Emotional Intelligence for IT Professionals

Book description

Learn from the practices and techniques used by the most successful IT people in the world

About This Book

  • Real life case studies for different IT roles, developers, testers, analysts, project managers, DBAs
  • Identify with your IT scenarios and take the right decision to move up in your career.
  • Lucid approach with an easy to follow style, not burdened with sermons

Who This Book Is For

This book is meant for professionals across the IT domain, who work as developers, administrators, architects, administrators system analysts, etc. who want to create a better working environment around them, by improving their own Emotional Intelligence.

What You Will Learn

  • Improve your observation skills to understand people better
  • Learn to identify what motivates you and those around you
  • Develop strategies for working more effectively with others
  • Increase your capacity to influence people and improve your communication skills
  • Learn how to successfully complete tasks through other people
  • Discover how to control the emotional content of your decision making

In Detail

This book will help you discover your emotional quotient through practices and techniques that are used by the most successful IT people in the world. You will learn to identify the factors that make your behavior consistent not just to other employees, but to your own self. When deadline lurks, what are the steps to keep you calm and composed and how you can deliver without being affected by the stress factor of IT industry. These factors and techniques will be explained to you through real life examples that have been faced by IT employees and you will learn using the choices that they had decided to make. This book will give you a detailed analysis of the events and the behavioral pattern of the employees during that time. This will help you improve your own emotional quotient to the extent that you cannot just survive, but thrive in a competitive IT industry.

Table of contents

  1. Preface
    1. What this book covers
    2. Who this book is for
    3. Reader feedback
    4. Customer support
      1. Downloading the color images of this book
      2. Errata
      3. Piracy
      4. Questions
  2. What is Emotional Intelligence?
    1. The importance of emotional intelligence for IT professionals
    2. What is emotional intelligence?
      1. Perceiving emotions
      2. Using emotions
      3. Understanding emotions
      4. Managing emotions
    3. The difference between emotions and feelings
      1. What are emotions?
      2. What are feelings?
    4. The five universal emotions plus calm
      1. States of anger
      2. Actions of anger
      3. Triggers of anger
      4. States of enjoyment
      5. Actions of enjoyment
      6. Triggers of enjoyment
      7. States of fear
      8. Actions of fear
      9. Triggers of fear
      10. States of sadness
      11. Actions of sadness
      12. Triggers of sadness
      13. States of disgust
      14. Actions of disgust
      15. Triggers of disgust
    5. Summary
  3. The Neuroscience Behind Emotional Intelligence
    1. The three functional brains
      1. The primitive brain
      2. The limbic system
      3. The cerebrum
    2. Emotions and the emotional brain
      1. Neuroscience behind decision making
      2. Neuroscience behind mindfulness
      3. Neuroscience behind gratitude
      4. Neuroscience behind empathy
    3. Summary
  4. Core Emotional Intelligence Skills IT Professionals Need
    1. Self-awareness
      1. What is self-awareness?
      2. The core skills of self-awareness
        1. Accurate self-awareness
        2. Accurate self-assessment
        3. Self-confidence
      3. Benefits of having high self-awareness
      4. Consequences of having low self-awareness
    2. Self-expression
      1. What is self-expression?
      2. Core skills of emotional self-expression
        1. Expressing positive emotions
        2. Expressing negative emotions
        3. Expressing emotions face to face
      3. Consequences of a bad self-expression
    3. Self-regulation
      1. What is self-regulation?
      2. Core skills of self-regulation
        1. Self-control
        2. Adaptability
        3. Achievement orientation
        4. Initiative
      3. Benefits of good self-regulation
      4. Consequences of lack of self-regulation
    4. Social awareness
      1. What is social awareness?
      2. Core skills of social awareness
        1. Empathy
        2. Awareness and acknowledgment
        3. Sensitivity
        4. Organizational awareness
        5. Service orientation
      3. Benefits of having great social awareness
      4. Consequences of lacking social awareness
    5. Social skills
      1. What are social skills?
      2. Core of social skills
        1. Ethical influence
        2. Emotional intelligence leadership
        3. Developing others
        4. Building bonds
        5. Change catalyst
        6. Conflict management
        7. Communication
      3. The benefits of having great social skills
    6. The consequences of having bad social skills
    7. Summary
  5. How to Build an Emotionally Intelligent IT Organization
    1. Does an organization have emotional intelligence?
    2. The three dimensions in which the organization operates
      1. The first dimension - the company
        1. Purpose
          1. Transparency
        2. Mission and vision
        3. Values
        4. Principles
      2. The second dimension - the team
        1. Strategies to enhance the office environment
      3. The third dimension - the service
        1. Strategies to enhance customer support
        2. Strategies to enhance your sales team
    3. Summary
  6. How to Be an Emotionally Intelligent IT Manager
    1. Know yourself and your people
      1. Emotional intelligence and the Myers-Briggs personality types
        1. The ENTJ personality type
        2. The ESTJ personality type
        3. The ISTJ personality type
        4. The INFJ personality type
        5. The INTP personality type
    2. Strategies to better manage extroverts and introverts
      1. Guidelines to better managing extroverts
      2. Guidelines to better managing introverts
    3. Summary
  7. How to Be an Emotionally Intelligent IT Leader
    1. What is the leadership of the future?
      1. The mindset of the emotionally intelligent leader of the future
    2. The six emotional intelligent leadership styles
      1. Commanding leadership style
      2. Visionary leadership style
      3. Affiliative leadership style
      4. Democratic leadership style
      5. Pace setting leadership style
      6. Coaching leadership style
    3. Do you know your type of leadership?
    4. The 3D leadership of the future
      1. Self (first dimension)
        1. Self-awareness
          1. Strategies to enhance accurate self-awareness
          2. Strategies to enhance accurate self-assessment
          3. Strategies to enhance confidence
        2. Self-management
          1. Strategies to enhance self-control
          2. Strategies to enhance trustworthiness
          3. Trust in virtual teams
          4. Strategies to enhance conscientiousness
          5. Strategies to enhance adaptability
          6. Strategies to enhance your achievement orientation
          7. Strategies to enhance initiative
        3. Others (second dimension)
        4. Social awareness
          1. Strategies to enhance empathy
          2. Strategies to enhance service orientation
          3. Strategies to enhance organizational awareness
          4. Strategies to enhance awareness and acknowledgement
        5. Service (third dimension)
        6. Social Skills
          1. Strategies to enhance ethical influence
          2. Strategies to enhance emotional intelligent leadership
          3. Strategies to enhance developing others
          4. Strategies to enhance building bonds
          5. Strategies to enhance change catalyst
          6. Strategies to enhance conflict management
          7. Strategies to enhance empathic communication
    5. Summary
  8. How to Hire Emotionally Intelligent IT Professionals
    1. Best practices to attract the best IT professional fit for a position
    2. Best hiring practices for IT
      1. Behavioral and situational interviewing
      2. Evaluation tests
      3. Trials
      4. Background evaluation
    3. The rules for a better interview outcome
      1. Preparing the interview
      2. Conducting the interview
        1. How to identify the right candidate
          1. Evaluating if the candidate has self-assessment
          2. ;Looking for affinity in the candidate
          3. ;Looking for the willingness and readiness of the candidate to come on board
        2. Mastering behavioral and situational interview questions
        3. Effective behavioral interview questions
        4. Effective situational interview questions
    4. Assessing emotional intelligence traits in candidates
    5. Assessing emotional intelligence in leadership candidates
      1. Sample questions - self-awareness
      2. Sample questions - self-management
      3. Sample questions - social-awareness
      4. Sample questions - relationship management
      5. How to look for leadership potential in a candidate
    6. Assessing emotionally intelligent management candidates
    7. Assessing emotionally intelligent sales people
    8. Assess emotional intelligent customer service candidates
    9. Summary
  9. Preventing Stressful Situations with Emotional Resilience
    1. What is emotional resilience?
    2. The five pillars of emotional resilience
      1. First pillar - stay calm, cool, and collected
        1. Keeping calm and cool with annoying co-workers
        2. Don't take things personally
        3. Handling a high workload without being overwhelmed
      2. Second pillar - control your emotions
        1. Be mindful during a conflict
        2. Self-calm your anger
        3. Managing your anxiety
      3. Third pillar - create positive emotions daily
      4. Fourth pillar - develop self-compassion
      5. Fifth pillar - be grateful and forgive
        1. Forgive
    3. A special word to prevent burnout
      1. The main causes of burnout
      2. The red flags of burnout
      3. How to prevent burnout
      4. Build or expand your social network
      5. Changing your life's outlook
      6. Have a healthy lifestyle
    4. Summary
  10. Bibliography

Product information

  • Title: Emotional Intelligence for IT Professionals
  • Author(s): Emília M. Ludovino
  • Release date: August 2017
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781787285798