Others Awareness: There’s More Than Me

NOTE: This is part four in a five-part series about Emotional Intelligence.

As the Emotional Intelligence quadrant illustrates, there are two major categories of EQ: how we relate to self and how we relate to others. Over the past two blogs we’ve explored the importance of self-awareness and self-management. Today and next week we will discuss how we bring awareness and management to our relationships with others.

The first part of this is called Others Awareness. Sometimes referred to as social awareness, it is the ability to be curious about the emotions, needs and concerns of others and to seek to understand. Strong Social Awareness skills allow you to see and interpret primarily nonverbal cues to gain insight into the other person’s emotions and concerns even when different than your own. This is often coupled with the willingness to ask questions and to listen and learn what they feel and desire.

Simply stated, Others Awareness is learning to emotionally “walk in someone else’s shoes”. It’s not taking their shoes as your own, it’s understanding what their journey is like.

Many researchers in the area of EQ say that the key to growing Others Awareness is to develop strong empathy skills. Alfred Adler wrote, “Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another.” When empathy is present, relational connection is stronger and trust and openness grows between people, whether in a marriage or on a team. I often share with clients the importance of curiosity and compassion in strong relationships. When practiced, those two words are the drivers of discovering greater awareness of another person and that’s the core of empathy and Social Awareness.

Daniel Goleman, a pioneer in the world of EQ, says this about empathy: “Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands.”  In other words, when it’s all about me, there will not be deep connection and trust.

Living life fully requires the ability to focus and understand what others feel, want and think. That’s a significant part of Emotional Intelligence. While EQ teaches us that we must pay attention to ourselves and what’s going on inside of us, it’s insufficient if we don’t offer the same to those around us.