recognized the solutions to their conflicts. However, they lacked deeper competences such as the needed amount of empathy or sensitivity to solve the misunderstanding or conflicts in the team, to see the other person´s point of view or at least to try to understand him or her.
Social education has also strongly influenced and inspired me. The subject of how to strengthen our sensibility towards others has often been brought up in seminars that I have held as a trainer. Yet, it is my observation that especially the area of social education needs an awareness of one´s own feelings and emotions. For the percentage of burn-outs in these jobs are growing (but not only here) as the people involved are so devoted that they often forget to look after themselves. The awareness of one´s own psychological well-being is often forgotten.
Likewise, I had the impression that conflicts took place because of the lack of ability for maintaining social interaction, as well as not knowing one´s breaking point and the inability to regulate and motivate oneself.
These four areas are what emotional competence is all about:
To have vigilance for myself and my emotions
To have vigilance towards others
To have vigilance for relationships and common interaction
Ability to regulate one´s own emotions and motivation to act accordingly
The ability to recognize emotions and to deal with them accordingly is not to be underestimated. In this way, emotional competence plays a very important role, if not the most important role – as expressed by Saint Exupéry in the introduction.
There are many very good books about emotional competence. But I found that they lacked ideas how to increase one´s own emotional competence. In this book, I also want to give guidelines and suggestions that can support the promotion of emotional competences. I developed