Leadership and communication
Emotional intelligence
The ability to notice, understand and manage your own feelings and the feelings of others, a concept from psychology that researchers define and measure in several ways.
Emotional intelligence, often shortened to EI, is the ability to understand and handle emotions. A literature review quotes Salovey and Mayer, who simplified the definition as the ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion and thought, understand and reason with emotion, and regulate emotion in the self and others.
The idea is often discussed in leadership and teamwork. It overlaps with soft skills and supports habits such as active listening and calm handling of conflict. Researchers define and measure EI in different ways, so claims about it vary.
It is a concept from psychology, not a licensed skill. See leadership for how it links to guiding groups. This entry is a general definition only.