What impact does emotional intelligence have upon communication in Essay

What impact does emotional intelligence have upon communication in social work organisations - Essay Example Emotional intelligence enables an individual to be emotionally competent, which is essential for efficient social interaction and communication. Emotions are essential in communication, conveying information of what people are thinking, their intentions, and in facilitating social encounters (Kelter and Haidt, 2001). Caregivers must develop the art, listening openly and sending convincing responses. This entails recognizing emotional signals and clues and understanding their meaning and context. Social workers must listen with the aim of developing a mutual understanding with the client and should be ready to welcome the sharing of information fully with the client. A person with positive emotional health is highly social (Argyle and Lu, 1990) whereas a person with negative emotional health is antisocial and keeps other people at bay (Furr and Funder, 1998). Positive emotions in service provision have a desirable effect independent of interpersonal relationships that result in greater work output, persistence, and enhanced cognitive abilities. A caregiver with positive emotions is able to influence social care users in a more positive way, which can enable them make positive changes in their lives. Positive emotionality enables social-work care givers respond to aggressive behaviours directed to wards them in a calm, non aggressive and even polite manner. This requires a very high degree of emotional restraint and care givers who are not emotionally mature or who have no experience will respond aggressively breaking and blocking the communication channels with their clients. Negative emotions are counterproductive and lead to poor interpersonal relationships, lack of job focus, and society to have very negative perception of caregivers and welfare programs. Optimistic social workers are able to make cognitive evaluation of a situation, make adaptive coping strategies to deal with stressful situations and