Introducing Emotional Agility - Emotional Intelligence PLUS

There is much buzz in the marketplace right now around Emotional Intelligence, or EQ. Emotional Intelligence, as defined by Psychology Today, is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. It has been shown to be one of the strongest predictors of performance.  Ninety percent of top performers are high in EQ (TalentSmart).

Emotional Intelligence, however, is only a part of the picture. There’s a more comprehensive way of looking at emotions and how you manage them – what we at Lumina Learning call Emotional Agility (EA) – that can be measured by a new Lumina product that will soon hit the marketplace.

Emotional Intelligence measures the degree of your interpersonal or ‘people’ skills.  It is a static view of how intelligent you are at managing your emotions, and is based on interpersonal skills rather than the full spectrum of your personality. It’s about “how you play with others” versus understanding how your emotions affect your behaviors. Emotional Agility, on the other hand, measures your emotions and how agile you are at managing those emotions in different situations. It links your emotions to you behaviors, giving you deeper insight and the opportunity to learn and develop.

Emotional Agility is built on the belief that we can learn to manage our emotions more effectively. The concept of EA is dynamic.  Consistent with our approach to all psychometrics, Lumina Learning measures the polarities independently, so when we measure how much Self-Confidence you have, we also measure your level of Self-Modesty.  This becomes really interesting when you look at how these scores show up relative to each of your three personas:  Underlying (how you are most naturally), Everyday (how you show up based on what’s required of you) and Overextended (how you behave under stress).  

Now let’s get even more pragmatic.  Our research links Lumina Spark (our personality assessment tool) to Emotional Agility.  Through this lens we see high correlations between our Emotional Qualities and Reactors, and our Lumina Spark behaviors.  So with the Emotional Agility instrument, we are linking our outward behaviors to our internal emotions.  This provides unprecedented insight, and lends itself to high levels of personal growth and development.  It is a key to developing leaders who are astute, and who can manage their effectiveness in both productive times and turbulent or high stress times. 

When we experience an emotion, we should recognize and act on it.  You know you are feeling something, what are you going to do with that? Are you acting in a way that aligns with your belief system, or are you reacting to old baggage? Emotional Agility is the internal compass that helps us align our behaviors with our values and beliefs. 

EA will be used for developing balanced leaders who are capable of aligning leadership values with organizational culture.  EA will also be available for personal development and self-awareness.  This state-of-the-art product will be launched globally in early April.  If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a qualified practitioner of EA, courses will be offered in the US in mid March.  Reach out to info-us@luminalearning.com for more information.  

Stay ahead of the curve and into the latest in the world of Emotional Intelligence/EQ.

Leading from within,

Rebecca