On Thursday night, Dr. Nicole Walters and Dr. Shaneel Eley of the Women’s Leadership Network held an informative and intimate virtual program on Zoom and Facebook Live that involved the use of emotional intelligence, or EI, to improve ongoing relationships.
Emotional intelligence is described as “the ability to recognize, understand and manage your emotions along with the emotions of others when influencing and building trust” and “the ability to use your emotions to effectively guide thinking and action.”
Eley is the associate vice president of outreach at UCA currently, and one of the founding members of the Women’s Leadership Network.
At the beginning of the program, Eley said, “Now, everybody out there has a relationship you want to improve. Whether it’s a mother, father, sister, brother, colleagues, friends. We all can improve on our relationships.”
Walters is the Dean of the Associates of Applied Science Program at the University of St. Thomas-Houston and an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership.
Walters openly discussed techniques that could help develop emotional intelligence within different types of relationships.
In the past, Walters has been honored by Houston magazine as one of Houston’s 50 most influential women.
“As a leadership professor, Walters’ research agenda includes developing leaders to embrace servant and moral leadership and emotional intelligence,” Eley said.
Walters started with a quote from James Comer which read, “No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship.”
Through the discussion of what is not the correct definition of emotional intelligence, Walters said that EI is not “related to book smarts,” or “a fixed state of being” because the brain is so easily modified.
She also stated that EI is not “a formula that includes loud, pushy, or aggressive behavior.”
She proceeded to ask a few yes or no questions like, “I am able to identify my feelings accurately most of the time,” and “I find myself starting to get upset when we disagree and we are discussing a problem, I can find a way to calm myself down.”
“So emotional intelligence is the notion that you’re able to recognize and understand your emotions and then you manage them,” Walters said. “That’s the thing about emotional intelligence and understanding, there are benefits that help guide your success professionally.”
Walters went into detail about the benefits of EI, which include dealing with change effectively, managing stress effectively, the ability to leverage good communication skills, and dealing with setbacks and failures.
During the Webinar, Walters continued to prompt engagement through the chat in Zoom and on Facebook by using different situations that everyone may encounter as they go into the professional world and begin to encounter challenges with relationship development.
The practice of using emotions appropriately can help people that may be difficult to work with or have a positive relationship with.
Participants were urged to think about both easy and fraught relationships in their lives and determine what steps need to be taken to realize that “the only person that you can change or manage is you, whether it’s personal or professional,” Walters said.
Walters called for the action of everyone personally to evaluate the relationships in one’s life and “see how tapped in you are” to what they have going on emotionally or personally.
She also emphasized that vulnerability can be used at the right time when it comes to EI, along with the “importance of building empathy while prioritizing the needs of others.”
The Women’s Leadership Network plans to host more virtual events in the future through Facebook Live.