Social and emotional intelligence refers to the ability to manage one’s emotions and understand those of others. Emotional intelligence enables individuals to observe, interpret, evaluate, and manage emotions during decision-making. The ability to utilize emotional intelligence in decision-making and interpersonal communication can be applied in workplaces. Workplaces often experience difficult situations such as employee conflicts, overwhelming responsivities, and struggles between stakeholders with opposing ideas, needs, beliefs, values, or goals. In order to solve these difficult situations and implement joy in the workplace, one should be aware of the key elements of emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, social skills, empathy, motivation, and self-regulation. The present paper provides a detailed overview of how advanced professional nurses can utilize social and emotional intelligence power skills to manage difficult workplace situations and implement joy in the workforce.
Self-awareness involves recognizing and understanding one’s emotions, strengths, and weaknesses (Rasheed et al., 2019). Advanced professional nurses’ level of self-awareness determines their ability to avoid being biased when resolving workplace conflicts. Nurses who are highly self-aware understand how they feel, why they feel so, and the impact of their feelings. Such nurses have the capacity to objectively examine themselves, manage their emotions, and overcome negative motives that have the potential to cause harm to the surrounding. White and Grason (2019) confirm that the ability to objectively examine one’s feelings and overcome negative emotions is essential in the workplace as it helps avoid biases when resolving conflicts between nurses with opposing ideas and needs.
Self-regulation is the ability to manage emotions. Advanced professional nurses must be able to manage their emotions by respecting each other’s opinions and staying in control. Self-regulation skills can be used to overcome difficult workplace situations stemming from struggles between colleagues with opposing ideas and needs. In such situations, advanced professional nurses should practice being calm, staying true to their values, and embracing differences in thinking and abilities.
Like self-regulation, self-management enables individuals to control and utilize their opinions, feelings, or motives consciously and positively. Advanced professional nurses who understand their purpose, prioritize their well-being, and hold themselves accountable for any mistake are more likely to avoid difficult workplace situations such as overwhelming responsibilities and task-based conflicts. For this reason, an advanced professional nurse can manage difficult workplace situations by increasing awareness of the need and importance of self-management skills among their colleagues.
Interpersonal communication is the basis of teamwork and care coordination among advanced professional nurses. Difficult workplace situations, such as overwhelming responsibilities and task-based conflicts among employees, are triggered mainly by poor interpersonal communication. Conversely, effective interpersonal communication skills are essential in addressing workplace issues such as task-based conflicts, inferiority complexes, misunderstanding, and inappropriate compliance with necessary policies. Hence, advanced professional nurses can manage difficult workplace situations by adopting various communication technologies that enhance interpersonal communication
Executive function is the capacity to set goals, plan, and implement while exercising self-control and avoiding unnecessary interruptions. Advanced professional nurses who possess executive function skills have the urge to enlighten others on the need and ways of setting goals, exercising self-control, staying focused, and avoiding distractions (Torabizadeh et al., 2019). Awareness of the need and ways of setting goals, exercising self-control, and avoiding distractions is an effective way of managing difficult workplace situations, such as struggles between nurses with opposing ideas and needs.
Social awareness is the ability to understand social norms and embrace differences in ideas, beliefs, skills, gender, class, and race. Social awareness enables an individual to view things from other people’s perspectives. According to White and Grason (2019), perspective-taking enables an
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