Be a Better Nurse with Emotional Intelligence

(Estimated reading time: 2 minutes)

With emotional intelligence, you can easily read and respond to your emotions and the emotions of others. Nurses are most known for their empathy and compassion, so emotional intelligence can help you become a better nurse.

According to psychologist Daniel Goleman’s 1998 book “Working With Emotional Intelligence”, it has five core areas:

• Self-awareness
• Self-regulation
• Social skills
• Self-motivation
• Empathy

An improved EQ or emotional quotient, the measure of emotional intelligence, can help you land your dream job and have a satisfying career. Let’s look at each core area and see how you can be a better nurse.

Self-awareness

Understanding who you are and what you really want can help you find a work environment you can truly thrive in. This can also help you know your limits and redirect your actions to put you in a more positive mood.

Self-regulation

This refers to your ability to calmly respond to stressful events. Hand-in-hand with self-awareness, you have an understanding of your needs, skills, and values. This helps you make rational rather than emotional decisions. In situations with some friction or conflict, self-regulation is also helpful.

Social Skills

Nurses with strong social skills and assertive communication thrive in situations that require collaborative nursing. High emotional intelligence means you work well within teams and that you are open to new ways of learning things.

Good communication skills include knowing how to express your needs, set limits, learn from feedback, offer help, and respectfully resolve conflict. You can see others’ point of view and get your point across without emotion getting in the way.

An emotionally intelligent nurse builds good relationships with their patients and colleagues, making patients feel cared for and respected. This leads to overall improved nursing skills.

Self-Motivation

Self-motivated nurses seek out ways to improve themselves with their career path, skills, and specialties. They proactively work to act on their interests through reading, taking up courses, and seeking out new opportunities.

Empathy

Nurses with empathy put themselves in the shoes of the people around them. Whether it’s about understanding their colleagues or their patients, they always try to approach situations from a place of care. It means you are sensitive to signs and things unsaid, and act upon them easily.

Want to use your newly found emotional intelligence to start your nursing career abroad? IPASS can help you take care of other things such as your international licensure exam application processing and review.