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DEVELOPING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 21

an open mind rather than prejudge what is being said to you.

You should make sure that your own patterns of thinking are not
undermining your self-confidence. When you are doing a stressful job and

you have a lot of responsibility it is quite easy to expose yourself to

emotional triggers such as:

• All-or-nothing thinking

• Perfectionism

• Thinking in terms of ‘always’ and ‘never.’

Be mindful of how you use words such as ‘always’ (‘It's always me that has

to fix things’) and ‘never’ (‘I never get the good projects’). The key to
breaking this type of thinking is to make sure you assess the ‘big picture’

and the effort of everyone involved before you make such statements.

Part of the action plan you create using the reflective cycle would be to think
critically and remind yourself of all of the occasions when this is simply not

true. If these kinds of statements are actually true then your action plan

needs to address why this is occurring.

You may want to conduct a 360 degree feedback session with your team
and superiors to understand how you are perceived. Once you have this

information you can address your behavior, emotions, and competencies to

ensure your true value is recognized.

You should accept the fact that it is impossible to please all of the people all
of the time. Whatever you do in the workplace there will usually be a certain

amount of negative feedback, even if your efforts were 95% successful.

While some of this negative feedback may be valid, it is a fact that critics
tend to be more vocal than supporters.

The behavior you have to watch for is that of focusing only on the negative

feedback you receive. Consequently, you should always solicit a
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