Lexie Carroll’s Reviews > Permission to Feel: The Power of Emotional Intelligence to Achieve Well-Being and Success > Status Update

Employees say they feel inspired about 25% of the time when they have supervisors with low emotional intelligence, and about 75% of the time under managers with high emotional intelligence. That’s a huge difference. Think of productivity and all the creative ideas that will exist in the emotionally intelligent workplace, and now ask yourself why they don’t exist in more workplaces.

On the surface, all our workplace interactions are about work: planning a meeting, developing a product with a team, navigating a contract. But these interactions take place within relationships; everything that happens at work is, at heart, an emotional moment. Emotions shape our decision-making, especially in group settings. Even the emotions of 1 person can facilitate or derail the mood & effectiveness of a team.

In order for SEL to be truly effective and transformative in schools, it has to be integrated into everything and practiced by everyone, teachers & administrators as well as students. SEL practices can’t just be a seminar or a 10-minute morning meeting or a once a month lesson. SEL has to be integrated into leadership, faculty meetings, family engagement, hiring procedures and policies.

Chilling & disheartening report of lack of regard for emotions by school administrators- this excerpt from a letter from a head psychologist working for a network of private schools:

“I was told just yesterday by a principal that nobody in our network cares about a child’s confidence, emotional well-being, mental health, integrity, [or] overall success as a person… they only care about test scores.”

“A key job of a school is to give students new things to love…it reminds us that what teachers really teach is themselves- their contagious passion for their subjects and students. It reminds us that children learn from people they love, and that love in this context means willing the good of another, and offering active care for the whole person.”
- NYT Columnist David Brooks

The promotion of social emotional learning is not a shifting educational fad; it is the substance of education itself. It is not a distraction from the ‘real work’ of math&English; it is how instruction can succeed. It brings together a traditional conservative emphasis on local control & student character, and a progressive emphasis on the creative art of teaching & emotional needs of students.
-Aspen Inst. 2019

Another helpful strategy for families at home is making a Family Charter- you written document or packed that details how the family would like to feel. It’s created by asking 3 questions:
1. How do we want to feel as a family?
2. What things can we do to experience those feelings?
3. What can we do when we are not living the charter?
Make sure children are highly involved in making the charter.

The Meta-Moment: (collecting oneself)
1. Sense the Shift- notice that you are activated, through change in physiology or thinking.
2. Pause! - create a space before you respond. Breathe.
3. See your Best Self- imagine the best, wisest version of yourself. Think about values and adjectives that describe who you want to be (or seen as).
4. Strategize & Act- use other skills like positive self-talk to prepare to respond

Cognitive reappraisal (reframing) is an intelligent, helpful & persuasive strategy for emotional regulation. However, it sometimes fails as a long-term strategy in the face of repeated problematic situations.
Ask yourself: am I doing this simply to justify avoiding a difficult, sensitive problem?
As an emotion scientist, continue to check in with yourself honestly, evaluating short & long term results.

Too often we look for strategies that will shift people out of negative emotion spaces, but that’s not always possible (or necessary). A young schoolboy was sad about losing his pet, but his demeanor changed instantly when supported by the teacher& class. He was given support & affection to be more comfortable (less alone) in WHERE he was AT. Paradoxically, this will shift our movement out of [sad] emotions faster.