Twenty years ago, the idea of emotions having an impact on personal and professional success, productivity and performance was given a new name: emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence (EI), first defined in an article by psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer, is “the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.” Popularized and expanded by Daniel Goleman, EI or EQ (aka Emotional Quotient) has remained relevant in the fields of organizational development and leadership development. It is worth noting however that in terms of the evolution of organizational development, the concept of emotional awareness is still in its infancy.
Robert K. Cooper stated “Your emotional memory provides a high gear that stimulates forceful self-regulated action for making new choices that move you toward what really matters in life.” Being aware of your emotions means being able to manage them and manage them appropriately. While you can stimulate, inspire, and detect emotions in others, you cannot control their emotions. Only they can manage theirs, and you, yours.
When you are emotionally aware, you are conscious of others’ emotions and are more able to bring out the best of their behaviour and performance. When you are emotionally unaware, you cannot relate well to others and engage them, and you are more likely to cause dissatisfaction, conflict, and performance dysfunction.
In today’s knowledge-based organizations employees must use their higher-level brain function to achieve performance objectives, and higher-level brain function is not possible with low-level negative emotions. As a leader, not only must you be a master of your own emotions, you must also know and understand the emotional makeup of the people you lead.
The skill of Positive Presence is your innate ability to adjust for and create a positive and energized mindset through conscious thought processes and seeks to enhance the development of positive high-level emotions and drive productive behaviour patterns.
As leaders, it is your duty to be creating a positive and energized environment within which to work. Emotional awareness, Emotional Intelligence and Behaviour intelligence are just three of the many skills that we need for high-level performance in today’s knowledge-based organizations. The skill of Positive Presence and the Positive Presence Behaviour competencies are critical for any team, department, or organizational transformation.
CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.
Stress impacts your behaviour as a leader, your mental capacity, and even your physical health. Your ability to manage the stress of today’s work world is largely dependent on your ability to develop emotional awareness. That being said, developing emotional awareness aids not only in your ability to manage stress but to continue to develop your leadership behaviour and create highly productive teams and performance. 
“Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence.” Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi uttered these words As a football coach guides and directs a team of players focused on purpose, vision and championship objectives, we do the same as leaders in our organizations. Sport teams have objective standards of measurement for performance, as do we in our respective organizations striving for excellence in pursuit of our organizations goals and objectives. We would like to be perfect, no one likes to make mistakes, sadly though perfection is often an impossible goal to achieve and the means by which we try to attain perfection can lead to negative and destructive work environments. 
Developing the skill of 
The following are the top three key attributes of cognitive strength (aka resilience , aka mental toughness) we confront in our daily lives where the ability to have self discipline and resilience is critical to success:
How you manage the responses to events in your life speak volumes about the outcomes you will experience, both personally and professionally. What’s more, how you manage the responses to events in your life also affects every single relationship you have, on some level.
Part of our understanding about stress and managing our response to it, is being aware of and using the strengths of our individual behaviour patterns. We all know that change and chaos are constants in our knowledge and technology driven world. John Maynard Keyes wrote, “The hardest thing is not to get people to accept new ideas; it is to get them to forget the old ones.” Yet, with all of this change and resulting chaos, both enlightened leaders and their organizations continue to thrive. 
There is no doubt that stress impacts your thinking and decision making, and it impacts how you choose to react in any given situation. As a leader, stress will impact everyone in your workplace that experiences you in a negative disruptive behaviour pattern under stress. As an enlightened leader it is important to effectively lead through the stress so that it does not negatively affect your individual performance and the performance of your team. At 
Stress, defined by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, is “a state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life and work; something that causes strong feelings of worry or anxiety; physical force or pressure.” In today’s business and health care workplace environments, stress is something you confront on a daily basis, especially amid a global pandemic. 
Improving the performance of an organization requires improving the behavioural performance of all of its people at a cultural level. An organization cannot become what its people are not. Simply stated, conforming behaviours within a collaborative culture really matter. It is the difference maker for performance. A commitment to a collaborative culture requires system wide integration and continuous improvement in consistent behaviour-based performance.