Activity: Are you in touch with your emotions?

Sources: Copyright © 2011 Steven L McShane. This self-assessment was inspired by similar instruments, particularly: N. S. Schutte, et al, “Development and validation of a measure of emotional intelligence,” Personality and Individual Differences 25, no. 2 (1998): 167–177; C-S Wong and K. S. Law, “The effects of leader and follower emotional intelligence on performance and attitude: An exploratory study,” Leadership Quarterly 13 (2002): 243–274; P. J. Jordan, and S. A. Lawrence, “Emotional intelligence in teams: Development and initial validation of the short version of the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile (WEIP-S),” Journal of Management & Organization 15 (2009): 452–469.

Purpose: This self-assessment is designed to help you understand the meaning and dimensions of emotional intelligence and to estimate your perceptions of your emotional intelligence.

Overview: Emotional intelligence has become an important concept and ability in the workplace. It is a skill that people develop throughout their lives to help them interact better with others, make better decisions, and manage the attitudes and behaviour of other people. Although emotional intelligence is best measured as an ability test, this scale offers you an opportunity to estimate your perceptions and self-awareness of this ability in yourself.

Instructions: Read each of the statements below and select the response that best describes you. Then use the scoring key in Appendix B of this book to calculate your results. This self-assessment is completed alone so that students rate themselves honestly without concerns of social comparison. However, class discussion will focus on the meaning and dimensions of emotional intelligence, its application in the workplace, and the best ways to measure emotional intelligence.