Assessing Social Awareness Checklist

This checklist provides you with a quick and easy way to assess the social awareness aspect of emotional intelligence. With good social awareness you can accurately read situations and people because you are able to understand and empathize with their emotions. Management is about getting work done and achieving objectives through other people. If you have poor or no understanding of others and you cannot relate to them you will have difficulty being successful in this role.

This often means perceiving what other people are thinking and feeling even if you do not feel the same way. It's easy to get caught up in your emotions and forget to consider the perspective of the other party. Social awareness ensures you stay focused and absorb critical information. Listening and observing are the most important elements of social awareness.

In his famous book, 'Emotional intelligence why it can matter more than IQ' Daniel Goleman defined emotional intelligence as:

'Understanding one's own feelings, empathy for the feelings of others and the regulation of emotion in a way that enhances living'.

Within this book it claimed that emotional intelligence may be more important for personal success than IQ and that unlike IQ emotional intelligence can be improved. These two claims resonated with those seeking their own personal development and enabled them to seek ways to enhance emotional intelligence.

Today's Top Picks for Our Readers:

Recommended by

There are several research studies that show EQ is becoming an increasingly important factor in those who succeed in the workplace. This enables individuals to be more suited to more autonomous work environments common today. The less autocratic management style prevalent in such organizations improves the individual's productivity. This enables people to gain recognition in the more knowledge based, team working and customer focused roles.

You can develop your EQ but first you need to know your current level of its two components listed below and how each one compares to that required of your role.

• Personal Competence - self-awareness and self-management
• Social Competence - social awareness and relationship management

By identifying your current level for each competency you can define the most effective way you can achieve the level required in your current or future role. The 'high level' descriptions used in this checklist may need to be altered to match the unique requirements of your role and organization.

To assess your level of social awareness aspect of your EQ 'social' competencies you need to expand your awareness to include the emotions of those people around you and not just your own emotions. Your ability to be socially aware of other emotions requires you to demonstrate the following competencies:

• Empathy
• Organizational Awareness
• Service Orientation