Daniel Goleman - Put Emotional Intelligence together with Heil, Warren, Covey, and Crosby

Daniel Goleman - EI better than IQ

Business, Communities and schools must simply put it together.

What You Need to Know About Emotional Intelligence

What is emotional intelligence? Why is it important and how can it be achieved? According to Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, it can best be described with an old-fashioned word, CHARACTER. Daniel Goleman also believes that teachers, parents and the community must join together to make sure all children understand. The optimal design for teaching emotional literacy is to begin early, be age appropriate, run throughout the school years, and intertwine efforts at school, at home and in the community.

Goleman further states that if character development is a foundation of democratic societies, consider some of the ways emotional intelligence supports this foundation. The bedrock of character is self-discipline. A related keystone of character is being able to motivate and guide oneself, whether in doing homework, finishing a job, or getting up in the morning. "We need to be in control of ourselves to do right by other," notes Thomas Licona, an expert, writing about character education.

Society benefits when we put aside our self-centered focus. We become more empathetic and better listeners. As we have seen, empathy leads to caring, altruism and compassion. It becomes easier to take another person’s perspective, which helps to break down stereotypes and breeds tolerance and acceptance of differences. These abilities are even more important in our increasingly diverse society, allowing people to live in mutual respect and harmony, thereby creating the possibility of productive public discourse.

Why should we spend time in the classroom teaching values when basic skills (reading, writing, and arithmetic) are what is necessary for success? Because with a strong emotional intelligence base, the basic skills are easier to learn and teach.

In addition, we can't leave the teaching of emotional intelligence to chance. Emotional intelligence in leadership breeds character development, moral development and citizenship. Shouldn’t leaders be teaching these most essential life skills to every child?

For children to become emotionally competent in all parts of their lives, a caring community needs to be created, a place where students feel respected, cared about, and bonded to classmates, teachers and the school itself. Teachers need leadership's help if they are reluctant to tackle a character topic. There is evidence that once they try it, most will be pleased with the result.

Often times, it is necessary to recruit caring people in the community to become involved with students who are not receiving the proper support at home. In addition, the school lessons need to be coordinated or contrasted with what goes on in the children's homes so that consistent messages are sent and received. The students can then use opportunities in and out of the classroom to turn moments of personal crisis into lessons in emotional competence.

It is important to stress that emotional literacy programs improve children's academic achievement scores and school performance. Even in a time of budget cuts, there is an argument to be made that these programs help strengthen schools in accomplishing their main mission and are well worth the investment.

Even beyond their educational advantages, the courses help children better fulfill their roles in life, becoming better friends, students, sons and daughters, workers and bosses, husbands and wives, and parents and citizens.

The USA did not achieve the status in the world without democracy and a middle class community with emotional intelligence. It is logical, important and necessary to reinvest and secure through character the safety and security required and used in the past achievements. The middle class jobs today and in the future will require even more trust and judgment, not less.

We recommend his book for everyone; especially the last half of it if you are hard pressed for time and trust his work on building his case. Goleman struck a blow for science and common sense even before we knew that a rich literacy and order environment for age 0-6 children really really enhances the early brain development of the child. These concepts are critical to our success in development of our children and our economic, education, emotions and ethic systems.