Reflective Essay: Enhancing Emotional Intelligence for Healthcare

This essay provides a reflective account of strategies for enhancing emotional intelligence (EI), focusing on self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills. The author emphasizes the importance of self-awareness, achieved through dedicated reflection and emotional labeling, and self-management, improved through reflection, lifestyle modifications, and skill acquisition. The essay also addresses the enhancement of social awareness through service orientation and empathy, as well as the development of social skills, including leadership, communication, and teamwork. The ultimate goal is to improve patient care by fostering empathy, stress management, teamwork, effective leadership, organizational commitment, and strong patient-professional relationships. The evaluation of progress in each domain involves reassessing relevant skills and behaviors.

Running head: MEDICINE AND HEALTH
Emotional Intelligence
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction- Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the capability of individuals to
identify the feelings and emotions of themselves and others, for discriminating between them
and labelling them accurately (MTD Training, 2010). This is generally accomplished with the
use of emotional information that guides the behavior and thinking process and helps in
managing and adjusting emotions. This essay will be a reflective account of the ways by
which I can enhance my emotional intelligence.
Body- I consider the need of an improvement in self-awareness because it will help
me realize emotions, weakness, strength, values, goals, and drive, while recognizing their
effect on others by perception. I intend to enhance my self-awareness by arranging specific
time of the day where I will remain calm and alone, and respond to questions on my feelings,
their onset and likely cause. I will also try to label my emotions by asking myself questions
on when my feelings started, what other events triggered the feelings, and if their strength has
changed at all. They will be measured with the use of the EI assessment tool, thus helping in
determining the scope of re-evaluation. Self-management is an essential domain that needs
improvement owing to its role in helping people to handle their emotions in a way that does
not interfere, rather facilitates acquiring the skills of delaying gratification (MTD Training,
2010). I intend to adopt reflection for improving this aspect of mine. The reflection will help
me unravel answers to situations which I perceive as threats and actions that are considered
best for handling them. Bringing about lifestyle modifications, acquiring new skills,
developing habits and getting educated will be some other steps (Goleman, Boyatzis &
McKee, 2013). Evaluation of the measure will involve re-assessing skills related to
adaptability, and conscientiousness.
Social awareness enhancement is essential since it helps in developing the ability to
understand and perceive social structures and relationships. I plan to develop my ability to
demonstrate service orientation and empathy. This can be achieved by gaining an awareness

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of other’s emotions and acknowledging them (MTD Training, 2010). I also wish to eliminate
all kinds of behaviour that involve rejecting or judging the feeling of others. Development of
a training plan will help me in enhancing service orientation (Ramchunder & Martins, 2014).
Keeping a note of the behaviour I display towards others will help in evaluation of this EI
domain. There is a need to develop social skills since it will help in adorning the role of a
good team player and facilitate demonstration of excellent communication and relationship
building capabilities (Poulou, 2014). I plan to increase my leadership, communication and
teamwork abilities by helping others in becoming enthusiastic about a directed vision,
guiding other’s performance, seeking mutual understanding, being receptive to all kinds of
feedback, and acting as a role model. This can be evaluated by determining the bonds that
have developed with others and the way by which they perceive the intended feelings.
Conclusion- To conclude, the EI aspects mentioned above will help me deliver better
services to all patients by facilitating increased empathy, stress management, increased
teamwork, effective leadership, organizational commitment, and a good patient-professional
relationship.

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References
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal leadership: Unleashing the
power of emotional intelligence. Harvard Business Press.
MTD Training (2010). Emotional intelligence. Bookboon.
Poulou, M. S. (2014). How are trait emotional intelligence and social skills related to
emotional and behavioural difficulties in adolescents?. Educational
Psychology, 34(3), 354-366.
Ramchunder, Y., & Martins, N. (2014). The role of self-efficacy, emotional intelligence and
leadership style as attributes of leadership effectiveness. SA Journal of Industrial
Psychology, 40(1), 01-11.