Emotional Intelligence Is A Secret Power For an Eye Doctor Entrepreneur

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to recognize, control, and evaluate different emotions in yourself and be able to affect others’ emotions too. It was popularized by Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist, who basically defined five key elements that constitute emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. According to Goleman, we can define a “perfect leader” who -no matter what the situation is- never lets his emotions or temper get out of control, abide by generally recognized societal and workplace rules, has the complete trust of his team members, listens to every member, feels emphatically his coworkers, is always easy to communicate with, and all his decisions are free of bias and carefully made after thorough research and review of all available information.

Optometrists follow four ways to increase their EI and increase returning patients: Sharing difficult news with Patients and using EQ to Do It Better, fostering mutual understanding between yourself and the patient, addressing and lessening patient’s anxiety, and learning how to manage patients who arrive in a bad mood.

EI is an innate characteristic that you are born with, while others believe you can learn and hone it over time. EI is an extension of social intelligence that describes a person’s innate cognitive ability to perceive, identify, assess, understand, manage, and explain emotions in order to reason, guide thinking and action, solve problems, and regulate behavior. People with empathy who understand others’ feelings have strong EI. Proponents of the EI theory argue leaders with high EI are more successful in life and more relevant in society than other leaders.

To implement IE training in your practice you should work on seven key areas:

• Importance of emotion
• Identifying one’s own emotions
• Identifying others’ emotions
• Empathy
• How to express emotions
• How to use emotions to solve problems
• Use pre and post-assessment training assessment to identify performance improvement.

A study assessing EI among Optometrists found that Optometrists who were men and older, those who had a higher education level and monthly pay, and those with more experiences of turnover tended to have higher EI.

Ways you can increase your EI include, surrounding yourself with higher emotional “IQs” than you, reading more, practicing active listening, learning from your mistakes, choosing your leisure activities wisely, embracing lifelong learning, and visiting a therapist.