Emotional intelligence influences on interpersonal communication

Emotional Intelligence and Communication

The notion of emotional intelligence has been studied for long in the quest to understand human emotional behavior. Emotional Intelligence (EI) is said to be capacity, ability or skill to identify and asses and manage as well ones emotions, others' or that of a group. It is also one of the best ideas that ever happened to the business world as it adds efficiency in operations by boosting the understanding of the managers' self and those of his staff (Ace the case, 2010).

EI is tethered on the emotional empathy and attention to recognizing other moods of an individual and the management of the mood or control over emotions (Psychological Consult, 2011), which helps in understanding behavior of individuals.

Interpersonal communication involves sending and receiving information between two or more people with an aim of achieving the desired effect on the receiving party or parties.

There are three major types of interpersonal communication; dyadic communication (where two people are involved), public communication (where one speaks to a group large enough for an auditorium) and small group communication (where the audience is small and shares a common factor more often that not) (Self Growth, 2011).

In all these aspects of interpersonal communication, there are channels involved. The channels are the modes or the medium that the sender has chosen to use to send message from him to the receiver. Through these channels, one can effectively pass information to the targeted audience if they understand the basic EI of the person or the groups they are communicating with as seen below:

(a). Direct channels; these are the very obvious mediums that can easily be recognized by the receiver of the message and are widely under the control of the sender. Contained here are the verbal i.e. those that involve use of words, and the non-verbal i.e. those that do not use words but rather employ facial expressions, color, and controlled body motions like the control f traffic flow by the police. For such communication to be effective one must cohesively understand the EI of the audience or the receiver so as to be sure to use the language, choice of words, tone and signals that will efficiently pass the message intended. For instance when a counselor is offering his service to a father of two in his mid thirties he will tend to use the language geared towards leaving a legacy in the lives of others in a bid to help the particular client salvage his marriage. It would be different from the same counselor talking to a youth client; here he will tend to use more of self-actualization, exploration and discovery language in order to help the client focus more I building up his life. The two are on different EI levels and must be communicated to differently.