Recognize Your EQ Mindset During Stressful Events to become more Agile
As we look back on 2020 and 2021 there are many events that we should review to understand how prepared we are as organizations or individuals. Consider the list below:
- A Global Pandemic
- The Great Resignation
- Black Lives Matters
- A destructive hurricane, tornado, or ice storm
Think about the events on this list or other stressful events in your life, how did your organization respond? How did you respond?
Did change how you operated your business? Did you conduct business as usual? Or, perhaps you struggled to find the right words to say.
When facing an unprecedented challenge, it’s difficult to know what the best response will be.
The president of a local college in Lancaster, PA sent this email at the beginning of the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020 that included this advice:
“Finally, at this highly stressful time, I urge us to act with empathy, caring, and awareness of others.”
Reading this statement today, it’s easy to see how much we all needed to hear those words.
Many of us were grieving for the loss of life that we previously knew.
Colleges and Universities, especially, had to completely pivot how they operated. Yet, this particular college president chose to speak towards the feelings we all felt rather than the situation that only affected him personally.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is defined as: “the ability to understand how your and others’ emotions and needs shape your interactions, and to regulate your responses accordingly.”
In the definition of EQ, we highlighted the phrase “an to regulate your responses accordingly” because when we do this, we are becoming Emotionally Agile.
The positive aspects of emotional intelligence are well known. Today, however, it’s important that we not only recognize our own and others’ emotional responses but also respond accordingly. When we do this, we showcase our emotional agility.
Everything DiSC and Emotional Agility
Everything DiSC® Agile EQ™ is one tool that is tackling the development of emotional intelligence in a new and unique way.
Instead of receiving the four common EQ scores for self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, Agile EQ helps you identify opportunities to improve your Emotional Intelligence through understanding mindsets. It helps anyone become more self-aware by using insights from Everything DiSC along with understanding how we might respond in emotional and social situations from the perspective of emotional intelligence.
These two insights combined allow us to become more emotionally agile.
In times of stress, it’s easier for us to rely on the mindsets that come most naturally to us.
If you have the D Personality Type or the C Personality Type and you feel stressed or threatened, you may cling to the Resolute mindset. After all, our mindsets aren’t something we simply picked out one day. Rather, they are uniquely positioned to meet our underlying behavioral needs.
Once we understand our needs and how they influence our EQ strengths (or our “go-to” mindsets), then we can begin to look at our EQ opportunities – those other available responses to a situation that we may often leave on the table.
If you’ve taken an EQ assessment, we want to encourage you to look at your EQ strengths and opportunities. Take a moment to reflect on how they apply to the current climate at home, at work, and in the world.
How have you been responding?
Have you relied only on your strengths, or have you been stretching yourself to use other responses that better meet the needs of rapidly changing situations and of others around you?
The world needs people who can adapt and lead. We need leaders and individuals everywhere who can rise to meet the situation instead of letting their emotions control their response. With emotional intelligence comes the power to choose your response, manage your emotions, and be there for others who may need your support.
When we do this, we are becoming more emotionally agile.
Download a free eBook on Emotional Agility
The publisher of Everything DiSC produce the e-book, Agility Unlocked to help explain how emotional agility can help you or your organization.
Join a free Agile EQ on Catalyst Demo
If you are looking for a course to teach emotional agility, we want to invite you to join our free demonstration of the Everything DiSC Agile EQ on Catalyst training program.
