Building Emotional Maturity & Social Intelligence – Work Out Your Brain

What is emotional maturity and social intelligence? How do those skills impact business success and your own personal sense of self?

We all know the basics of how to take care of our physical health, whether we actually do it or not. Eat a balanced diet, don’t skip breakfast, sleep 8 hours, exercise and drink plenty of water. The benefits of maintaining physical health are endless, and it greatly improves our mental wellbeing as well. All aspects of our health are intrinsically linked. But what are some routines, behaviours, tasks and mindsets we can develop and approach to transform our mental wellbeing. Not only does being mindful, introspective, reflective, emotionally intelligent and self-aware benefit your business success… it will also affect your quality of life and shift your mindset to be one with more clarity and resilience.

Social intelligence refers to the ability to be aware and adapt to your surroundings, and act accordingly to the social context.

Our emotional maturity refers to our capacity to comprehend, manage, and respond to our own emotions and the emotions of those around us, in a healthy manner. To process experiences and situations constructively.

Emotional maturity and social intelligence requires the ability to be self-aware and introspective. Not only does this aid in personal growth and happiness, but it impacts business by also improving your productivity and concentration and ability to make an impact on others.

How does your social intelligence impact your business success? – It allows for a deeper understanding of how a customer thinks, therefore how you can serve them to subsequently serve your business.

By first developing your social intelligence – you can then advance your emotional maturity and facilitate business excellence. These factors fuel and harbour healthy relationships (both in your personal life and in business networks) and foster a sense of clarity that subsequently leads to effective decision making.

Business owners with these mental skillsets are able to:

• Monitor and reflect on their behaviour

Their behaviour isn’t dictated by their emotions, it is primarily dictated by fact, principles, integrity and reason. Reactive individuals lack the ability to process and respond to people and scenarios without projecting and imposing their anxieties, anger and frustrations. A mature leader values progress over pride.

• Take responsibility

For themselves, for their business and their errors. They don’t shift blame. They have the ability to reflect on their own role in causing an error. As well as assessing the role others may have played, and address the concern void of accusation. The first sign of an emotionally immature leader is one that plays the blame game. A misfortune occurs and his/her first thought is who they can shift the blame onto other than themselves, who played even the smallest of roles in the cause and subsequent effect, that they can then accuse.

So how do you become socially intelligent and emotionally mature? Well the first step is to simply acknowledge and reflect on your emotions. Assess them and evaluate why you feel the way you do. Then – question yourself daily – why did I react that way? Was that response congruent with my beliefs and behavioural expectations of others? Was that reaction appropriate or fair? How would I perceive someone who behaved as I did in that scenario?

In asking those questions, you work out your self-awareness and in turn – your behaviour will naturally progress to be dictated by the introspective mindset you have developed, instead of being dictated by your immediate kneejerk reaction.

There is a reason we deflect and shift blame onto others – it’s a coping mechanism to avoid confronting regret, and shame and maintain your dignity. While this explains an unhealthy emotional response and behaviour, it does not excuse it. Applying that logic to all aspects of your life and business will benefit you immensely.