Successful Teamwork with Social and Emotional Intelligence
Apr 29, 2024
Teamwork is the activity working together towards a common or collective goal.
Think about it:
Do you enjoy working cooperatively with others or do you prefer to work alone (and do not coordinate efforts with others)?
Do you participate actively or fail to take on your share of the team responsibility?
Do you share plans, resources, information or withhold information and help?
Do you protect the group and its reputation and share credit or not?
Do you build team identity and esprit de corps or tend to view the team as an obstacle to getting work done?
Do you put the team goals before your goals or vice versa?
Do you support the decisions of the team or you find yourself in disagreement and undermine or discount team decisions and actions outside the team?
Do you trust and respect all team members or trust and respect are often lacking?
These are just some brainstorming questions and each situation is different. However, it depends on whether you normally feel comfortable working in a group or not, and perhaps you are a person who struggles in this sense. If this is the case, here are some tips:
- Be open and seek out opportunities to work with other people
- Read articles about leading teams (you can find interesting articles on teamwork on Harvard Business Review’s site)
- Network and take a genuine interest in learning about other people and how you can be of help
- Share information and keep others informed about your work, deadlines and priorities
- Share resources (equipment, funds, materials…) with your team members
- Share credit and publicly credit other members that have done well
- Treat everyone with respect and demonstrate trust in fellow team members
- Favor comments from everybody and encourage expression of different points of view
- Listen to other people’s points of view (solicit the quite ones and be aware of dominating team members)
- Encourage all to deal and resolve conflicts constructively
- Learn about human psychology and relations
- Work with a certified Social and Emotional Intelligence Coach to strengthen your self-awareness and refine your social skills
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." – Michael Jordan
“Social and Emotional Intelligence (SEI) is the ability to be aware of our own emotions, and those of others, in the moment, and to use that information to manage ourselves and our relationships.” ā€•The Institute for Social and Emotional Intelligence
